The article claims that anti-Americanism is a “master framework” with broad and flexible appeal, and that any serious attempt to analyze the phenomenon must encompass an understanding not only of its various sources but also of the variety of purposes for which anti-Americanism is used as a political resource. Anti-Americanism and the local responses to it are driven to a significant extent not by concerns about America and its policies but by the intrinsic contradictions of post-ideological politics. In the view of the article the rise of anti-Americanism could become a major obstacle to promoting democracy in the world.