American Orientalism and American Exceptionalism: A Critical Rethinking of US Hegemony

Abstract

In this essay, we argue that critical International Relations (IR) scholars must consider American Orientalism in tandem with American Exceptionalism in order to better understand US identity, foreign policymaking, and hegemony. We claim that American Exceptionalism is a particular type of American Orientalism, a style of thought about the distinctions between the “West” and the “East” that gives grounding to the foundational narrative of “America.” While Exceptionalism and Orientalism both deploy similar discursive, ontological, and epistemological claims about the “West” and its non-western “Others,” Exceptionalism is also rooted specifically in American political thought that developed in contradistinction to Europe. As such, we demonstrate that different logics of othering are at work between the West and the non-West, and among Western powers. We implore critical IR scholars to interrogate how the United States and Europe alternatively collude and clash in wielding normative power over their non-Western Others. We claim such research is important for exploring the staying power of American hegemony and understanding the implications of European challenges to American foreign policy, particularly given recent concerns about a so-called transatlantic divide.