Internal Versus External Sources of Anti-Americanism

To assess the relative importance of internal and external sources of anti- Americanism, both cross-sectional and longitudinal data were examined. Multiple regression analysis of the cross-sectional data—which cover 68 countries for the period 1956—1965—revealed that both internal stress and U.S. penetration affect anti-Americanism independently, with internal stress being a stronger determinant of anti-Americanism than U.S. penetration. When the countries were grouped together in regional clusters, stress was more important in generating European and Latin American anti-Americanism, while, in the Afro-Asian nations, U.S. presence was more important. Longitudinal data were collected and analyzed for Canada and Mexico, each for the period 1936-1968. Both simultaneous and time-lagged multiple regressions again showed stress and penetration as independent determinants of anti-Americanism. While, in Canada, U.S. presence was a stronger determinant of anti-Americanism than was stress, stress was more influential in generating Mexican anti-U.S. sentiments. In fact, in the Mexican case, U.S. presence was negatively related to anti-Americanism.