Anti-AmericanismsPETER J. KATZENSTEIN AND

ROBERT O . KEOHANE

I *y^£RAB REACTIONS TO American support for Israel in its^ X£ recent conflict with Hezbollah have put anti-

i-J Americanism in the headlines once again. Around the/ m world, not just in the Middle East, when bad things hap-

%^^ \/ pen there is a widespread tendency to blame America forits sins, either of commission or omission. When its Belgrade embassy isbombed, Chinese people believe it was a deliberate act of the United Statesgovernment; terror plots by native British subjects are viewed as reflectingBritish support for American policy; when AIDS devastates much of Africa,the United States is faulted for not doing enough to stop it.

Peter J. Katzenstein is the Walter S. Carpenter Jr. professor of internation-al studies at Cornell University. Robert O. Keohane is professor of inter-national affairs at Princeton University. This article is adapted from Anti-Americanisms in World Politics, edited by Peter J. Katzenstein and RobertO. Keohane, forthcoming from Cornell University Press in 2007. Used bypermission of the publisher.

OCTOBER d NOVEMBER 2006 25 Policy Review 139

Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane

These outbursts of anti-Americanism can be seen simply as a way ofprotesting American foreign policy. Is "anti-Americanism" really just a com-mon phrase for such opposition, or does it go deeper? If anti-Americanexpressions were simply ways to protest policies of the hegemonic power,only the label would be new. Before World War i Americans reacted toBritish hegemony by opposing "John Bull." Yet there is a widespread feelingthat anti-Americanism is more than simply opposition to what the UnitedStates does, but extends to opposition to what the United States is — what itstands for. Critiques of the United States often extend far beyond its foreignpolicy: to its social and economic practices, including the public role ofwomen; to its social policies, including the death penalty; and to its popularculture, including the flaunting of sex. Globalization is often seen asAmericanization and resented as such. Furthermore, in France, which hashad long-standing relations with the United States, anti-Americanismextends to the decades before the founding of the American republic.

With several colleagues we recently completed a book, Anti-Americanisms in World Politics,^ exploring these issues, and in this shortarticle we discuss four of its themes. First, we distinguish between anti-Americanisms that are rooted in opinion or bias. Second, as our book's titlesuggests, there are many varieties of anti-Americanism. The beginning ofwisdom is to recognize that what is called anti-Americanism varies, depend-ing on who is reacting to America. In our book, we describe several differenttypes of anti-Americanism and indicate where each type is concentrated. Thevariety of anti-Americanism helps us to see, third, the futility of grand expla-nations for anti-Americanism. It is accounted for better as the result of par-ticular sets of forces. Finally, the persistence of anti-Americanism, as well asthe great variety of forms that it takes, reflects what we call the polyvalenceof a complex and kaleidoscopic American society in which observers canfind whatever they don't like — from Protestantism to porn. The complexityof anti-Americanism reflects the polyvalence of America itself.

Opinion and bias

TO OUR argument is a distinction between opinion andbias. Some expressions of unfavorable attitudes merely reflectopinion: unfavorable judgments about the United States or its

policies. Others, however, reflect bias: a predisposition to believe negativereports about the United States and to discount positive ones. Bias implies adistortion of information processing, while adverse opinion is consistentwith maintaining openness to new information that will change one's views.The long-term consequences of bias for American foreign policy are much

^ Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Anti-Americanisms in World Politics (CornellUniversity Press, 2007).

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Anti-Americanisms

greater than the consequences of opinion.The distinction between opinion and bias has implications for policy, and

particularly for the debate between left and right on its significance. Indeed,our findings suggest that the positions on anti-Americanism of both left andright are internally inconsistent. Broadly speaking, the American left focuseson opinion rather than bias — opposition, in the left's view largely justified,to American foreign policy. The left also frequently suggests that anti-Americanism poses a serious long-term problem for U.S. diplomacy. Yetinsofar as anti-Americanism reflects ephemeral opinion, why should it havelong-lasting effects? Policy changes would remove the basis for criticism andsolve the problem. Conversely, the American right argues that anti-Americanism reflects a deep bias against the United States: People who hatefreedom hate us for what we are. Yet the right also tends to argue that anti-Americanism can be ignored: If the United States follows effective policies,views will follow. But the essence of bias is the rejection of informationinconsistent with one's prior view: Biased people do not change their viewsin response to new information. Hence, if bias is the problem, it poses amajor long-term problem for the United States. Both left and right need torethink their positions.

