Description
Book SynopsisThis book provides a concise and engaging analysis of the particularly unusual 2020 election year in the USA. The political science perspective illuminates societal tensions in the context of the Corona pandemic and elaborates election-deciding discourses. Larger socio-political trends such as ideological polarisation are addressed as well as the different campaign strategies of the two parties. In addition, the book offers insights into the election results of this landmark presidential election for American society and for the development of its democracy. The final evaluation of the resulting implications for transatlantic relations rounds off the book.
Table of Contents1 Introduction
2 Joe Biden on the road to the nomination
2.1 The Democratic Party's system for nominating candidates
2.2 Turning Points South Carolina and Super Tuesday
2.3 Joe Biden and the Democratic electorate
2.4 Summary
3 Voting in the shadow of the pandemic
3.1 Absentee voting in the USA in the face of partisan polarisation
3.2 Who can vote? - Voter registration, voter ID laws and polling stations
3.3 Summary
4 Democrats versus Republicans
4.1 The Southern Strategy as a precursor to asymmetric polarisation
4.2 The radicalisation of political discourse
4.3 Summary
5 Polarisation and its manifestations
5.1 Party affiliation and preferences in the American electorate
5.2 The polarisation of members of Congress
5.3 Summary
6 Economic Policy as a Question of Fate: Elections in the Wake of the Recession
6.1 The shadows of the pandemic
6.2 Social inequality
6.3 Public policy in times of crisis
6.4 Priorities of the Trump administration
6.5 The Economic Policy Concept of the Democrats
6.6 Summary
7 A society without a net: Social issues in the election campaign
7.1 The Crisis in the Health System
7.2 Social Justice: The Demands for Social Justice as a Controversial Issue
7.3 The ideological balance in the Supreme Court and its socio-political consequences
7.4 Summary
8 Minorities in the USA: The Controversial Immigration Debate
8.1 Contrasting conceptions of society
8.2 Social development and political orientations of minorities
8.2.1 The Hispanic minority
8.2.2 The Asian-American minority
8.2.3 The African-American Minority
8.3 Summary
9 The strategies in the 2020 election campaign
9.1 Biden's classical approach as antithesis to Trump's populism
9.2 Opposing Narratives: The Democratic and Republican Party Conventions
9.3 The delegitimisation of the election and its consequences
9.4 Summary
10 The election results and their transatlantic implications
10.1 The results of the 2020 presidential election in historical comparison
10.2 Transatlantic relations under President Biden: A New Beginning?
10.3 Summary
11 Final considerations
