German Eurosceptics on the Rise – Week 15

The Euro, introduced as a symbol for Europe´s unity and integration after the fall of the wall, has recently become the focal point for disunity and discord among Europeans. Since the Eurozone crisis began, support for Eurosceptic parties has risen across the European Union. Up until now, Germany had been an outlier case with no major anti-EU party so far. That has changed with the forming of the Eurosceptic “Alternative for Germany” („Alternative für Deutschland“, AfD) in April of this year. Because of its’ formation only months before national elections in September 2013, media attention has been high. What is the importance of this new party and how can it challenge the current government coalition? Is Angela Merkel´s government coming to an end with a powerful Eurosceptic contender on the right?

The AfD is a typical single-issue party with a clear message coined in the phrase „Germany does not need the Euro”. The party sees itself as an alternative to the prevailing pro-euro politics among Germany´s mainstream parties and political elites. Founded by a group of professors and professionals in business and law (the vast majority of the first signatories hold PhDs), the party promotes its anti-Euro campaign by positioning itself as a bourgeois protest party to the right of the CDU/CSU, but without an ideology. Its speaker and most founding members are defected from the governing CDU, but also from the left and the FDP. The party platform uses a mixture of economic arguments, legal interpretations of EU treaties and populist democratic claims that draw on fears and concerns about European integration. While most of the arguments are by no means new – several of the supporters already lobbied against the monetary union, the EU-Constitutional Treaty and the European Stability Mechanism – the forming of the party, which was professionally prepared and orchestrated, marks a new step in anti-EU opposition in Germany.

Opinion polls conducted in Germany over the past few weeks vary greatly in their assessments of potential electoral support for the Eurosceptic party. Just three percent of Germans currently intend to vote for AfD according to the latest polls, but another showed that 25 percent would consider voting for a party advocating German withdrawal from the Euro. According to another poll published by the business daily Handelsblatt, more Germans approve of the Euro today than when it was first introduced; 69 percent of Germans supported the Euro, while only 27 percent wanted to return to the D-Mark.  And a study conducted by the independent Bertelsmann-Foundation in April 2013 shows that Germany is benefiting greatly from the Euro due to the reduction of transaction costs and the elimination of currency risks. Yet, nearly two-thirds of Germans believe that they would be better off with the old D-Mark. Depending on how the questions are being phrased, surveys are somewhat inconclusive regarding the Eurosceptic party’s potential among Germans. But, it is quite clear that the new party is tapping into a growing field of disenchanted voters. Party volatility and anti-establishment sentiments have prevailed for some time and an increasing fragmentation of the German party system have made coalition formation more difficult.  The rise of Eurosceptic parties in other countries has encouraged similar formations in Germany, with a nationalist and protectionist agenda, and the rise of anti-German sentiments in many EU-countries may further fuel the nationalist backlash.

While the Eurozone crisis has deepened a North-South divide in economic growth and development, there is no clear regional pattern in the rise of Eurosceptic parties. Even before the Eurozone crisis, Eurosceptic parties gained support in Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, and Ireland. Starting with the sovereign debt crisis in 2010, however, the impact has been to double, and in some cases, such as Italy, Greece, Finland, and the UK triple the combined support for those countries’ various Eurosceptic parties. If Germany is just embarking on its Eurosceptic odyssey, then the recent experience of the rest of Europe suggests that support for the Eurosceptic parties could rise further .  The European elections in 2014 will provide an important test case and an opportunity to expand the power base of Eurosceptics.

The five percent threshold needed to enter the Bundestag may prove too high for the Eurosceptic AfD in September´s federal election and the party may end up competing with other minor parties in the field. There is also the risk of early disintegration since the world of politics is quite different from the world of academia and the party may suffer from its heterogeneity.  But, there is strong indication that they may drain enough votes away from the CDU/CSU as well as from other parties and act as the election spoiler for Angela Merkel in which case the formation of a grand SPD-CDU coalition after the federal election might be unavoidable.

Will Angela Merkel Lead Germany Beyond 2013? (Christiane Lemke) - Week 14

On September 22, 2013, Germany will elect a new federal government. These elections are not only crucial for the 80 million citizens living in Germany, rather, these elections will have important consequences for the course of Europe in the years to come. In the following blogs we will therefore focus on the German elections.

Will Angela Merkel (CDU) continue to lead the country beyond 2013, or will a Red-Green coalition come into power? What are the chances for the Social Democrats, and will the Greens continue to be so popular? How will the smaller parties, such as the Free Democrats, currently in coalition government with the CDU, fare and what about the smaller parties, such as Die Linke and the newly formed libertarian Pirate Party?

A first indicator for the course of this year´s federal election was state elections (Landtagswahlen) in Lower Saxony, Germany´s second largest state by size, on January 20, 2013. It also happens to be my home state. The outcome of these elections received high attention and was widely linked to the fate of the chancellor.

Flag of Lower Saxony

While Angela Merkel currently enjoys an impressively high popularity in Germany, the outcome of the state elections speaks a different language and casts serious doubts on her chances to lead the next government in Germany. Even though her party is still the strongest party in Lower Saxony, it lost considerably in a dramatic and very close count (2013: 36 percent; 2008: 42.5 percent).  Its smaller coalition partner, the Free Democrats (FDP), which was facing a series of crisis and lost in several previous state elections, scored a surprisingly good result and is represented in parliament despite predictions to the contrary (9.9 percent; 8.2 percent in 2008). Obviously, the FDP benefited from defecting CDU-voters who cast their second vote for the FDP to ensure that the current coalition would continue. A much needed slight boost for the FDP, which suffered through an image and identity crisis with their luckless leader, Philipp Rösler, and his anti-EU rhetoric over the past two years, the result gives an upwind, but not a guarantee for passing the five-percent hurdle in September.

Despite the good showing of the FDP, the majority of CDU and FDP, a coalition that ruled in Lower Saxony for ten years, was lost and even though SPD and Greens now hold only a slim majority of one seat in the Landtag, there will be a Red-Green coalition in Lower Saxony with Stephan Weil (SPD), mayor of the city of Hannover, most likely elected as minister president.

Lower Saxony in many ways mirrors choices to be made domestically on the federal level. The fourth largest in population of the sixteen federal states in Germany, Lower Saxony has transformed from a predominantly agrarian to a highly modern state. It is not only home to machine manufacturing and to one of the most successful automobile plants, VW, but also to aerospace industry such as EADS and Airbus production. The relative strong showing of the SPD with 32.6 percent of the votes (30.3 percent 2008) and its base is rooted not only in urban areas but also in industrialized regions of the state. Moreover, the state has a long history pioneering energy production. Home to the first and oldest nuclear power plant in Stade  (closed down with Germany´s Atomausstieg, or phasing out of nuclear energy, in 2003), and a controversial radioactive waste disposal facility in Gorleben, nuclear energy has long been a highly contentious issue, stirring vocal protest movements across a broad range of citizens since the 1970´s. Today, the state is a pioneer in renewable energies, featuring the major off-shore wind park in the North Sea supported by research projects at universities, and it promotes bio-fuel projects in rural communities.

The strong showing of the Green Party, which increased its share of votes from 8.0 (2008) to 13.7 percent reflects the mobilizing power of environmental issues. Aside from Lower Saxony, several other states witnessed a strong showing of the Greens in recent years, and the party is in coalition government in Baden Württemberg, Bremen, Rhineland-Palatine and North Rhine Westphalia, forboding excellent chances for the federal elections in September.

Finally, smaller parties did not fare well. Die Linke, the leftist party with strong roots in eastern Germany, lost and did not surpass the five-percent hurdle, and the recently founded libertarian Pirate Party (represented in four state parliaments) did likewise not score above the five percent of votes required to gain seats in parliament.

The most dramatic result of the expected leadership change in Lower Saxony will be that the majority in the upper house on the federal level, the Bundesrat, will change. The chancellor, who has a majority in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, will no longer have a majority in the Bundesrat, which will make it nearly impossible to get any legislation passed. Moreover, the loss of power of the CDU in Lower Saxony is also a loss for Angela Merkel on the federal level, since one of her younger hopefuls in the party, the current minister president David McAllister (CDU), will no longer be a strong candidate for future leadership positions in the party.

Reinventing America: President Obama’s Second Term in Office (Christiane Lemke) - Week 13

Over the past five months, this blog has focused on the US-elections and I have commented and reported about key topics in the election campaign. As a Political Scientist currently living in New York City, it has been a fascinating experience to witness the struggle for power and representation, the controversies about government’s role in shaping modern society, and the twists and turns of the electoral campaign. Now that President Barack Obama has been sworn into office, attention shifts to questions about how he will lead the country in his second term. His starting position seems more promising than in 2009, in the midst of the economic and financial crisis. In his Inaugural Address on January 21, 2013, President Obama struck a confident cord: „A decade of war is ending. Economic recovery has begun.“ Different from his speech in 2009, however, the President focused more on his political approach to key questions than on specific reforms. In the tradition of American progressivism, he framed his appeal to embrace collective action to solve future issues as the „gift of reinvention“ - „hard work and self-reliance requires collective action”, a progressive version of the American Dream.

