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Anti-Americanism in Latin America: Economic Exchange, Foreign Policy Legacies, and Mass Attitudes toward the Colossus of the North

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Andy Baker  and
David Cupery
Andy Baker
Affiliation:
University of Colorado at Boulder
David Cupery
Affiliation:
University of Colorado at Boulder
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Abstract

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Do Latin American citizens admire the United States for its material wealth and the opportunities this creates for them, or do they revile the United States because of the military and economic threat it has historically posed? Both narratives have a strong presence in Latin American societies, and much scholarship on mass anti-Americanism in the region portrays the dominant narrative as one of the United States as threat. In this article, we consult surveys from contemporary Latin America and find that various forms of ongoing economic exchange with the United States—trade, aid, migration, and remittances—are the primary influence on mass perception of the northern hegemon and actually promote goodwill, rather than bitterness, toward the United States. Moreover, we demonstrate that the most powerful channel through which economic exchange does so is consumption: inflows of US imports boost pro-American sentiment more than do other forms of exchange. In contrast, the legacy of US imperialism has little resonance in mass beliefs about the colossus of the north.

Resumo

Resumo

¿Admiran los ciudadanos latinoamericanos a los Estados Unidos por su riqueza material y las oportunidades que ésta crea para ellos, o desfavorecen a los Estados Unidos debido a la amenaza militar y económica que el país ha significado históricamente? Ambas narrativas tienen una fuerte presencia en las sociedades latinoamericanas, y muchas investigaciones académicas sobre el antiamericanismo popular en la región tienden a concluir que Estados Unidos como amenaza es la narrativa predominante. En este artículo, consultamos encuestas de América Latina contemporánea y encontramos que varias formas de intercambio económico continuo con los Estados Unidos —comercio, ayuda extranjera, migración y remesas— son la influencia principal de las percepciones populares sobre la hegemonía norteña y de hecho promueven buena voluntad, en lugar de amargura, hacia los Estados Unidos. Además, demostramos que el canal más poderoso a través del cual el intercambio económico lo hace es el consumo: insumos de importaciones estadounidenses aumentan los sentimientos pro-americanistas más que cualquier otra forma de intercambio. En contraste, el legado del imperialismo estadounidense tiene poca resonancia en las opiniones populares sobre el coloso del Norte.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , 2013 , pp. 106 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the Latin American Studies Association

Footnotes

Authors' names are in alphabetical order. We are very grateful to Isabella Alcañiz, Timothy Hellwig, David Leblang, Alan McPherson, Sophie Meunier, Stephen Morris, Patricio Navia, and Mitch Seligson for providing valuable comments and other forms of assistance on previous drafts of this article. The group on institutions at the Institute for Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder (Carew Boulding, David Brown, Moonhawk Kim, James Scarritt, and Sarah Sokhey) also provided valuable comments. We are also grateful to Shanker Satyanath for providing his data on Central Intelligence Agency-backed presidents. Previous versions of this article were presented at the 2010 Midwest Political Science Association Meeting and the 2010 International Political Economy Society Meeting. A supplemental online appendix for this article is posted at http://spot.colorado.edu/~bakerab/publications.html.

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