"The Ideology of American Exceptionalism"
Talk by Prof. Brendon O’Connor
Associate Professor
The United States Studies Centre at The University of Sydney
1:30-2:45 pm
Oak 438
In the hands of American politicians, American exceptionalism is generally expressed as a belief that America is superior to other nations. In the hands of political scientists, American exceptionalism tends to be defined as simply meaning different or unique, rather than "the greatest". I argue that this political science approach, pioneered by Seymour Martin Lipset, of highlighting differences on certain dimensions or in various policy realms and calling these differences American exceptionalism is deeply flawed and should be eschewed. A more productive approach is to identify the character and consequences of what I call the ideology of American exceptionalism.
Brendon O’Connor was a Fulbright Fellow at Georgetown University in 2006, the Australian Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC in 2008 and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge in 2012. He is the editor of seven books on anti-Americanism and has also published articles and books on American welfare policy, presidential politics, US foreign policy, and Australian-American relations.
For more information, contact: Jeremy Pressman at jp@uconn.edu