Perceptions of America in the wake of 9/11

The proposed project deals with perceptions of "America" from September 11, 2001 to the present in Germany and Austria. The very striking deterioration of the USA`s image that has been observed in Europe since 9/11 raises the following key questions: 1) How has the USA been perceived in Germany and Austria since then? Which positive and negative ascriptions, topoi and interpretational patterns can be identified? 2) To what extent can this deterioration of the USA`s image be explained by political facts and circumstances since 9/11 (Afghanistan War, Iraq War, President Bush)? And, conversely, what role is played by old, familiar anti-American antipathies that continue to exist and to be operative among the peoples of these countries? 3) What constitutes transgression of the boundary between legitimate critique of American political policymaking and anti-Americanism? To answer these fundamental questions, the proposed project will undertake the first detailed and comprehensive effort to review and analyze the debates about the USA that have been conducted since 2001 in Germany and Austria as well as the images of America they have propagated. Selected key discursive events (such as 9/11, the Iraq War, the reception accorded to the films of Michael Moore, Bush`s visits to Germany and Austria, and the 2008 US primaries and presidential election) will provide the basis for a thorough investigation of the positive and negative perceptions that are associated with "America." The aim of this proposed project is to specifically locate the boundary between a (justified) critique of the USA on one hand and resentment-laden anti-Americanism on the other. Before the backdrop of the long history of anti-Americanism in Germany and Austria, this project will bring to light old anti-American stereotypes and interpretational patterns as well as new manifestations of anti- Americanism. Furthermore, this project will also make an effort to politically and biographically classify the chief protagonists (opinion leaders) involved in the current America discourse and to perform a detailed and comprehensive comparison between Germany and Austria in order to bring out similarities and differences and to elaborate on the effects of Nazi past on the current debates. Finally, this project will look at this entire issue from a broader, transnational perspective and analyze it in a European (relations between the EU and the USA) and an international (globalization debates) context. This project is based on a broad spectrum of sources. In addition to an analysis of German and Austrian print media (both newspapers of record as well as tabloids), works of popular scholarship and literary approaches to the subject of 9/11 and the USA (e.g. "America" books, "conspiracy theories") will serve as additional textual sources. A cursory assessment of political cartoons, magazine covers, posters etc. will make it possible to integrate visual source material into this analysis. Interviews with experts and quantitative surveys (opinion polls) round out what is designed to be a broad spectrum of opinion. The aim of this project is 1) to approach the political debate about the purported existence of new/old anti-Americanism that has been conducted in often highly polemical terms since 2001 and to initiate its transition into a scholarly confrontation, and 2) thereby to establish an empirical foundation for further studies on the subject of current anti-Americanism.

This project dealt with how America was perceived in Germany and Austria in the wake of September 11, 2001. It investigated the following key issues: What were the reactions to the 9/11 terror attacks? How were they perceived and interpreted? What have been the positive and negative images of America since 2001, and are there differences between Germany and Austria in this respect? The projects objectives were to ascertain the boundary between (justifiable) criticism of the USA and anti-Americanism, and to shift the consideration of this matter of America critique vs. anti-Americanism from the realm of the highly polemical debate that has raged since 2001 into the calmer waters of scholarly study. This project is based on a broad spectrum of sourcesin addition to my analysis of German and Austrian print media, I have also examined visual sources (op-ed page cartoons, magazine covers), evaluated opinion polls, and scrutinized how the ORF Austrian Broadcasting Company covered 9/11 on TV.This investigation has shown that reactions in Germany and Austria to the terror attacks were very similar but did display a few differences. At first, shock and grief prevailed, and government leaders declared their solidarity with the USA, a country under attack. Nevertheless, cracks soon appeared in this initially united front, and a gradual deterioration of the USAs image was evident. The fear of Americas retaliatory strike came to dominate public sentiment, whereby the dread of war was especially strong in Germany. The Nazi past was very strongly present in Germany toomany invoked German-American friendship, positively accentuating liberation in 1945 and the aid America provided in conjunction with postwar reconstruction and later reunification. In Austria, on the other hand, there were scant references to the recent past, and the declarations of solidarity were also a bit more restrained. Another uniquely Austrian phenomenon was the debate on neutrality that commenced immediately after 9/11 and active shuttle diplomacy in the Near East.It became obvious that some reactions to 9/11 (Schadenfreude, lack of compassion for the victims, conspiracy theories, one-sided assignments of guilt, blaming the victim) actually can be classified as anti-Americanism, though this occurred not only in Austria and Germany but in all European countries, wheredepending on the particular nations history and the respective observers politics, socialization and generationcritics had a wide array of classic European anti-American arguments from which to choose. It is hardly possible any more to draw a strict dividing line between right-wing and left-wing anti-Americanismfor instance, in the contemporary critique of capitalism and globalization. Forms of cultural anti-Americanism manifested themselves particularly in the negative portrayal of US President George W. Bush. His successor, Barack Obama, on the other hand, was perceived overwhelmingly positively; he was considered The Good American, and the image of America improved after his election in 2008.This projects findings have been presented in an anthology entitled Europa und der 11. September 2001 (edited by Margit Reiter and Helga Embacher) that was published in 2011, as well as in several scholarly papers. These findings were also made available to the general public in numerous speeches, commentaries and interviews broadcast on TV and radio, and published by print media.