The view we take in the volume is that much of what is called anti-Americanism, especially outside of the Middle East, indeed is largely opin-ion. As such, it is volatile and would diminish in response to different poli-cies, as it has in the past. The left is correct on this score, while the rightoverestimates resentment toward American power and hatred of Americanvalues. If the right were correct, anti-Americanism would have been high atthe beginning of the new millennium. To the contrary, zoo2 Pew polls showthat outside the Middle East and Argentina, pluralities in every countrypolled were favorably disposed toward the United States. Yet with respect tothe consequences of anti-American views, the right seems to be on strongerground. It is difficult to identify big problems for American foreign policycreated by anti-Americanism as such, as opposed to American policy. Thisshould perhaps not be surprising, since prior to the Iraq war public opiniontoward the United States was largely favorable. The right is therefore broad-ly on target in its claim that much anti-Americanism — reflecting criticismsof what the United States does rather than what it is — does not pose seri-ous short-term problems for American foreign policy. However, if opinionwere to harden into bias, as may be occurring in the Middle East, the conse-quences for the United States would be much more severe.

PAnti-Americanisms

INCE WE ARE interested in attitudes that go beyond negative opin-ions of American foreign policy, we define anti-Americanism as apsychological tendency to hold negative views of the United States

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Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane

and of American society in general. Such negative views, which can be moreor less intense, can be classified into four major types of anti-Americanism,based on the identities and values of the observers. Erom least to mostintense, we designate these types of anti-Americanism as liberal, social, sov-ereign-nationalist, and radical. Other forms of anti-Americanism are morehistorically specific. We discuss them under a separate rubric.

Liberal anti-Americanism. Liberals often criticize the United States bitter-ly for not living up to its own ideals. A country dedicated to democracy andself-determination supported dictatorships around the world during theCold War and continued to do so in the Middle East after the Cold War hadended. The war against terrorism has led the United States to begin support-

ing a variety of otherwise unattractive, even repug-

No liberal nant, regimes and political practices. On economicissues, the United States claims to favor freedom of

anti-American trade but protects its own agriculture from competi-ever detonated * °" stemming from developing countries and seeks

, , . extensive patent and copyright protection fora bomb against American drug firms and owners of intellectualAmericans or property. Such behavior opens the United States toiilnnyipA nvi charges of hypocrisy from people who share its pro-u iL^ii'ri'K^KA' 14-ri' f 1 * 1 1 1 1

fessed ideals but lament its actions.attack on the Liberal anti-Americanism is prevalent in the liber-United States ^^ societies of advanced industrialized countries,

especially those colonized or influenced by GreatBritain. No liberal anti-American ever detonated a

bomb against Americans or planned an attack on the United States. Thepotential impact of hberal anti-Americanism would be not to generateattacks on the United States but to reduce support for American policy. Themore the United States is seen as a self-interested power parading under thebanners of democracy and human rights rather than as a true proponent ofthose values, the less willing other liberals may be to defend it with words ordeeds.

