Addressing these social and political divisions therefore requires bottom-up approaches more than ever, building trust in institutions, public infrastructure, and non-partisan cooperation at the community level.
At the federal level, the Biden administration will accompany such approaches by doing everything it can to prevent rhetoric that might further divide the country. Much has been written about the Blue coasts and Red heartland of the United States. But the fundamental political rift does not run between state lines, but within them.
It is the chasm between urban agglomerations and rural areas. In the middle between the two, the politically more diverse and thus highly contested suburbs form a third category. This socio-geographic disparity is accompanied by contrasting cultural and political attitudes and educational backgrounds.
As in , the average income of Trump voters exceeds that of Biden supporters. Given that the US electoral system affords disproportionate political power to rural states, the Democrats urgently need a more viable political strategy for rural areas.
Addressing the social urban-rural divide is also the key issue to tackle the political polarization at the federal level that has been paralyzing the United States in recent years. The Democrats fell short of their own great hopes for a landslide victory for Biden, and thus also for a resounding, unambiguous rejection of Trumpist populism.
They were able to make significant gains among the general electorate and even among Black and Latino voters. This significantly dampens hopes that the Republican Party will be reformed and become more moderate in the medium term.
With this strategy, the Republicans earned new seats in the House of Representatives and will likely uphold their Senate majority in this election. Equally important are their successes at the state level, where they were able to win or defend solid majorities in state parliaments, giving them the chance to gerrymander districts in their favor next year and thus cement their political power for years to come.
For perspective, it will also be important to take a good look at mail-in voting to see the effect of the pandemic on this election. But it remains to be seen to what extent the pandemic has also heightened fears and insecurities among broad sections of the population, driving them even further into the arms of populists and conspiracy theorists.
Given all these challenges facing the new administration, Germany and Europe should entertain realistic expectations. Biden and Harris will depend on the support of like-minded partners at least as much as Europe depends on them.
And yet, with this government, we can now open a new chapter in transatlantic relations, which is direly needed because we face many shared challenges, from overcoming the climate crisis, defending and consolidating our liberal democracies both at home and to the outside, to policies to shape our digital world and our cooperative, lawful global order.
Differences of opinion and conflicting interests will continue to exist. But with the Biden government, the European Union expects a partner who largely shares our view of global challenges, who can revive the transatlantic alliance of values, and who is committed to strengthening democratic alliances worldwide. By contrast, only 13 percent support a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from the legislature or the courts. Even fewer support military government.
That said, while publics are not turning their back on representative democracy, they are willing to consider other forms of decision making. Seventy percent favor referendums in which citizens vote directly on major national issues, and 43 percent believe that allowing experts to make decisions about what is best for their countries makes sense. The news is mostly good. Among respondents, 78 percent believe that democracy is preferable to any other form of government, while 83 percent think it is very important to live in a democratic system.
Nonetheless, 23 percent are open to a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections, and 18 percent would countenance military rule. Openness to undemocratic alternatives was most pronounced among voters who combine economic liberalism and cultural conservatism—the policy profile most characteristic of U. It was also evident among voters who favor one primary culture over cultural diversity, believe that European heritage is important to being an American, and harbor highly negative views of Muslims.
Nearly half the voters who supported Barack Obama in but switched to Donald Trump in favored a strong, unencumbered leader and declined to endorse democracy as the best form of government. It is not clear that these findings represent a break with the past. Overall support for a leader who can act unchecked by Congress and the courts is no higher than it was two decades ago.
In practice, not every manifestation of populism threatens liberal democracy. While the Brexit vote, as a policy decision made by referendum, raised some issues in terms of parliamentary sovereignty, its outcome ultimately pivoted on policy concerns.
In systems where liberal-democratic institutions are strong, disputes about trade, immigration, and even national sovereignty can still take place. In the long run, the effort to place such issues beyond the pale of political contestation will do more to weaken liberal democracy than robust debate ever could.
But sometimes the populist challenge does directly threaten liberal democracy. Left unchecked, moves to undermine freedom of the press, weaken constitutional courts, concentrate power in the hands of the executive, and marginalize groups of citizens based on ethnicity, religion, or national origin will undermine liberal democracy from within. The country that gave birth to the Solidarity movement is following his lead.
We dare not ignore these developments, which may well be harbingers of worse to come. In the space remaining, I can only gesture toward the elements of a liberal-democratic response to the populist challenge.