Inauguration Day on January 21 coincided with remembering Martin Luther King’s Birthday, and the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s speech at the March on Washington in the heydays of the civil rights struggle. Indeed, America has come a long way to improve race relations, and while the president himself did not explicitly elaborate on the importance of this commemoration in his speech, civil rights figured prominently in his speech. Aside from women’s rights, safety for children, and the rights of immigrants, he was indeed the first president to mention gay rights in an inauguration speech.

Despite the progressive philosophy laid out in the speech, expectations for his second term are much lower than at the beginning of his first term, when the president emphasized reaching across the aisle and sought bi-partisanship for his reform bills, a goal never reached in his first term. Aside from style, the substance seems also different. While in 2009, the newly elected president chose a „big bang“ approach to long-overdue social reforms, a more sober and pragmatic approach seems to characterize the start of the second term. Still steeped in battle with the Republican dominated House of Representatives over budget cuts and tax policies, he will, most likely, tackle immigration legislation, an issue Republicans badly need to move on. Hopefully, some compromise might be feasible. Other topics, however, seem more elusive, but the to-do-list is much longer.

Will a second Obama-Administration fight for a climate change policy, a challenging task considering that the climate change bill failed early in his first term and powerful interest groups oppose any kind of regulation? In his speech, the president not only promised to respond to the challenge of climate change (with storms, draughts, and fires in 2012 still in fresh memory), he vowed to “lead the transition”. Whether the US will now take a more prominent place in global climate change policy efforts, or concentrate mainly on the domestic agenda, remains to be seen. In fact, as some commentaries suggest, the goal of the US to become energy independent may not only impact relations to oil producing countries in the Middle East, but lead to a more “inward” looking turn in terms of energy (and environmental) policy.

This trend may also hold true for other key issues in international politics, such as nuclear proliferation, fighting terrorism, and securing peace in the Middle East. The US discovered during the past years, that despite intense diplomatic efforts – in fact, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was one of the most traveled Secretaries of States in recent memories - leverage over countries such as Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and India remains limited at best. In regard to fighting terrorism, the prison at Guantanamo Bay was never closed (and may, in fact, not be closed in the foreseeable future due to legal issues involved), despite the criticism from many parties in- and outside the US; the use of drones was greatly expanded, even though this raises security issues in the countries of targets, as well as serious human rights issues.

While the President pursues a progressive agenda in domestic policies, his foreign policy might be less active and engaging than during the previous administration. His emphasis is on nation-building at home, including the modernization of infrastructure, expanding renewable energy sources, and investing in education. The withdrawal from Iraq and, by 2014, from Afghanistan, his cautious approach to Syria, and a reluctance to restart the peace process in the Middle East, all show that he is well aware of the limits of American power. The pivot towards Asia and the Pacific moreover points to a decreasing role of Europe in American foreign policy. While there will be high continuity regarding NATO, Europeans should not expect an active and engaging US-president in Europe.

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Beyond the Fiscal Cliff (Christiane Lemke) - Week 12

According to opinion polls, an overwhelming majority of Germans would have voted for President Obama on Election Day. Consequently, expectations about a constructive role for the US in global politics are high. From the perspective of most Europeans, one of the major challenges facing the United States and the world at large is economic growth. With the “fiscal cliff” looming large as this year draws to an end, fears about a possible US-recession in 2013 are at the center stage of debates about the second Obama-term. Will the Obama administration be able to negotiate a settlement with the Republicans to avoid the fiscal cliff before the year ends? Or will an „austerity bomb“ (Paul Krugman) hit the US economy with devastating effects for the global economy? Another important question is, how dangerous is the fiscal cliff to begin with? Is the fiscal cliff just a “constructed” crisis, with only small consequences for people´s lives, a matter of political rhetoric, or does it pose a real danger for society?

Both Europe and the US are facing major challenges associated with high budget deficits. The EU, whose Euro zone states share the same monetary policy, but each have vastly different economic and fiscal policies has only recently taken charge of coordinating a EU Zone wide common fiscal policy. It has largely been muddling through the fiscal and economic crisis, with signs of more integration and regulation now emerging, as the recently introduced regulations of the banking system in Europe shows. The US, on the other hand, has federal jurisdiction not only over monetary policy, but also over its national fiscal and economic policies. This control should make it easier for the US to cope with budget deficit problems. The problem, however, is political compromise, or rather the polarization of the debate, on economic and fiscal policies, in the American case that make compromising over this piece of legislation an arduous task.