Since liberal anti-Americanism feeds on perceptions of hypocrisy, a lesshypocritical set of United States policies could presumably reduce it.Hypocrisy, however, is inherent in the situation of a superpower that pro-fesses universalistic ideals. It afflicted the Soviet Union even more than theUnited States. Furthermore, a prominent feature of pluralist democracy isthat its leaders find it necessary to claim that they are acting consistentlywith democratic ideals while they have to respond to groups seeking to pur-sue their own self-interests, usually narrowly defined. When the interests ofpolitically strong groups imply policies that do not reflect democratic ideals,the ideals are typically compromised. Hypocrisy routinely results. It is criti-cized not only in liberal but also in nonliberal states: for instance, Chinesepublic discourse overwhelmingly associates the United States with adherenceto a double standard in its foreign policy in general and in its conduct of the

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war on terror specifically.Hypocrisy in American foreign policy is not so much the result of the ethi-

cal failings of American leaders as a byproduct of the role played by theUnited States in world politics and of democratic politics at home. It willnot, therefore, be eradicated. As long as political hypocrisy persists, abun-dant material will be available for liberal anti-Americanism.

Social anti-Americanism. Since democracy comes in many stripes, we arewrong to mistake the American tree for the democratic forest. Many democ-ratic societies do not share the peculiar combination of respect for individualliberty, reliance on personal responsibility, and distrust of government char-acteristic of the United States. People in other democratic societies maytherefore react negatively to America's political insti-tutions and its social and political arrangements that There will berely heavily on market processes. They favor deeper nhundantstate involvement in social programs than is politi-cally feasible or socially acceptable in the United material forStates. Social democratic welfare states in liberal anti-Scandinavia, Christian democratic welfare states onthe European continent, and developmental industri- Americanismal states in Asia, such as Japan, are prime examples ^5 long aso f d e m o c r a c i e s w h o s e i n s t i t u t i o n s a n d p r a c t i c e s c o n - , . I f ]

t r a s t i n m a n y w a y s w i t h t h o s e o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s . ^

Social anti-Americanism is based on value con- hypOCrisy.flicts that reflect relevant differences in many spheresof life that are touching on "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Theinjustice embedded in American policies that favor the rich over the poor isoften decried. The sting is different here than for liberals who resentAmerican hypocrisy. Genuine value conflicts exist on issues such as thedeath penalty, the desirability of generous social protections, preference formultilateral approaches over unilateral ones, and the sanctity of internation-al treaties. Still, these value conflicts are smaller than those with radical anti-Americanism, since social anti-Americanism shares in core American values.

Sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism. A third form of anti-Americanism focuses not on correcting domestic market outcomes but onpolitical power. Sovereign nationalists focus on two values: the importanceof not losing control over the terms by which polities are inserted in worldpolitics and the inherent importance and value of collective national identi-ties. These identities often embody values that are at odds with America's.State sovereignty thus becomes a shield against unwanted intrusions fromAmerica.

The emphasis placed by different sovereign nationalists can vary in threeways. Eirst, it can be on nationalism: on collective national identities thatoffer a source of positive identification. National identity is one of the mostimportant political values in contemporary world politics, and there is littleevidence suggesting that this is about to change. Such identities create the

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Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane

potential for anti-Americanism, both when they are strong (since they pro-vide positive countervalues) and when they are weak (since anti-Americanism can become a substitute for the absence of positive values).

Second, sovereign nationalists can emphasize sovereignty. In the manyparts of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa where state sovereignty came onlyafter hard-fought wars of national liberation, sovereignty is a much-cher-ished good that is to be defended. And in Latin America, with its very differ-ent history, the unquestioned preeminence of the U.S. has reinforced the per-ceived value of sovereignty. Anti-Americanism rooted in sovereignty is lesscommon in Europe than in other parts of the world for one simple reason:European politics over the past half-century has been devoted to a commonf, . . project — the partial pooling of sovereignty in anSovereignty is ^^^^^^^ European polity.

cherished A third variant of sovereign-nationalist anti-VM flir\co *^/ivtc Americanism appears where people see their statesin Tfjose "parTS . < r- i • • \ r-

as potential great powers. Such societies may defineof the world their own situations partly in opposition to domi-

where it came ^^^^ states. Some Germans came to strongly dislikeBritain before World War i as blocking what they

only after believed was Germany's rightful "place in the sun."

hard-fought ^^^ British-German rivalry before the Eirst WorldJ. . . War was particularly striking in view of the similari-

wars of nationai ^^^^ between these highly industrialized and partiallyliberation. democratic societies and the fact that their royal

families were related by blood ties. Their politicalrivalry was systemic, pitting the dominant naval power of the nineteenthcentury against a rapidly rising land power. Rivalry bred animosity ratherthan vice versa.

Sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism resonates well in polities thathave strong state traditions. Encroachments on state sovereignty are particu-larly resented when the state has the capacity and a tradition of directingdomestic affairs. This is true in particular of the states of East Asia. Theissues of "respect" and saving "face" in international politics can make anti-Americanism especially virulent, since they stir nationalist passions in a waythat social anti-Americanism rarely does.

China is particularly interesting for this category, since all three elementsof sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism are present there. The Chineseelites and public are highly nationalistic and very sensitive to threats toChinese sovereignty. Eurthermore, China is already a great power and hasaspirations to become more powerful. Yet it is still weaker than the UnitedStates. Hence, the superior military capacity of the United States and itsexpressed willingness to use that capacity (for instance, against an attack byChina on Taiwan) create latent anti-Americanism. When the United Statesattacks China (as it did with the bombing of the Chinese embassy inBelgrade in 1999) or seems to threaten it (as in the episode of the EC-3 spy

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plane in 2001), explicit anti-Americanism appears quickly.Radical anti-Americanism. We characterize a fourth form of anti-

Americanism as radical. It is built around the belief that America's identity,as reflected in the internal economic and political power relations and insti-tutional practices of the United States, ensures that its actions will be hostileto the furtherance of good values, practices, and institutions elsewhere in theworld. For progress toward a better world to take place, the American econ-omy and society will have to be transformed, either from within or fromwithout.

Radical anti-Americanism was characteristic of Marxist-Leninist statessuch as the Soviet Union until its last few years and is still defining Cuba andNorth Korea today. When Marxist revolutionaryzeal was great, radical anti-Americanism was associ- The perceivedated with violent revolution against U.S.-sponsored -i yy.^y. friUpregimes, if not the United States itself. Its Marxist-Leninist adherents are now so weak, however, that it various forms,is mostly confined to the realm of rhetoric. Eor the from eaualitVUnited States to satisfy adherents of this brand ofradical anti-Americanism, it would need to change / ^ ^ WOmen tO

the nature of its political-economic system. belief in theThe most extreme form of contemporary radical . . r

anti-Americanism holds that Western values are so Superiority Of

abhorrent that people holding them should be Christianity.destroyed. The United States is the leading state ofthe West and therefore the central source of evil. This perceived evil maytake various forms, from equality for women, to public displays of thehuman body, to belief in the superiority of Christianity. Eor those holdingextreme versions of Occidentalist ideas, the central conclusion is that theWest, and the United States in particular, are so incorrigibly bad that theymust be destroyed. And since the people who live in these societies haverenounced the path of righteousness and truth, they must be attacked andexterminated.

Religiously inspired and secular radical anti-Americanism argue for theweakening, destruction, or transformation of the political and economicinstitutions of the United States. The distinctive mark of both strands ofanti-Americanism is the demand for revolutionary changes in the nature ofAmerican society.

It should be clear that these four different types of anti-Americanism arenot simply variants of the same schema, emotions, or set of norms with onlyslight variations at the margin. On the contrary, adherents of different typesof anti-Americanism can express antithetical attitudes. Radical Muslimsoppose a popular culture that commercializes sex and portrays women asliberated from the control of men and are also critical of secular liberal val-ues. Social and Christian democratic Europeans, by contrast, may loveAmerican popular culture but criticize the United States for the death penal-

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Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane

ty and for not living up to secular values they share vi ith liberals. Liberalanti-Americanism exists because its proponents regard the United States asfailing to live up to its professed values — vi hich are entirely opposed tothose of religious radicals and are largely embraced by liberals. Secular radi-cal anti-Americans may oppose the American embrace of capitalism butmay accept scientific rationalism, gender egalitarianism, and secularism —as Marxists have done. Anti-Americanism can be fostered by Islamic funda-mentalism, idealistic liberalism, or Marxism. And it can be embraced bypeople who, not accepting any of these sets of beliefs, fear the practices ordeplore the policies of the United States.

Historically specific anti-Americanisms

wo OTHER FORMS of anti-Americanism, which do not fit withinour general typology, are both historically sensitive and particular-istic: elitist anti-Americanism and legacy anti-Americanism.

Elitist anti-Americanism arises in countries in which the elite has a longhistory of looking down on American culture. In France, for example, dis-cussions of anti-Americanism date back to the eighteenth century, whensome European writers held that everything in the Americas wasdegenerate.^ The climate was enervating; plants and animals did not grow tothe same size; people were uncouth. In France and in much of WesternEurope, the tradition of disparaging America has continued ever since.Americans are often seen as uncultured materialists seeking individual per-sonal advancement without concern for the arts, music, or other finer thingsof life. Or they are viewed as excessively religious and therefore insufficientlyrational . French intellectuals are the European epicenter of anti-Americanism, and some of their disdain spills over to the public. However,as our book shows, French anti-Americanism is largely an elite phenome-non. Indeed, polls of the French public between the 1960s and 2002 indi-cated majority pro-Americanism in France, with favorable ratings that wereonly somewhat lower than levels observed elsewhere in Europe.

Legacy anti-Americanism stems from resentment of past wrongs commit-ted by the United States toward another society. Mexican anti-Americanismis prompted by the experiences of U.S. military attack and various forms ofimperialism during the past 200 years. The Iranian revolution of 1979 andthe subsequent hostage crisis were fueled by memories of American interven-tion in Iranian politics in the 1950s, and Iranian hostility to the UnitedStates now reflects the hostile relations between the countries during the rev-olution and hostage crisis. Between the late 1960s and the end of the twen-tieth century, the highest levels of anti-Americanism recorded in Western

2 Philippe Rogeii The American Enemy: The History of French Anti-Americanism (University of ChicagoPress, 2005).

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Europe were found in Spain and especially Greece — both countries thathad experienced civil wars; in the case of Spain the United States supportedfor decades a repressive dictator. Legacy anti-Americanism can be explosive,but it is not unalterable. As the Philippines and Vietnam — both highly pro-American countries today — show, history can ameliorate or reverse nega-tive views of the United States as well as reinforce them.

The futility of grand explanations

ANTI-AMERICANISM IS explained as the result of some mas-ter set of forces — for example, of hegemony or globalization. TheUnited States is hated because it is "Mr. Big" or because of its

neoliberalism. However, all of these broad explanations founder on the vari-ety of anti-Americanisms.

Consider first the "Mr. Big" hypothesis. Since the end of the Cold War,the United States has been by far the most powerful state in the world, with-out any serious rivals. The collapse of the Soviet bloc means that countriesformerly requiring American protection from the Soviet Union no longerneed such support, so their publics feel free to be more critical. In this view,it is no accident that American political power is at its zenith whileAmerican standing is at its nadir. Resentment at the negative effects of oth-ers' exercise of power is hardly surprising. Yet this explanation runs upagainst some inconvenient facts. If it were correct, anti-Americanism wouldhave increased sharply during the 1990s; but we have seen that outside theMiddle East, the United States was almost universally popular as late as2002. The Mr. Big hypothesis could help account for certain forms of liber-al and sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism: Liberals criticize the UnitedStates for hypocrisy (and sometimes for being too reluctant to intervene toright wrongs), while sovereign nationalists fear the imposition of Americanpower on their own societies. But it could hardly account for social, radical,elitist, or legacy anti-Americanism, each of which reacts to features ofAmerican society, or its behavior in the past, that are quite distinct fromcontemporary hegemony.

