Anti-Americanism and US Foreign Policy: Which Correlation?

Abstract

From the end of the Cold War in 1991 to the end of the 2000s, anti-Americanism has passed through different phases in Europe as well as in other parts of the world: it was modest in the 1990s, it exploded between 2003-2008, it declined after 2008. Although anti-Americanism continues to be rooted in many political cultures and experiences, its emergence in the post Cold War era seemed to be correlated to a US foreign policy making process unrestrained by either domestic or international institutions. When domestic and international multilateral checks have been unable to keep under control the exercise of US international power, then anti-Americanism has functioned as a sort of last resort critic on the latter. Anti-Americanism has seemed to be the reaction, more than to controversial foreign policy’s decisions, to their unchecked elaboration and unilateral implementation. For world public opinion, the legitimacy of the foreign policy making process counts more than the latter’s outcomes.