Partners Apart? The Foreign Policy Attitudes of the American and European Publics

Abstract

The history of transatlantic relations makes abundantly clear that Europeans and Americans, while sharing many interests, values and views, have often also had divergent ideas on specific policies. While this is hardly disputed, several scholars and commentators further claim that, with developments such as the end of the Cold War and the growing unilateralism of American foreign policy, combined with the increasing economic assertiveness of the European Union, the nature of transatlantic relations has now fundamentally changed and that Europeans and Americans no longer share the same view of the world, whatever may have been the historical situation. This is neither the first time the death bell has been rung for the Atlantic community¹ nor the only case in which assessments of the transatlantic relations run widely apart. For some observers, the ‘history of American-European relations after World War II appears to present itself as an endless series of conflicts’ (Lundestad, 2003: 3), but others take a different perspective and see the North Atlantic Area as a stable ‘zone of peace. … that sets it apart from other regions of the world and political orders of past eras’ (Ikenberry, 2008: 6–7).