Both parties agree that the reduction of the budget deficit should be a primary goal for the years to come. However, they disagree over the strategies on how to reach this goal. Unable to reach a settlement in 2011, law makers passed a Budget Control Act which stipulated that the Bush tax cuts would automatically expire by January 1, 2013, and, at the same time, vast, across the board spending cuts would take place. These would not only affect social policy programs such as Medicare and Social Security, but also federal unemployment benefits and tax brakes for renewable energy such as wind energy. Because of these drastic measures and program cuts (which could potentially be cut by half),  the Congressional Budget Office and various economic experts expect the US to fall into a deep recession in 2013, with stock markets plummeting and global trade receding, if an agreement cannot be reached. Just this week, Christine Lagarde, president of the International Monetary Fund, warned that this crisis could be worse than the 2008-09 financial and economic crisis, or the Euro zone crisis.

From an analytic perspective, the problems associated with the fiscal cliff extend beyond fiscal and economic policy.  Is political compromise still possible given the highly polarized post-election political culture?

At present, moving beyond the fiscal cliff is currently the key issue in negotiations between the President Obama and the speaker of the Republican controlled House, John Boehner. It is basically a two-man show (albeit with scant public statements by the two negotiators) with bargaining positions shaped by each party’s constituencies and election promises. In the public debate and in statements by other key players, economic advisors and policy makers, differences in economic philosophies and ideologies are pronounced. Republicans identify the budget deficit as major problem; after all, Republican presidential candidates ran on a platform to curb the budget deficit first, a position echoed by Congressional candidates in the November elections. This position is embedded in an anti-government philosophy as regulation and federal spending on social programs has been the target of much criticism among Tea Party movers as well as neoliberal Republicans. From their perspective, federal government is the root cause of the problem; spending should be cut substantially (with the exception of military spending), and the Bush tax cuts should be extended. House speaker Boehner faces pressure from the right to hold firm but there are several Republicans who have recently spoken out in favor of a more flexible approach. There is no doubt that the outcome of these negotiations will be an indicator of the strength of the right within the Republican Party.

Among Democrats, the debate has focused more on structural reforms of the tax system. While the President made it very clear that he would favor extending the tax cuts for the middle class while letting them expire for those earning more than $ 250.000 a year (which would mean a tax hike from the current rate of 35% to 39.6% for the wealthiest two percent of the population, a rate similar to that during the Clinton years), Republicans strongly oppose this tax proposal, which implies, compared to Europe, a rather modest model of progressive income tax. They instead call for the elimination of (so far not clearly defined) loopholes and deductions. Moreover, Democrats oppose many of the entitlement cuts included in the Budget Control Act of 2011 and favored by Republicans. Center-left economists, such as Paul Krugman, contend that the budget deficit is currently not really the central problem; rather, the goal of economic and fiscal policies should be to stimulate growth through government programs and target at reducing unemployment.

Interestingly enough, public opinion is clearly shifting in favor of President Obama and polling shows strong support for his position. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC survey released on Wednesday this week, three-quarters of Americans say they would accept raising taxes on the wealthy to avoid the cliff. Even among Republicans, some 61 percent say they would accept tax increases on high earners. An ABC News-Washington Post poll released Tuesday indicted that nearly half of Americans approve of Obama’s handling of the negotiations versus a quarter of respondents who approved of Boehner’s. At the same time, Obama’s public opinion rating has reached about 54 percent in the Real Clear Politics polling average, above the level where it peaked in May 2011, when bin Laden was killed.

It is interesting to note that while both, Europe and the US, try to tackle the problem of economic growth and reducing national debt, Europeans focus less on tax policy and more on austerity and welfare state restructuring, whereas the US debate is framed as a debate about the role of government expenditures as such and stimulating growth through tax policies. Moreover, while the European debate is often confounded between the left and the right due to the complex, multilayered system of the EU, the current negotiations about the fiscal cliff show that the American debate has clear ideological underpinnings.

After Sandy: Climate Change and the Future of New York City (Christiane Lemke) - Week 11

More than four weeks after the devastating hurricane Sandy hit New York, the clean up is still ongoing. People in parts of the costal areas of New York and New Jersey are still without power, streets are covered with sand and debris, and the rubble from destroyed houses, shops, and factories still need to be cleaned up. „New York One“, the local TV-station, newspapers, and even the New York Times report frequently about the clean-up efforts as well as criticism voiced by citizens about slow recovery. While much of the public debate focuses on the rebuilding efforts, observers and analysts voice concern that the popular attitude of „we will rebuild“ may not be enough.