An independent judiciary, freedom of the press, the rule of law, and protected space for civil associations secular and religious represent the first line of defense against illiberalism, and they must be safeguarded.
At the same time, political reforms are needed to restore the ability of liberal-democratic institutions to act effectively. Gridlock frustrates ordinary citizens and makes them more open to leaders who are willing to break the rules in order to get things done.
Populist parties often espouse measures, such as trade protectionism and withdrawal from international institutions, that challenge established arrangements but not liberal democracy itself. In a similar vein, it is essential to distinguish between the liberal element of liberal democracy and what is often called cultural liberalism. Liberal democrats can adopt diverse views on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, local traditions, and religion while remaining true to their political creed.
Political leaders can assert the right of their nations to put their interests first without threatening liberal-democratic institutions and norms. Again, this is a policy dispute within liberal democracy, not about liberal democracy. The defenders of liberal democracy should likewise acknowledge that control of borders is an attribute of national sovereignty, and that liberal democrats can have a wide range of views on the appropriate number and type of immigrants to admit.
In recent decades, as public concerns about population flows across national borders have intensified throughout the West, this issue has done more than any other to weaken support for liberal-democratic norms and institutions. Worries about the increased demand for social services, too, have played a part. But darker fears are also at work.
The threat of Islamist terrorism has made Western populations less willing to absorb new immigrants or even refugees from Muslim-majority countries. Citizens increasingly fear that Islam and liberal democracy are incompatible and that a clash of civilizations is inevitable.
National identity is taking on increasing prominence in politics, and those who believe that liberal democracy draws strength from diversity have been thrown on the defensive.
Large population flows, finally, have triggered concerns about the loss of national sovereignty. But the concern extends beyond illegal immigration. Since the passage in of reforms that liberalized U. In , first-generation immigrants made up 14 percent of the population, just shy of the peak slightly over a century earlier.
One may speculate that any country even a self-styled nation of immigrants has a finite capacity to absorb new arrivals, and that bumping up against this limit triggers a reaction that detractors condemn as nativist. But denouncing citizens concerned about immigration as ignorant and bigoted does nothing either to address the issue in substance or to lower the political temperature.
As recent decades have shown, no mechanism automatically translates economic growth into broadly shared prosperity. So, too, is allowing the concentration of economic growth and dynamism in fewer and fewer places. The second half of the s was the last time that the incomes of all economic groups from top to bottom progressed together at roughly the same rate.
That history suggests that full employment should be a focus of economic policy. This is a moral as well as an economic imperative. In modern societies, work provides more than a livelihood; it gives our lives structure and purpose, and is a key source of self-confidence and social respect. It promotes stable families and healthy communities and strengthens the bonds of trust between individuals and their governing institutions. Conversely, we know all too well the consequences of long-term unemployment: diminished self-respect, increased strife within families, epidemics of substance abuse, blighted neighborhoods, and a corrosive sense of helplessness.
The challenge is not only work for all, but also reasonable compensation. In the long run, workers cannot spend more than they are paid. When the housing bubble burst, these families suffered an economic shock that drove many into bankruptcy. The recovery since the end of the Great Recession has been the weakest of the entire postwar period largely because household and family incomes have remained flat.
Only wage increases can generate more vigorous growth, and if market mechanisms fail to produce higher wages, public policy should step in. The principle of inclusive growth applies across lines of geography as well as class. Throughout the market democracies of the West, remote and less densely populated regions are losing ground to metropolitan centers. Agricultural areas can still do well when prices are high, but the light industries that once thrived in smaller communities have weakened in the face of competitive pressure.
More than that, it appears that the modern knowledge-based economy thrives on the density and diversity found in larger cities, where concentrated professional networks spur innovation. For this reason, public policy cannot fully eliminate the rural-urban gap. But by investing in transportation infrastructure that enables people who work in cities to live further from their places of employment, governments can help small towns participate in the fruits of metropolitan growth.
Information technology can also be an asset: Expanding internet access today, like rural electrification during the New Deal, could help to bring isolated communities into the national economy and society. Liberals are anti-tribal, cherishing particular identities while subordinating them to broader conceptions of civic and even human solidarity. But citizens often crave more unity and solidarity than liberal life typically offers, and community can be a satisfying alternative to the burdens of individual responsibility.
