SGI 2022 | United States | Key Challenges

Key Challenges

Recent Governments Experts

SGI experts on United States

Richard Johnson

Dr Richard Johnson is Senior Lecturer in US Politics and Policy at Queen Mary, University of London. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge (BA in Social and Political Sciences) and Nuffield College, Oxford (MPhil in Comparative Government, DPhil in Politics). He has previously been a lecturer at Lancaster University and has taught courses at Cambridge, Oxford, and Beijing Foreign Studies University.

His main research centres on race and democracy in the United States. This was the subject of his book The End of the Second Reconstruction (Polity, 2020), which uncovers the role of political violence, federalism, and the federal judiciary in sabotaging civil rights from the Civil War to the Trump presidency. He has published academic research on elections and campaigning in the US, including on the Voting Rights Act, the communication strategies of African American candidates, Black nationalism and electoral politics, fundraising strategies of working-class candidates, and the role of presidents in midterm elections, as well as on racially polarised partisanship, ‘white flight’ from the Democratic Party, and the Trump administration’s policies on voting rights and incarceration. He is currently writing a textbook on US politics (under contract with Bloomsbury) and a book about the first Black candidates to stand for office in predominantly white electorates between 1966 and 2006 (under contract with Columbia University Press).

Christian Lammert

Christian Lammert is professor of North American politics and policy at the John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin. He recieved his PhD from the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main (2002) with a dissertation on nationalist movements in Quebec and Corsica. He has published widely on topics such as nationalism and regionalism in Quebec, social policy in the United States and the politics of health care reform in the United States. He is currently editing a handbook on the U.S. political system (VS Springer Verlag).

Daniel Béland (Coordinator)

Daniel Béland is Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada and James McGill Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. He has held visiting academic positions at Harvard University, the University of Bremen, the University of Nagoya, the University of Southern Denmark, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Professor Béland currently serves as Executive Editor of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis and President of the Research Committee 19 (Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy) of the International Sociological Association. A student of social and fiscal policy, he has published more than 20 books and 160 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Despite President Biden’s achievements, U.S. democracy is in a very fragile state. Biden entered the White House after an attempted insurrection by supporters of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who actively encouraged their cause. America’s electoral processes are dysfunctional, largely because they are managed by state governments. Trump holds a much different view from Biden on sustainable governance, maintaining a strong stance against policies aimed at tackling climate change. His record on social welfare and labor protections is mixed, although the mainstream position among his party’s elected officials is clearly hostile. If Trump is elected in November 2024, he will reorient the federal executive branch’s priorities in direct opposition to those of Joe Biden.

Nonetheless, both presidents’ legacies are not entirely within their own control. For example, while Joe Biden has become a supporter of a woman’s right to choose in his later political career, it was during his presidency that the Supreme Court ended the national constitutional right to an abortion, devolving abortion law to state governments and depriving millions of women of access to abortion in the meantime. Likewise, Donald Trump might find that some of his efforts – such as his increasing desire to use the legal system to persecute his political opponents – may run into trouble from forces within the judicial branch itself.

There is a growing sense that the United States has lost its swagger on the world stage. Its self-confidence has taken significant blows recently, and the challenge posed by the rise of China is more palpable now than ever. However, this report does not uniformly paint a bleak picture of the country’s prospects or its commitment to sustainable government. The capacity of the federal government is vast; it remains an enormous investor in science and technological research. The United States is a wealthy country with extensive human and natural resources that are productively deployed. Although the country is characterized by high levels of inequality, even the living standards of lower-income Americans are relatively high.

The United States now operates in a more competitive international space than it did after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The threats to U.S. power are clearer than ever. It can no longer rest on its laurels as it once perhaps did. However, the Biden administration has demonstrated a strong understanding of this among U.S. policymakers. Biden’s four signature spending bills are only understandable when seen from the perspective of arresting American decline.

In the years ahead, significant benefits from Biden’s policy legacy will emerge, even if Donald Trump is elected president. Infrastructure investment will provide long-term advantages, strengthening the U.S. economy and enhancing productivity. Biden’s investments in science, research, and specific manufacturing sectors help build the country’s resilience against potential future shocks to the international system. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is the largest climate and industrial strategy legislation in the free world, aiding the United States in meeting its global commitments to tackling climate change.

A future Trump presidency will not be able or even willing to overturn these investments. The U.S. political system will contain some, but not all, of his governing instincts. Trump cannot be a dictator in a way familiar to the outside world. There are too many limitations on the presidency. Policymaking in the U.S. is too sclerotic. The federal system and separation of powers constrain his policy options. However, Trump will do his best to continue to erode faith and trust in the U.S. political system, and it is here where he may do – and already has done – lasting damage.