A second overarching explanation focuses on globalization backlash. Theexpansion of capitalism — often labeled globalization — generates whatJoseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction." Those who are adverselyaffected can be expected to resist such change. In Benjamin Barber's cleverphrase, the spread of American practices and popular culture creates"McWorld," which is widely resented even by people who find some aspectsof it very attractive.^ The anti-Americanism generated by McWorld is diffuseand widely distributed in world politics. But some societies most affected by

^ Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld {Crown, 1995).

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Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane

economic globalization — such as India — are among the most pro-American. Even among the Chinese, whose reactions to the United States aredecidedly mixed, America's wealth and its role in globalization are notobjects of distrust or resentment as much as of envy and emulation. In termsof our typology, only social anti-Americanism and some forms of sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism could be generated by the role of the UnitedStates in economic globalization — not the liberal, radical, elitist, or legacyforms.

A third argument ascribes anti-Americanism to cultural and religiousidentities that are antithetical to the values being generated and exported byAmerican culture — from Christianity to the commercialization of sex. Theglobalization of the media has made sexual images not only available to butalso unavoidable for people around the world. One reaction is admirationand emulation, captured by Joseph Nye's concept of soft power. But anotherreaction is antipathy and resistance. The products of secular mass culture area source of international value conflict. They bring images of sexual freedomand decadence, female emancipation, and equality among the sexes into thehomes of patriarchal and authoritarian communities, Muslim and otherwise.For others, it is American religiosity, not its sex-oriented commercialized cul-ture, that generates negative reactions. Like the other arguments, the culturalidentity argument has some resonance, but only for certain audiences. It mayprovide an explanation of some aspects of social, radical, and elitist anti-Americanism, but does not explain the liberal, sovereign-nationalist, or lega-cy varieties.

Each of the grand explanations probably contains at least a grain of truth,but none constitutes a general explanation of anti-Americanism.

The polyvalence of American society

SYMBOLS ARE polyvalent. They embody a variety ofvalues with different meanings to different people and indeedeven to the same individual. Elites and ordinary folks abroad are

deeply ambivalent about the United States. Visitors, such as Bernard-HenriLevy, are impressed, repelled, and fascinated in about equal measure. Levydislikes what he calls America's "obesity" — in shopping malls, churches,and automobiles — and its marginalization of the poor; but he is impressedby its openness, vitality, and patriotism.'' As David Laitin has noted, theWorld Trade Center was a symbol not only of capitalism and America butof New York's cosmopolitan culture, so often scorned by middle America.The Statue of Liberty symbolizes not only America and its conception offreedom. A gift of France, it has become an American symbol of welcome to

'* Bernard-Henri Levy, American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville (RandomHouse, zoo6).

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the world's "huddled masses" that expresses a basic belief in America as aland of unlimited opportunity.

The United States has a vigorous and expressive popular culture, which isenormously appealing both to Americans and to many people elsewhere inthe world. This popular culture is quite hedonistic, oriented toward materialpossessions and sensual pleasure. At the same time, however, the U.S. istoday much more religious than most other societies. One important root ofAmerica's polyvalence is the tension between these two characteristics.Furthermore, both American popular culture and American religious prac-tices are subject to rapid change, expanding further the varieties of expres-sion in the society and continually opening new options. The dynamism andheterogeneity of American society create a vast set ofchoices: of values, institutions, and practices. Like the United

America's openness to the rest of the world is K! t'reflected in its food and popular culture. The 'American fast-food industry has imported its prod- Hollywood isucts from France (fries), Cermany (hamburgers and (pQffj jfi Americafrankfurters) and Italy (pizza). What it added wasbrilliant marketing and efficient distribution. In ^ ^ " Of themany ways the same is true also for the American world. And SOmovie industry, especially in the past two decades.Hollywood is a brand name held by Americans and ^ Americanon-Americans alike. In the 1990s only three of the itself.seven major Hollywood studios were controlled byU.S. corporations. Many of Hollywood's most celebrated directors andactors are non-American. And many of Hollywood's movies about America,both admiring and critical, are made by non-Americans. Like the UnitedNations, Hollywood is both in America and of the world. And so is Americaitself — a product of the rest of the world as well as of its own internal char-acteristics.

