On November 3, 2020 it will be decided who will be President of the United States for the next four years. Experts from the University of Cologne from the disciplines of political science, North American history, and law will give their respective assessments in text and video contributions on the website of the University of Cologne: on the political situation, on polarization in the United States, on the U.S. electoral system, on the influence of social media on politics, and on the impact of an election victory by Trump or a success by Biden on the country.
Professor Dr. Thomas Jäger, holder of the Chair of International Politics and Foreign Policy at the University of Cologne, analyzes the political situation in the country in his article "USA - a divided country chooses" and says about the American election campaign: "Unlike Biden, Trump is fully committed to polarization.
Professor Dr. Kirk W. Junker holds the Chair of American Law at the University of Cologne. In several video contributions, he comments on various legal aspects of the U.S. election in 2020 and is critical of the current electoral system in the U.S.: "The 'Electoral College' is neither up-to-date nor fair.
Dr. Bruno Castanho Silva of the Cologne Center for Comparative Politics (CCCP) deals with social media and their influence on politics. Through his research, he has found that "in 2018, radical-right politicians were the biggest beneficiaries of 'malicious bots'. Nevertheless, he says: "Recent results suggest that political advertising and campaigns as a whole have little influence on the behavior of voters in the US. So even if malicious bots are still a widespread problem in social media, they should not be held responsible for possible unexpected or undesirable election results in November".
Dr. Barbara Lüthi and PD Dr. Olaf Stieglitz from the Department of North American History at the Historical Institute have made assessments of how the election outcome will change America's path.
Lüthi says: "Above all, what is needed is a willingness and concession on the part of the white population to recognize their system-inherent privileges. Stieglitz says: "The real political tasks for the future lie far beyond the deselection of Donald Trump - structural racism and sexism, armed violence, climate change, the health system and much more.
The collected contributions to the US election can be found on the following website:
https://portal.uni-koeln.de/universitaet/aktuell/us-wahl-2020/