Honors Theses
Date of Award
2015
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Croft Institute for International Studies
First Advisor
Jeff Carter
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
In this thesis, the author examined the relationship between anti-American sentiment and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The author first constructed a literature review on anti-Americanism, including sections discussing its definition, conceptualization, measurement techniques, and known sources. From this literature review, the author created her own definition of anti-Americanism and a hypothesis that anti-Americanism is endogenous to U.S. foreign policy—anti-Americanism may increase or decrease depending on changes to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The author then used a quantitative comparison of survey data and two qualitative case studies to test her hypothesis. The comparison of survey data concluded there is a correlation between anti-Americanism and U.S. foreign policy. Data measuring anti-American sentiment and positive views of American policies had a negative relationship, indicating high anti-American sentiment correlated to disapproval of policies. However, the methods used to show this correlation were not capable of indicating the direction of the relationship. In the case studies, the author showed that spikes in anti-Americanism over time correlated to shifts in American policies that had a real or perceived adverse effect on the populations within the Middle East. The results from the case studies was much more clear, and they indicated both a correlation between the two factors and the endogeneity of anti-Americanism. The author concluded with the results of her research, as well as recommendations for how future research might benefit from her difficulties.
Recommended Citation
Kennedy, Kelly, "Still Innocents Abroad: The Relationship between Anti-Americanism and American Foreign Policy in the Middle East" (2015). Honors Theses. 536.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/536
Accessibility Status
Searchable text
Comments
A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for completion of the Bachelor of Arts degree in International Studies from the Croft Institute for International Studies and the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College.