A public forum debate organized by New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge this week and moderated by Chelsea Clinton, who is affiliated with New York University´s Global Network University, addressed the lessons to be learned from hurricane Sandy from an environmental perspective. As meteorologist and climate change specialist Heidi Cullen explained in the forum, there is no question about the connection between increased frequency of storms and climate change. Presenting calculations about different scenarios of CO-2 emissions and their connection to global temperature increase and sea level rise, she pointed to the imminent necessity to effectively curb CO-2 emission to advert drastic climate change. Reconstructing the marsh lands and costal oyster beds, improving the insulation of buildings to curb CO-2 emissions, and reducing the overall use of energy would be ways in which cities like New York can provide better protection in the long run.

The devastating effects of the storm did not meet New Yorkers unprepared. Klaus Jacob, professor of geophysics and seismology at Columbia University, presented results from a 2011 analysis of transportation infrastructure for New York State in which he an his research group in many ways anticipated the impact of Sandy on NYC by, for example, calculating the water rise and predicting the flooding of the tunnels and subway tubes that connect the different parts of the city. Should New Yorkers „fight“ the occurrence of a flood, or rather, should they not accommodate to the changing of the climate with the increasing frequency of flood disasters in the city by changing and improving its infrastructure and transportation systems? Adaptation and managed improvements would be an important element in this process.

Being better prepared for storms and flooding was an important feature of the discussion. As philosopher Dale Jamieson pointed out at the beginning of his presentation, the term „natural disaster“ is misleading. Floods have occurred frequently around the globe over time; it is humans that make these events into disasters due to their social practices. Noting that large cemeteries in Brooklyn and Queens are located on hills, whereas people have moved closer and closer down to the seashore, he advocated changing building patterns,  „moving the people up and the dead down“.

While speakers agreed that mitigation of climate change is important, the panelists pointed out that adaptation might be a more successful strategy to cope with coming disasters. Soft adaption, rather than the “hardening” through raising barriers should be the goal.

Eric Klinenberg, professor of sociology at New York University, who has written extensively on various catastrophes such as the 1995 heat wave in Chicago, — which saw a heat-related death toll of about 750 people, argued that events such as Sandy shed light on the way in which societies are organized.  To prevent the loss of lives in catastrophes, communities have to be prepared for these events. This requires improvements in the social infrastructure and active community networks. And, as he rightly pointed out, climate change impact with flooding is not only a challenge in the US but in many other parts of the world.

For a European observer of the debate it was interesting to note, how much less ideological the debate was and how it focused on finding an intellectual and academic angle to averting human losses.  Against the grains of those who deny that climate change has even an impact on human society in the US, this debate showed how much scholars can contribute to improving the environment and the living space in New York City as well as on a global scale.

After Sandy: Adept to Electricity Outage,  Washington Square, Manhattan, November 2012 / Photo: Christiane Lemke

After the Election (Christiane Lemke) - Week 10

Election night 2012 was a memorable event. While most analysts predicted a very close race for the White House and polls before Election Day showed a dead heat between the two candidates, President Obama won all of the battleground states (except for North Carolina).  This is a remarkable outcome. How this overwhelming victory will, however, shape politics in the four years to come is still an open question. Will Republicans reposition themselves and will this clear mandate affect their positions regarding key policy decisions, such as reducing the budget deficit, implementing the health care reform, and shaping new approaches to immigration?

I spent election night in Zurich, Switzerland, commenting on the election for Swiss television, and it was interesting to hear and see reactions abroad. For one, the US elections drew considerable interest in Europe and media in key countries, including Germany, France and Britain, offered extensive coverage on election night. Europeans are clearly more interested in the US than the US is interested in Europe.

According to various surveys, mock elections and opinion polls, Europeans in general were more favorable towards President Obama than Governor Romney. Even though observers noted some disappointment about the president´s policies, Obama´s presidency was seen by many commentators as historic and most hoped for continuity in the White House. The Swiss paper “Tagesanzeiger”, for example, titled after the election “Zum Glück für die Welt hat Obama gesiegt” (Luckily for the World Obama has won), expressing hope that Obama would lead global restructuring during his second term.