Preferring those who are most like us goes with the grain of our sentiments more than does a wider, more abstract concept of equal citizenship or humanity. So does the tendency to impute good motives to our friends and malign intent to our foes. Antipathy has its satisfactions, and conflict, like love, can make us feel more fully alive. The appeal of populism—with its embrace of tribalism, its Manichean outlook, and the constant conflict it entails—is deeply rooted in the enduring incompleteness of life in liberal societies.
This vulnerability helps explain why, in just twenty-five years, the partisans of liberal democracy have moved from triumphalism to near despair. But neither sentiment is warranted. Liberal norms favour international cooperation, human rights, democracy and rule of law. When a state takes actions contrary to these norms, they are subject to various types of costs.
However, international norms are often contested because of the wide variation in values around the globe. Nevertheless, there are costs for violating liberal norms.
The costs can be direct and immediate. For example, the European Union placed an arms sale embargo on China following its violent suppression of pro-democracy protesters in The embargo continues to this day. The costs can also be less direct, but equally as significant.
For example, favourable views of the United States decreased significantly around the world following the invasion of Iraq because the invasion was undertaken unilaterally outside established United Nations rules in a move that was widely deemed illegitimate.
Most liberal scholarship today focuses on how international organisations foster cooperation by helping states overcome the incentive to escape from international agreements.
This often causes confusion as neoliberalism is also a term used outside IR theory to describe a widespread economic ideology of deregulation, privatisation, low taxes, austerity public spending cuts and free trade.
The essence of neoliberalism, when applied within IR, is that states can benefit significantly from cooperation if they trust one another to live up to their agreements. In situations where a state can gain from cheating and escape punishment, defection is likely. However, when a third party such as an impartial international organisation is able to monitor the behaviour of signatories to an agreement and provide information to both sides, the incentive to defect decreases and both sides can commit to cooperate.
In these cases, all signatories to the agreement can benefit from absolute gains. Absolute gains refer to a general increase in welfare for all parties concerned — everyone benefits to some degree, though not necessarily equally. Liberal theorists argue that states care more about absolute gains than relative gains.
Relative gains, which relate closely to realist accounts, describe a situation where a state measures its increase in welfare relative to other states and may shy away from any agreements that make a competitor stronger.
By focusing on the more optimistic viewpoint of absolute gains and providing evidence of its existence via international organisations, liberals see a world where states will likely cooperate in any agreement where any increase in prosperity is probable. One of the more interesting illustrations of liberalism comes from the foreign policy of the United States during the early twentieth century. During this period, the United States was liberal, but according to the dominant historical narrative, also imperialistic see Meiser So, there appears to be a contradiction.
If we take a closer look we see that the United States was more restrained than commonly believed, particularly relative to other great powers of that era. One simple measure is the level of colonial territory it accrued compared to other great powers. By , the United States claimed , square kilometres of colonial territory, compared to 2,, for Belgium, 2,, for Germany and 32,, for the United Kingdom Bairoch , In fact, the bulk of American colonial holdings was due to the annexation of the Philippines and Puerto Rico, which it inherited after defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War of The United States exhibited such restraint because, as suggested by liberal theory, its political structure limited expansionism.
Examining US—Mexico relations during the early twentieth century helps illustrate the causes of this American restraint.
In the spring of , the United States invaded the Mexican city of Veracruz because of a dispute over the detention of several American sailors in Mexico. The initial objectives of the American war plan were to occupy Veracruz and neighbouring Tampico and then blockade the east coast of Mexico until American honour was vindicated — or a regime change occurred in Mexico.
Wilson did not actually follow any of the advice he received. Instead, he reduced his war aims, halted his forces at Veracruz and withdrew US forces within a few months.
Wilson exercised restraint because of American public opposition, his own personal values, unified Mexican hostility and the military losses incurred in the fighting. This potentially endangered foreign ownership of mines and oilfields in Mexico. Interventionists wanted to turn Mexico into an American protectorate — or at least seize the Mexican oil fields.
This coalition moved the country toward intervention while Wilson was distracted by peace negotiations in Europe and then bedridden by a stroke. The path to intervention was blocked only after Wilson recovered sufficiently to regain command of the policy agenda and sever the ties between the interventionists. Wilson had two main reasons for avoiding the more belligerent policy path.
First, he saw the Houses of Congress with the support of some members of the executive branch attempting to determine the foreign policy of the United States, which Wilson viewed as uncon- stitutional. In the American system, the president has the authority to conduct foreign policy.
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