"Americanization," therefore, does not describe a simple extension ofAmerican products and processes to other parts of the world. On the con-trary, it refers to the selective appropriation of American symbols and valuesby individuals and groups in other societies — symbols and values that maywell have had their origins elsewhere. Americanization thus is a profoundlyinteractive process between America and all parts of the world. And, weargue here, it is deeply intertwined with anti-American views. The interac-tions that generate Americanization may involve markets, informal net-works, or the exercise of corporate or governmental power — often in vari-ous combinations. They reflect and reinforce the polyvalent nature ofAmerican society, as expressed in the activities of Americans, who freelyexport and import products and practices. But they also reflect the varia-tions in attitudes and interests of people in other societies, seeking to use,resist, and recast symbols that are associated vi ith the United States. Similarpatterns of interaction generate pro-Americanism and anti-Americanism,

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Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane

since both pro- and anti-Americanism provide an idiom to debate Americanand local concerns. Anti- and pro-Americanism have as much to do with theconceptual lenses through which individuals living in very different societiesview America as with America itself. In our volume, Iain Johnston and DaniStockmann report that when residents of Beijing in 1999 were asked simplyto compare on an identity-difference scale their perceptions of Americanswith their views of Chinese, they placed them very far apart. But when, inthe following year Japanese, the antithesis of the Chinese, were added to thecomparison, respondents reduced the perceived identity difference betweenAmericans and Chinese. In other parts of the world, bilateral perceptions ofregional enemies can also displace, to some extent, negative evaluations ofthe United States. For instance, in sharp contrast to the European continent,the British press and public continue to view Germany and Germans primar-ily through the lens of German militarism, Nazi Germany, and World WarII.

Because there is so much in America to dislike as well as to admire, poly-valence makes anti-Americanism persistent. American society is bothextremely secular and deeply religious. This is played out in the tensionsbetween blue "metro" and red "retro" America and the strong overtones ofself-righteousness and moralism this conflict helps generate. If a society veerstoward secularism, as much of Europe has, American religiosity is likely tobecome salient — odd, disturbing, and, due to American power, vaguelythreatening. How can a people who believe more strongly in the Virgin Birththan in the theory of evolution be trusted to lead an alliance of liberal soci-eties? If a society adopts more fervently Islamic religious doctrine and prac-tices, as has occurred throughout much of the Islamic world during the pastquarter-century, the prominence of women in American society and the vul-garity and emphasis on sexuality that pervades much of American popularculture are likely to evoke loathing, even fear. Thus, anti-Americanism isclosely linked to the polyvalence of American society.

In 1941 Henry Luce wrote a prescient article on "the AmericanCentury." The American Century — at least its first 65 years — createdenormous changes, some sought by the United States and others unsoughtand unanticipated. Resentment and anti-Americanism were among theundesired results of American power and engagement with the world. Ourown cacophony projects itself onto others and can be amplified as it rever-berates, via other societies, around the world.

Perhaps the most puzzling thing about anti-Americanism is that weAmericans seem to care so much about it. Americans want to know aboutanti-Americanism: to understand ourselves better and, perhaps above all, tobe reassured. This is one of our enduring traits. Americans' reaction to anti-Americanism in the twenty-first century thus is not very different from whatAlexis de Tocqueville encountered in 1835:

The Americans, in their intercourse with strangers, appear impa-

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tient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. . . . Theyunceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist theirentreaties they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as if,doubting their own merit, they wished to have it constantly exhib-ited before their eyes.

Perhaps we care because we lack self-confidence, because we are uncer-tain whether to be proud of our role in the world or dismayed by it. Likepeople in many other societies, we look outside, as if into a mirror, in orderto see our own reflections with a better perspective than we can provide onour own. Anti-Americanism is important for what it tells us about UnitedStates foreign policy and America's impact on the world. It is also importantfor what it tells us about ourselves.

• Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (18351,1965 edition, 252.

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