American Patriotism. "9.11" And Foreign Policy

Patriotism is usually regarded as a kind of lofty sentiment. However, in terms of academic research, there are hot debates on such issues as the concept of patriotism, its object, means and ethnics, and so on. This dissertation argues that patriotism is one's love of country, motivated by that fact that it is one's country and by the country's values; and expressed in a special concern for the welfare of one's country and compatriots. Besides that, this dissertation also identifies "nationalized patriotism" with construction of "hostile other" as fundamental dynamics.The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze American foreign policy from the perspective of relationship between American patriotism and nationalized patriotism. However, the American patriotism and nationalized patriotism have their common ideological and religious bases that can formed several different models that is either American patriotism or nationalized patriotism. The fundamental dynamics of this are two factors, the first is that whether the perspective of "threat" of the public and the government is consistent or not, the second is that whether the effort of governmental mobilization is success or not. This dissertation has demonstrated that all models are embodied in historical and current American foreign policy.The historical development of American patriotism is mainly a process that patriotism is gradually nationalized. Just from the very beginning of found of the United States, the struggles between patriotism and nationalized patriotism had begun. By and large, patriotism was prevailed over nationalized patriotism before the Spanish-American War. Although nationalized patriotism gradually overwhelmed patriotism after 1898, it was the WWII that made the dominant position of nationalized patriotism established. In the context of the 9/11 that caused another huge resurgent of American patriotism, nationalized patriotism has been the dominant form and greatly impacted the domestic and foreign policy of the United States.After the sudden attack of September 11th, 2001 and with great moral advantages tbllowing that event, the American public was in great patriotic mood and showed a very high "'rally-around-the-flag" effect. The Bush government has used this opportunity to nationalize the American public patriotism and managed to institutionalize it. American foreign policy under the nationalized patriotism has three dimensions with an inherent logic relationship, which is something similar to a concentric cycle. The first and internal cycle is that American government tries to limit the rights of foreigners in their country, especially those Islamic people. Then American government tries to enlarge the scope of "enemy" and wages so called "global anti-terrorism war". The third and external cycle is, also the most important layer, by putting the nationalized patriotism to the extremist pole, the Bush government wages a war of invasion to Iraq and another war of global democracy promotion. This three cycles or layers logic of nationalized patriotism also causes a reversed logic of patriotism that now it is just beginning from the third cycle of nationalized patriotism, that is, anti-Iraq war. So nationalized patriotism will prevailover patriotism in the near future, and this is one of this dissertation's most important policy implications.With the developing of globalization, patriotism will return to its original meanings after its primitive form and nationalized form. This is also true as to American patriotism, although its track will be much more specific.