President Obama was reelected against some odds, a fact that offers some valuable lessons for political science. His overwhelming electoral victory is a remarkable result, which showed that the predictions based on national polls were off the mark. Generally, the outcome demonstrated that the polls were not a very reliable predictor of the outcome; state-to-state were a bit more accurate. Second, President Obama won despite the unresolved economic crisis, which brought record numbers in unemployment (10% in 2011, slightly decreasing over subsequent months, but still at 7.9 % shortly before the election). For an incumbent to win under such circumstances is highly remarkable.  After WWII, only Republican Ronald Reagan was able to be reelected with an unemployment rate of more than 7%. Third, considering the fact that this was one of the most expensive electoral campaigns in US history, it was not big money that turned this election around. The countless adds and rallies organized by the Republicans were outflanked by the viable organization of various on the ground activities pursued by the Democrats. A tight network of local campaign offices, grass-roots organization and countless volunteers played a major role in the final outcome. This is not to say, that money and ads will cease to play an important role, but it shows that campaigning can be more successful if citizens are engaged. Voter turnout was remarkably high und surpassed all expectations. And finally, unexpected events can play a major role in elections outcome. Hurricane “Sandy”, despite all of its destruction, helped to shape perceptions of the viable leadership role of the President.

The Empire State Building Changing Lights, Election Night, November 6, 2012      Foto (Cell Phone): Upal Basu Roy

The challenges of the second term of President Obama are multifold. Above all, the President needs to hammer out a policy addressing the fiscal cliff to avoid across the board tax increases and major budget cuts in social programs. In order to find a settlement, he needs the support of Republican senators and representatives. Whether or not an agreement can be reached, and effective measures to decrease the budget deficit can be implemented depends, above all, on the willingness of Republicans to cooperate. The fact that Democrats have a comfortable majority in the Senate and several Tea Party favorites lost out to more moderate Republican candidates may help overcome the political blockages that have characterized the past few years. Next year, 12 new senators will join the chamber, only three of whom are Republican. As the New York Times notes, many of the other new Senators are younger, more liberal and more feisty than the ones they replaced and several have already expressed support for ending legislative abuse. In his second term, the President will have to take a more forceful leadership role to solve the key problem of the ever increasing budget deficit without derailing the social reform process he set in motion, including his goal to improve America´s infrastructure. His mandate is strong, but he also needs to carve out viable policy choices in cooperation with the Republicans.

Decision 2012 and US-Foreign Policy: Does Europe Matter? (Christiane Lemke) - Week 9

Over the past months, I have witnessed New York City as a key site for foreign policy debates. While Washington D.C. is the political capital of the United States and houses the State Department, the Pentagon and other relevant government agencies, New York City can be described as the capital of foreign policy expertise. It is not only the home of several major think tanks, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the oldest foreign policy institutions in the US, and several other think tanks. The city also hosts key international institutions, such as the United Nations, international human rights groups and global financial institutions. Living in New York City, relations to other parts of the world are an integral part of academic life, intellectual debates, and everyday conversations. But interestingly enough, the abundance of global perspectives present in New York City stands in sharp contrast to the role foreign policy played in this years´ presidential election. 

With only a few hours left before the election results come in, I wondered, as a European, why foreign policy has played such minor role in the campaign.  Even in the last TV-debate of the presidential campaign, which was designed to address foreign policy issues, the two presidential candidates shifted their focus several times to elaborate on domestic concerns. Key issues addressed in the foreign policy debate were the situation in the Middle East, the nuclear threat posed by Iran, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and relations with China. It became quite clear that these areas are of key concern and strategic interest for the US, while Europe, Latin America and Africa were not mentioned in this debate at all (despite all of the great concern about the Euro zone crisis in previous months).  Security concerns as well as economic competitiveness and trade relations foremost shaped this debate, and the concern over economic recovery after the global financial and economic crisis was clearly reflected in the priorities of the campaign.

Over the past months, interest in European countries regarding the US-elections has been remarkably high and most Europeans have observed the elections very closely. One of the key questions in the past days has been, what to expect from either of the candidates? Of course, in contrast to the American debate, foreign policy has played a key role in Europeans ´assessments.

