American Presidential Elections in a Comparative Perspective

Though the U.S. has been a dominant world power since WWII, many of its citizens, even of its academic community, remain quite parochial. Jesus Velasco’s valuable collection, American Presidential Elections in Comparative Perspective: The World is Watching, asks how the U.S. has been viewed around the world and how has Donald Trump’s election impacted those views. Soberingly, a dozen scholars from the leading nations of Asia, Europe, and Latin America argue that concerns about U.S. insularity, inequality, and democratic decline have been confirmed and deepened by Trump’s election and early conduct in office. This book is critical but uncomfortable reading. -- Cal Jillson, Southern Methodist University
Since deTocquville, foreign observers have played an important role in helping America understand itself. In this volume, Jesus Velasco has assembled a stellar group of scholars from around the world to comment on America’s recent presidential elections. Americans will have much to learn about themselves through the eyes of these astute students of American politics. -- Benjamin Ginsberg, Bernstein Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University
This excellent edited volume brings together a series of highly informative, well written and insightful chapters from authors drawn from the major countries of Asia, Europe and Latin America that focus on international perceptions (good, bad, and ugly) of the U.S. role in the world since the 2016 election of President Donald J. Trump. It provides an extremely useful corrective to the usual American assumption that the United States is always seen to be the “good guy” fighting the “good fight” around the globe. The actual picture that emerges from these essays is a much more complex and contradictory one that should be required reading for every American interested in world affairs. -- Bruce M. Bagley, University of Miami
The world is watching. This volume shows how foreign views of the US electoral process respond to each country’s historical relations with the US and to its strategic and economic interests. More impressively, it also shows that government-to-government views are not the whole story. Connected by broadcast and social media, sophisticated mass publics around the world now react in real time to the spectacle of American democracy. And their nearly unanimous reaction to Donald Trump has been one of bewilderment, apprehension, and disgust. As the book concludes, this has dire implications for US influence--and for democracy—globally. -- James E. Mahon Jr., Williams College