Four years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a Pew Research Center poll reported that distrust of the United States had intensified across the globe, with respondents citing U.S. foreign policy and "American-style democracy" as the reasons. Independent critiques of American foreign policy that predate the attacks of September 11, 2001 suggest that discontent with the U.S. goes far beyond the policies of George W. Bush.

The purpose of this dissertation is to illuminate problematic aspects of American power by viewing them through a Japanese lens. Citing patterns from religion, education, and psychology, it presents two paradigms of power: visible and direct (doing/acting) in the United States, and invisible and indirect (watching, waiting, and yielding) in Japan. Utilizing a critical hermeneutic methodology, eight expatriate Westerners living in Japan were interviewed. The primary aim of the research was to explore which of the paradigms they used, and whether this changed over time.

Most of the transnational informants in this study modified expressions of power to accommodate the host culture. A more noteworthy finding is that the frustrations recounted by the informants mirror the macroscopic problems and complexes of the United States--once the world's lone superpower--as it struggles to adapt to a multipolar world. In a particularly interesting parallel, extremes of one paradigm precipitated violent swings to the other side. Viewed depth psychologically, this is the enantiodromia through which unconscious aspects of psyche are integrated and individuation takes place. Although unsettling, this developmental process can be seen as a sign of hope for the future.