Based on statements in the electoral campaign, the two candidates seem to agree on key questions. In the final TV-debate, Governor Romney agreed with most of President Obama´s foreign policy stances. Both emphasized strong American leadership and fighting terrorism and Governor Romney followed President Obama in his plan to withdraw US-troops from Afghanistan by 2014. But looking more closely, there are distinct differences in the policy frame: Mitt Romney is clearly influenced by a neo-realist world view; according to his view, the world is hostile, and the greatest adversaries are China,  Russia, Iran, and Pakistan. American leadership takes national interests as starting point and potential allies (Governor Romney explicitly mentioned Turkey in the debate) should follow this priority. President Obama, on the other hand, takes a more pragmatic view. His emphasis is on nation-building at home, including the modernization of infrastructure, expanding renewable energy sources, and investing in education. He prefers to pair tough sanctions towards Iran with thorough international negotiations, he proposes a highly cautious approach to Syria, and he sees China as an important, albeit competitive, trading partner, as well as serious global actor to solve questions of global stability. His pragmatism is grounded in the recognition of a multi-polar world, one in which foreign policy must include flexibility and communication.

If President Obama is reelected on November 6, Europeans can expect a highly predictable setting and some continuity in foreign policy. If Mitt Romney is elected president, he may or may not implement policies of the neo-realist super-power age, and there is some uncertainty as to how exactly he will handle global economic competitiveness. But his choice of a foreign policy team, which includes former advisors of the Bush-administration, may set the stage for a more confrontational administration globally for the years to come.

Given the shifts in American foreign policy, does Europe no longer matter? Most observers agree that American interests have shifted to the Pacific, and trade relations with China are rapidly increasing. Moreover, due to immigration patterns, American society is also changing, including more and more Asian Americans and Spanish speaking Americans (one of the fastest growing groups in American society). But it would be wrong to discount US relations with Europe. After all, trade with European countries and the EU outranks trade with China, and in terms of security policy, NATO is still the most important military alliance for the US. Moreover, there is a close network of civil society relations, academic research connections, travel between the two continents, and historical ties provide for a crucial underpinning of cultural affinity. Against this backdrop, the presidential debates provided a somewhat distorted picture. In the real world of policy-making, we should count Europe into the equation of foreign policy. But the US is expecting Europeans to take up more responsibilities for themselves, including the settlement of the Euro zone crisis and the shaping of EU Foreign and Security Policy.

How Will Hurricane „Sandy“ Affect the Election? (Christiane Lemke) - Week 8

As we were awaiting hurricane „Sandy“ here in New York on Monday night, October 29, stocking up on water and supplies for the days to come, I thought about how the storm would affect Decision 2012.  In what has become a very close race for the White House, this unexpected “October surprise“ may complicate the outcome of the election even further.

Hurricane “Sandy“ was expected to be geographically even larger and more forceful than Hurricane „Katrina“, which devastated the Gulf area in 2005 and left several hundred people dead, and “Sandy“ did indeed turn out to be a “monster storm“ (however, with a much smaller death toll). Well before the storm hit the Northeastern coast of the US, President Obama approved requests for emergency declarations for nine states, including New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, clearing the way for federal support in these states. Citizens on the East Coast were warned as early as three days in advance, and evacuations started well before the landfall of the hurricane was expected. In New York City, this included areas along the coast, but also lower parts of Manhattan. By Sunday night, public transportation closed down and schools and universities, including New York University, were scheduled to close on Monday and Tuesday (this was later extended until Saturday, November 3).  Websites and TV stations broadly covered precautionary measures and issued check lists to prepare for the state of emergency. Students at New York University were advised to stay indoors and, after the storm, they received detailed information about food and shelter and other essentials, such as Internet access. In a rare move, even the New York Stock Exchange announced that it would close on Monday and Tuesday.

At the time of this writing, on Wednesday, October 30, we are still without electricity, Internet, telephone connection, or water here in our apartment building in Lower Manhattan. Overall, 2.2 million people in New York had no electricity after the storm, all subways are closed, and there are no commuter trains coming in from New Jersey, Long Island, and the Northern part of New York state. While nobody in the NYU community was seriously injured, the material damage to the institution, which, for example includes  one of the world´s leading medical research facilities, Langone Medical Center, is extensive.  

In the political realm, one of the immediate results of the hurricane was the rescheduling of campaign events. Among the battleground states, Virginia was most affected, and bothPresident Obama and Governor Romney cancelled their scheduled rallies there due to the storm. The other states which declared emergencies this week are less contested in the elections, but it is quite clear that the rescheduling will also affect the presence of the candidates and voter drives in other battleground states, such as Ohio, where both candidates are competing hard for votes.

Aside from upsetting the campaign schedule, the hurricane will also affect voter turnout. Campaign volunteers, grassroots groups and other organizations, for example, encouraged early voting on Monday, fearing that poll stations might not be easily accessible after the storm. and some churches called for “souls to the polls“ during Sunday services before the storm.

