Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Europe and the future of US democracy

Bo Rothstein 10th February 2022

Europe needs to address the risk come 2024 of facing not only a non-democratic superpower to its east—but to its west too.

US democracy,Trump,Republican Party
A democratic tradition in peril: the mahogany boxes containing the electoral certificates of the presidential election, in use since 1877, were removed from the Senate floor by staff on January 6th 2021

It is by definition difficult to imagine the unthinkable.

Ever since 1917, when the United States joined the allies in the first world war, many have perceived the country as the anchor of democracy and guarantor of the rule of law and liberalism in the world. Although its democracy has and continues to have many serious shortcomings, the US is today the only democratic superpower. Yet there is reason to ask the almost unthinkable question: will this continue to be so?

Many democrats breathed a sigh of relief when Donald Trump lost the November 2020 presidential election. They hoped Trumpism, based on demagoguery, lies, racism and nationalist populism, had come to an end. And they hoped the Republican Party would return to a more responsible democratic conservatism.

On the contrary, Trump has strengthened his grip on the party. Its leading representatives have protected him from being held accountable for the attack on Congress in January 2021. He and his supporters continue to claim, though bereft of evidence, that they were robbed of victory in the presidential election through various forms of fraud in the counting of votes. Polls show that nearly 70 per cent of those who define themselves as Republicans believe the election was ‘rigged’ and Trump should have been proclaimed the winner.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

Democracy in danger

It is not only political commentators on the Democratic side who are now expressing concern about the future of democracy in the US. More than 120 leading American political scientists have warned, in a public ‘statement of concern’, that its democracy is in peril. Among the signatories are some of the world’s most renowned democracy researchers, such as Sheri Berman, Larry Diamond, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Putnam and Susan Stokes.

Elections to Congress and for the presidency are not administered centrally in the US: they are handled by the 50 states, which are responsible for ensuring these are carried out correctly and impartially. And the political scientists emphasise the danger that the Republican Party has begun to take control over, and politicise, election administration.

The Economist recently concurred that the threats to American democracy had to be taken seriously. It highlighted that in many ‘red’ states the ruling Republicans have chosen to get rid of impartial election administrators and replace them with people from their party—including those who had argued that the vote-counting in 2020 should have been ‘fixed’ to make Trump prevail.

Georgia’s top electoral officer, the Republican Brad Raffensberger, became world-famous for standing up to Trump’s direct demands to conjure up votes suggesting he had won there. Raffensberger has since been removed by party members in the state.

The same pattern of a purge of those who stood for impartiality in the counting of votes is found in several other important states. Martin Wolf, a respected Financial Times writer, has also pointed to the risk of the Republicans politicising election administration and warned that the US may be on the verge of acquiring a non-democratic authoritarian government—which would ‘change almost everything in our world’.

Republicans are now trying in every way to undermine the principle of impartiality in election administration. According to the ‘statement of concern’, several states no longer meet the minimum requirements for elections to be considered ‘free and fair’ and ‘one must question whether the United States will remain a democracy’.

Complete chaos

The University of Notre Dame, a leading conservative-Catholic institution in the US, has launched a major research project to prevent ‘American democracy from collapsing’ after the next presidential election. And in a high-profile article, the conservative political commentator Robert Kagan has tried to describe what might happen in its aftermath.

According to Kagan, the US risks ending up in complete political chaos, with weeks of mass protests in many states. Politicians from both sides will claim to have won the election and accuse the other side of trying to seize power by unconstitutional methods. Supporters of the various camps will be heavily armed and more likely to resort to violence than in 2020. Will the governors of the states call in the National Guard to quell violence? Or will the president, Joe Biden, take control of the National Guard and send military troops to the states where the situation is precarious?


We need your support


Social Europe is an independent publisher and we believe in freely available content. For this model to be sustainable, however, we depend on the solidarity of our readers. Become a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month and help us produce more articles, podcasts and videos. Thank you very much for your support!

Become a Social Europe Member

There are, Kagan points out, no clear rules in the US constitution as to who has the power to do what in such a scenario. This could lead to a very dangerous eventuality, including extensive political violence. 

The renowned legal theorists Bruce Ackerman and Gerald Magliocca have presented a similar scenario. This is based on the possibility that Trump may, because of his role in the violent attack on Congress, be disqualified as a presidential candidate in states controlled by the Democrats. This would ‘provoke a genuine constitutional crisis’, which they predict would lead to political chaos and violent protests. Barbara Walter, a highly respected political scientist and expert on security who specialises in the origins of civil war, has also warned about this in a recent book. 

Detaching anchor

In Canada, Thomas Hober-Dixon, another prominent political scientist, has argued that the political establishment must be prepared for the fact that its big neighbour may soon cease to be a democracy. Given the close security and defence co-operation between most European countries and the US within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the same question can be posed across the pond.

All focus in Europe is now on the threat from Russia towards Ukraine—and there are very good reasons for this. But the question must be asked whether there is any mental preparedness within the security and defence establishment in Europe, still less actual readiness, to face the risk that the anchor hitherto of western liberal democracy may cease within a few years to be a democracy itself.

Bo Rothstein
Bo Rothstein

Bo Rothstein is professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg.

You are here: Home / Politics / Europe and the future of US democracy

Most Popular Posts

European civil war,iron curtain,NATO,Ukraine,Gorbachev The new European civil warGuido Montani
Visentini,ITUC,Qatar,Fight Impunity,50,000 Visentini, ‘Fight Impunity’, the ITUC and QatarFrank Hoffer
Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse

Most Recent Posts

EU social agenda,social investment,social protection EU social agenda beyond 2024—no time to wasteFrank Vandenbroucke
pension reform,Germany,Lindner Pension reform in Germany—a market solution?Fabian Mushövel and Nicholas Barr
European civil war,iron curtain,NATO,Ukraine,Gorbachev The new European civil warGuido Montani
artists,cultural workers Europe’s stars must shine for artists and creativesIsabelle Van de Gejuchte
transition,deindustrialisation,degradation,environment Europe’s industry and the ecological transitionCharlotte Bez and Lorenzo Feltrin

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2022

Since 2000, the annual Bilan social volume has been analysing the state of play of social policy in the European Union during the preceding year, the better to forecast developments in the new one. Co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the new edition is no exception. In the context of multiple crises, the authors find that social policies gained in ambition in 2022. At the same time, the new EU economic framework, expected for 2023, should be made compatible with achieving the EU’s social and ‘green’ objectives. Finally, they raise the question whether the EU Social Imbalances Procedure and Open Strategic Autonomy paradigm could provide windows of opportunity to sustain the EU’s social ambition in the long run.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Discover the new FEPS Progressive Yearbook and what 2023 has in store for us!

The Progressive Yearbook focuses on transversal European issues that have left a mark on 2022, delivering insightful future-oriented analysis for the new year. It counts on renowned authors' contributions, including academics, politicians and analysts. This fourth edition is published in a time of war and, therefore, it mostly looks at the conflict itself, the actors involved and the implications for Europe.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube