Anti-Americanism Overblown?

Hey, maybe everyone doesn't hate us after all.  In their new study - Anti-Americanisms in World Politics - international relations scholars Peter Katzenstein and Robert Keohane have studied the phenomenon of anti-Americanism and have determined that it is multi-dimensional.  In fact, the researchers create a typology of anti-Americanism: Liberal Anti-Americanism criticizes the US for not living up to its professed ideals. Criticism of human rights violations at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib is an obvious manifestation of this. Social Anti-Americanism condemns the prevailing worship in America of free markets and unfettered capitalism in favor of the social-welfare model. Sovereign-Natonalist Anti-Americanism sees US hegemony as a threat to national identity.  The last and most dangerous form would the Radical Anti-Americanism of the Jihadists.

Professors Katzenstein and Keohane analyze the data from large-scale national surveys and come up with some interesting findings on the prevalence of anti-American sentiments:

First, fewer people around the globe hate the United States than might be imagined. As political scientist Giacomo Chiozza notes in a chapter analyzing data from a survey carried out in 44 countries in 2002, 43 percent of respondents worldwide said they had a "somewhat favorable" view of the United States, and 21 percent said they had a "very favorable" view. To be sure, anti-American sentiment is strong in some countries and regions. In the Middle East, for example, three quarters of respondents had negative views of the United States overall. But in France and Germany, more than 60 percent of respondents had positive views of the United States.

What's more, even where anti-American sentiment is high, people often express appreciation for aspects of American society. While 70 percent of respondents in the Middle East held negative views of the United States war on terror, only about one-quarter said they did not admire the advances made by the United States in science and technology. Similarly, while 57 percent of Egyptians said they disliked American popular culture, a third said they appreciated American ways of doing business. Radical anti-Americanism, encompassing dislike of the United States on all fronts, is rare, and in general there is more dislike for American policies than for the American people.

Does this mean we can stop pretending to be Canadian when traveling abroad?

Comments

[littleandy]

I'm sure, the wingnuts at Medienkritik will find a completely different interpretation...

[David]

@Andy,

Medienkritik will have to close shop shortly. President Obama will be extremely popular in Europe.

[littleandy]

Oh, well, don't you think they will get even nuttier when he wins? They don't dislike Germans for being Anti-American, but they dislike them for being Anti-Rightwing.