Uncouth Nation by Markovits Andrei S

Author:Markovits, Andrei S.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2009-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

The Massive Waning of America's Image in the Eyes of Europe and the World

So what? Why and how does it matter that these multifaceted derisions of and ubiquitous irritations with America and all things American have become part of daily discourse in most of West Europe’s media? Do talk and sentiment have any real consequences in action?

Indeed, Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane argue in a major forthcoming volume that they basically do not.1 In a very perceptive chapter entitled “The Political Consequences of AntiAmericanism,” Keohane and Katzenstein investigate a number of areas in which one would assume that anti-American attitudes on the part of Europeans and others could have easily led to direct actions in policies and concrete behavior. The authors first look at the struggle against terrorism, which they subdivide into two sections, on anti-Americanism being a potential breeding ground for terrorists and counterterrorist government policies. In neither do they find any serious evidence of anti-American attitudes having had an effect on concrete policies, behavior, or actions. Keohane and Katzenstein then proceed to analyze the world of “soft power”— particularly that of diplomacy. Here, too, they conclude that anti-American attitudes and opinions have scant, if any, effect on policies and actions. Lastly, they investigate boycotts of American name-brand products and anti-Americanism’s possible ramifications on tourism to the United States. Again, their verdict is unequivocal: There are no visible, palpable, or measurable adverse effects at all. To be sure, Katzenstein and Keohane in no way mean to use these examples to deny or denigrate the existence of anti-Americanism in Europe and the world. But they conclude that its effects on actual behavior and policies (other than in a few limited cases in Latin America, the Turkish parliament’s decision of March 1, 2003, not to let American forces attack Iraq from Turkish territory, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin’s refusal to have Canada commit to being integrated into the North American Ballistic Missile Defense) are either demonstrably nonexistent or so tenuous that they are tantamount to being nonexistent. True enough, though one would be hard put to interpret America’s standing virtually all by itself in UNESCO’s passing a new convention on cultural diversity, designed to combat the homogenizing effect of cultural globalization as being totally devoid of a certain opposition—perhaps even antipathy—to the United States, particularly by the convention’s major protagonists, Canada and France.2 Moreover, the International Olympic Committee’s elimination of men’s baseball and women’s softball from the 2012 Olympic Games may again not be conclusively attributed to any overt anti-Americanism on the part of a majority of the delegates. But surely, the atmosphere as a whole lent itself in that global forum—just like in UNESCO’s—to the taking of such concrete actions and the formulations of such clear policies. Lastly, Keohane and Katzenstein introduce fascinating data from the soft-drink industry, among other consumer goods items, to demonstrate that Cadbury-Schweppes, arguably Europe’s most prominent competitors to America’s Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola, actually lost market share to its American counterparts in 2003–04, the height of anti-American feelings and attitudes in Europe.

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