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The Week in Germany: Current Affairs

March 30, 2007

An Ear to the Ground: Congress Grapples with Public Opinion in Europe

At a hearing of subcommittees of the House Committee on Foreign affairs, members of Congress heard testimony from pollsters and public opinion experts that suggests that European public opinion of the United States, while historically low, does not reflect the anti-Americanism described by GAO reports and previous testimony in the house by Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center.

Rather, as John Glenn, Director of Foreign Policy for the German Marshall Fund of the US argued in his testimony on March 23 (Webcast, testimony), the steep decline in European public opinion vis-à-vis the US is a symptom of disagreement over specific policies, and is not yet reversible.

“Anti-Americanism, if we take the concept seriously, should refer to something broader and presumably more enduring than attitudes or views toward particular U.S. policies,” said Glenn, who presented data from the German Marshall Fund’s annual Transatlantic Trends survey to support his claims.

“We have observed that Europeans continue to distinguish between their views of President Bush and their views of the United States more generally,” he said. While European attitudes toward the President fell from 38 percent positive to 18 percent positive in 2006, the percentage of Europeans who say that U.S. leadership in the world is considerably higher at 36 percent.

Glenn calls this gap a “reservoir for recovery.” It shows that Europeans “want to feel positively about the U.S.”, but express disapproval based on specific policies, particularly Iraq.

On many issues, Europeans and Americans express similar opinions

Beyond, Iraq, however, the data show strong similarities between the positions of Europeans and Americans on a host of issues, according to Glenn. Large majorities of Americans and Europeans agree on the importance of a range of international threats, ranging from international terrorism to the growing power of china.

On the issue of promoting democracy abroad, which has been an area of transatlantic cooperation from the Balkans to Belarus to Sudan, Europeans and Americans show high levels of support for specific democracy building measures. These include monitoring elections and supporting independent groups like trade unions and human rights organizations. However, both Europeans and Americans expressed the lowest support for the use of military force to promote democracy abroad (24 percent of Europeans and 34 percent of Americans.

“Some people might think that Europeans and Americans mean different things when they say democracy promotion, but I doubt that Russia and China think so,” said Glenn, referring to restrictions on foreign NGO’s in Russia.

International efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons also receive overwhelming support of public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic, with 79 percent of Americans and 84 percent of Europeans agreeing that coordinated transatlantic efforts on this front must continue.

The lead sled dog has its ears to the ground

During the testimony of Glenn and Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway, members of congress were at pains to make it clear that US policy should not shift with the winds of public opinion. “Winston Churchill once said that putting an ear to the ground does not put a leader in a very inspiring position,” said Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA), who also quipped that “the lead sled dog has the best view, but is also the most likely to get bit on the fanny.”

Still, several members expressed concern that public opinion can have a significant impact on the United States’ ability to advance its interests in the world. Jim Delahunt (D-MA) cited a vote by Turkish officials that would have approved the use of bases in Turkey in launching operations in Iraq but was later overturned, largely due to public opinion.

Robert Wexler (D-FL), who said that the United States had not done enough to address low public opinion abroad, nevertheless expressed optimism. “Most European leaders have embraced policies that dovetail with those of America,” he said. Wexler, who is Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Europe, said that he had “witnessed firsthand a genuine European desire for a closer relationship – an equal partnership based on shared values.”

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