In an already tight race, the storm adds other uncertainties: President Obama has received high ratings for the management of the disaster, but will voter preferences shift due the handling of the storm ? Will President Obama benefit  from the advantage of positioning himself as a competent leader who managed the crisis well? Or will Mitt Romney be able to reshape his image as a more likeable candidate due his disaster relief activities in battleground states? Will the anti-government forces in the Republican field regret recommending the privatization or devolution of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)?

And finally: will election results be contested due to inoperable equipment or inaccessible polling stations? Will there be recounts, or even legal battles – a “nightmare“ as the New York Times contends, shortly before the storm?

At the point of this writing it is difficult to predict what the hurricane will mean for voter turnout and how it will affect accessibility to voting stations on or before November 6.  It is even more difficult to assess how voter preferences may shift in the final days before the elections. The answer is that we will not know until  the votes of the November election are counted.  But the political debate will clearly be affected by the desaster for days and weeks to come.

Decision 2012: The Great Virginia Question (by guest author Erica R. Lee) - Week 7

Growing up in Richmond, Virginia, I have always been keenly aware of history. Much of the storied history of this country has involved the Commonwealth of Virginia in some capacity. We proudly tout that our native sons were not only some of the Founding Fathers of this great nation, those of which include the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Father of the Constitution, but we are also the Mother of Presidents, home to eight United States Presidents.

Sometimes we’ve been on the right side of history and other times, the wrong, but in general, we’ve always had a strong voice in the conversation. The 2012 Presidential election is no exception to this rule. Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1965,Virginia has trended Republican along with the rest of the Southern States. There have been a few exceptions along the way, most notably, when we elected the first popularly elected African American Governor, the Honorable Douglas Wilder in 1990.

Since 2006, Virginia, along with our neighbor to the south, North Carolina, has been considered a swing state in Senate and Presidential elections.  Much of this is due to demographic shifts within the state over the last ten years. Northern Virginia is a region of transplants, many of whom work in government related industries and have liberal leanings; the Tidewater/coastal area is still heavily populated by African Americans and the military that also heavily lean democratically. The mountainous regions are largely conservative save for the college towns of Blacksburg and Charlottesville. Central Virginia leans conservative, but as recent elections have shown, that edge is shrinking.

Before I moved to New York to start at NYU for graduate school, I took a visit to Giles County, Virginia, a county in the southwestern, mountainous portion of Virginia to visit my mother’s side of the family. I like to take the state and rural routes from Richmond to Giles, following Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s retreat route and I found something very puzzling, I saw a very large number of yard signs supporting President Obama. As mentioned before, central and southwestern Virginia typically votes republican, but as I was driving through, I was really quite surprised at the level of prominent support displayed for the President.

Giles County, Virginia                                Photo: Erica R. Lee

In 2008, Virginia voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate for the first time since 1968. Current polls have President Obama and Governor Romney neck and neck for Virginia’s 13 electoral votes. As with most swing states, early voting and election day turn out will be essential for both sides. Even though many still have their reservations about President Obama for various reasons, Governor Romney has not won over fans with how he speaks about his immense amount of wealth. A September Reuters article titled ‘Southern whites troubled by Romney’s wealth, religion’ tries to explain why some in the more conservative areas of Virginia are still undecided. Apparently I was not the only one to notice how some of the most reliably solid Republican voters in central and southwestern Virginia are still considering their candidate options on the lead up to November 6th.

As detailed in the article, many in the rural areas of Virginia are very skeptical of Governor Romney’s penchant for displaying his wealth. Many believe that he cannot relate to the common Virginian and their daily life.  In Virginia, the unemployment rate is below the national average (5.9%) so candidate personality, likeability, and relatability are going to be large influencing factors in the small portion of undecideds that remain.  

For President Obama to carry the state it will be important for him to convert a decent percentage of these undecideds as well as Republicans dissatisfied with their own party’s Presidential candidate. For Governor Romney, it will be very important for him to maintain his advantage in Central and Southwestern Virginia. Governor Romney can only hope those voters will look past some of his gaffes and what is perceived as his ostentatious display of wealth. Either way, Virginia stands to play a very important role in this Presidential election and again in United States history. Whether we vote red or blue, our decision will impact the United States going forward for years to come.

{source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/11/us-usa-election-poll-bible-belt-idUSBRE88A05H20120911}

(Erica R. Lee is a master student at New York University and assistant to the Max Weber Chair. She graduated from Howard University in 2010)