Nous sommes devenus les Etats-Unis de France. (…) Nous sommes plus français que les Français. (…) Et en plus, les snobs de la cuisine français adorent les McDonalds, qui font un tabac là-bas. Eux au moins, il savent reconnaître une frite de liberté quand ils en goûtent une. Bill Saporito (Time, sep. 2008, et donc déjà avant l’élection)
Nous sommes tous français maintenant. Bruce Nussbaum (Business week, mars 2009)
Obama est-il français? France 24 (débat, mars 2009)
Barack Obama a en grande partie ringardisé la gauche européenne et même française. Jack Lang (avril 2009)
Trop français Obama? Les Echos, (supplément Les Enjeux, mai 2009)
Entre Barack Obama et Pascal Lamy je choisis Barack Obama! Benoît Hamon (porte-parole du Parti socialiste)
Le 14 novembre 2008, la Commission européenne a exaucé la pétition réelle et non fictive des marchands de chandelles en grevant les chandelles importées de Chine de droits de douane de 66%. Je ne croyais pas qu’un texte littéraire écrit il y a 160 ans puisse devenir une réalité, mais cela est arrivé. Václav Klaus (président de la République tchèque, devant le Parlement européen, le 20 février 2009)
Avant (…) de se lancer dans une critique sans nuance de l’ouverture des marchés, il faudrait quand même se demander pourquoi les dirigeants de la moitié de l’humanité considèrent aujourd’hui que l’ouverture des marchés constitue un élément essentiel de leur développement. Seraient-ils à ce point aliénés par l’idéologie néolibérale? Zaki Laïdi
Diplomatie de plus en plus Quai d’Orsay, projet de doublement du budget santé, plan de relance à 4,8% du PIB, déficit abyssal à 12% (1750 millards !), chômage à 8,5%, baisse des impôts pour les plus riches, secrétaires d’Etat issus de Wall street et soupçonnés de fraude fiscale, conseiller économique ayant reçu 50 millions de dollars d’un hedge fund l’an dernier …
Pendant qu’un siècle et demi après Bastiat, l’Europe exauce littéralement la pétition de ses marchands de chandelle …
Et où, crise oblige et à un mois à peine des élections européennes, la préférence européenne et nationale reprend en France et pas seulement chez Le Pen, du poil de la bête …
Retour, avec une intéressante remise des pendules à l’heure de Zaki LaÏdi dans la Tribune il y a deux semaines, sur la réalité de cette France que tant d’obamalâtres des deux côtés de l’Atlantique rêvent d’imposer au chef de file du Monde libre.
Rappelant notamment que tous les pays émergents sans exception (Brésil, Chine, Inde) ont “fait le choix de l’ouverture des marchés” face à une France “en voie de désindustrialisation et en perte significative de parts de marché sur le marché mondial”.
Que l’Europe “que l’on prétend sans défense est la première puissance commerciale du monde et au sein de cette Europe, un pays comme l’Allemagne est le plus grand exportateur du monde”.
Que “l’idée selon laquelle l’Europe serait beaucoup moins bien protégée que le reste du monde n’est étayée par aucun fait précis”.
Que l’argument du dumping environnemental ne tient non seulement pas la route mais pourrait se retourner contre elle car elle “exporte proportionnellement plus de produits intensifs en carbone que les États-Unis ou la Chine”, “ses exportations restant avant tout des exportations industrielles” …
Que le dumping social est “contrairement à ce que l’on pense relativement limité, la France étant de tous les grands pays développés celui dont le taux de pénétration des importations de pays à bas salaires est le plus faible” (11 %), “ses véritables concurrents étant non les Chinois mais les Allemands” …
Et qu’enfin que, “révélée mais non provoquée par le développement des pays émergents”, la véritable cause de nos problèmes, à savoir “l’inadaptation de notre outil industriel à la compétition mondiale” serait due en fait à la taille trop petite de nos PME qui “ne parviennent pas à exporter” et à “la faiblesse du dialogue social qui conduit les grandes entreprises françaises à privilégier la création de l’emploi en dehors de l’Hexagone” …
La gauche et le protectionnisme
Zaki Laïdi
La Tribune
28/04/2009
Avant de se lancer dans une critique sans nuance de l’ouverture des marchés, il faudrait quand même se demander pourquoi les dirigeants de la moitié de l’humanité considèrent aujourd’hui que l’ouverture des marchés constitue un élément essentiel de développement. Et l’Europe que l’on prétend sans défense est la première puissance commerciale du monde et au sein de cette Europe, un pays comme l’Allemagne est le plus grand exportateur du monde. Ce qui nous ramène au problème de fond, l’inadaptation de notre outil industriel à la compétition internationale.
“Entre Barack Obama et Pascal Lamy je choisis Barack Obama ! ” Pour Benoît Hamon, porte-parole du Parti socialiste, auquel on attribue ce propos, les choses sont relativement simples. Face à la crise financière, la préférence européenne, avatar modernisé de l’indémodable préférence nationale, doit l’emporter sur la poursuite de l’ouverture des marchés. Quoi qu’il en soit l’argumentaire défavorable à l’ouverture des échanges est bien connu. Depuis un siècle il n’a d’ailleurs pas beaucoup changé : les gains de l’ouverture des marchés sont surestimés ; lorsqu’ils existent, ils profitent d’abord et avant tout aux catégories sociales les plus privilégiées ; enfin ils induisent un nivellement social et environnemental par le bas qui serait défavorable aussi bien aux salariés des pays du Nord qu’à ceux du Sud.
Pourquoi ces arguments ressurgissent périodiquement et trouvent un écho significatif au-delà d’ailleurs de l’électorat de gauche. À cela, trois raisons. La première est historique. Elle tient à l’existence d’un fort courant français protectionniste hostile à la libéralisation des échanges et pour qui le fondement de la richesse repose sur le mercantilisme. Dans cette perspective, exporter, c’est bien, mais importer peut se révéler socialement très dangereux.
Pourtant, l’histoire n’explique pas tout. S’y ajoutent deux éléments importants : le fait que la France connaît depuis une bonne quinzaine d’années un processus de désindustrialisation qui se traduit notamment par la perte significative de parts de marché sur le marché mondial. Le fait aussi que les gains de l’échange, même s’ils sont considérables, n’entraînent pas forcément une redistribution égale. À partir de ces deux éléments indiscutables, on comprend le sens d’un raisonnement qui consisterait à penser qu’en se repliant sur ses frontières, on protégera ces emplois et on s’assurera d’une meilleure répartition des fruits de la croissance.
L’ennui est que cette stratégie n’a jamais été mise en œuvre par aucun pays au monde. Bien au contraire, tous les pays émergents sans exception ont fait le choix de l’ouverture (Brésil, Chine, Inde). De surcroît, tous sans exception n’éprouvent aujourd’hui qu’une crainte : que la crise financière entraîne un protectionnisme dans les pays riches qui pourrait stopper leur développement spectaculaire. Avant donc de se lancer dans une critique sans nuance de l’ouverture des marchés, il faudrait quand même se demander pourquoi les dirigeants de la moitié de l’humanité considèrent aujourd’hui que l’ouverture des marchés constitue un élément essentiel de leur développement. Seraient-ils à ce point aliénés par l’idéologie néolibérale ?
En fait, l’explication est relativement simple. Les Chinois, les Indiens et les Brésiliens ont compris que l’ouverture des marchés constituait un instrument puissant de leur développement, même si, à l’évidence, l’ouverture des marchés ne suffit pas à développer un pays. Cette réalité étant incontournable, les adversaires de l’ouverture des marchés se replient sur un autre argument. Ils sont prêts à admettre que l’ouverture des marchés peut profiter aux pays émergents, mais soulignent que ce développement s’effectuerait au détriment des salariés des pays riches. Les choses étaient tellement plus faciles quand les pays émergents n’exportaient que des matières premières non transformées ! Mais même cet argument connoté est fort contestable.
L’Europe que l’on prétend sans défense est la première puissance commerciale du monde et au sein de cette Europe, un pays comme l’Allemagne est le plus grand exportateur du monde. Allez dire aux Allemands que la solution à la crise passe par un relèvement du tarif extérieur commun de l’Union européenne. Ils y verront un acte de pure folie. L’idée selon laquelle l’Europe serait beaucoup moins bien protégée que le reste du monde n’est étayée par aucun fait précis. Quant au dumping environnemental, l’Europe n’a aucun intérêt à en faire un instrument de protection car, contrairement à des idées reçues, elle en serait la première victime. En effet, l’Europe exporte proportionnellement plus de produits intensifs en carbone que les États-Unis ou la Chine car ses exportations restent avant tout des exportations industrielles. Quant au dumping social, il est contrairement à ce que l’on pense relativement limité. La France est de tous les grands pays développés celui dont le taux de pénétration des importations de pays à bas salaires est le plus faible (11 %). Ses véritables concurrents ce ne sont pas les Chinois mais les Allemands.
Ce sont eux qui lui taillent des croupières sur les marchés. Et en toute logique c’est contre les Allemands qu’il faudrait se protéger ! Ce qui nous ramène au problème de fond qui est l’inadaptation de notre outil industriel à la compétition mondiale. Or, cette inadaptation est révélée mais non provoquée par le développement des pays émergents. Cette inadaptation tient à deux faiblesses structurelles françaises : la taille trop petite de nos PME qui ne parviennent pas comparativement à leurs concurrentes allemandes à exporter ; et la faiblesse du dialogue social qui conduit les grandes entreprises françaises à privilégier la création de l’emploi en dehors de l’Hexagone. C’est sur ces bases qu’il faut construire le débat et non en recherchant à l’extérieur des boucs émissaires.
Zaki LaÏdi, directeur de recherche à Sciences po et Auteur de “La norme sans la force. L’énigme de la puissance européenne”, Presses de Sciences po, 2008.
Voir aussi:
How We Became the United States of France
Bill Saporito
Time
Sep. 21, 2008
Now our laissez-faire (hey, a French phrase), regulation-averse Administration has made France’s famed Socialist President, François Mitterrand, look like Adam Smith by comparison. All Mitterrand did was nationalize France’s big banks and insurance companies in 1982; he didn’t have to deal with bankers who didn’t want to lend money, as Paulson does. When the state runs the banks, they are merely cows to be milked in the service of la patrie. France doesn’t have the mortgage crisis that we do, either. In bailing out mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, our government has basically turned America into the largest subsidized housing project in the world. Sure, France has its banlieues, where it likes to warehouse people who aren’t French enough (meaning, immigrants and Algerians) in huge apartment blocks. But the bulk of French homeowners are curiously free of subprime mortgages foisted on them by fellow citizens, and they aren’t over their heads in personal debt.
We’ve always dismissed the French as exquisitely fed wards of their welfare state. They work, what, 27 hours in a good week, have 19 holidays a month, go on strike for two days and enjoy a glass of wine every day with lunch — except for the 25% of the population working for the government, who have an even sweeter deal. They retire before their kids finish high school, and they don’t have to save for $45,000-a-year college tuition, because college is free. For this, they pay a tax rate of about 103%, and their labor laws are so restrictive that they haven’t had a net gain in jobs since Napoleon. There is no way the French government can pay for this lifestyle forever, except that it somehow does.
Voir également:
One France Is Enough
Roger Cohen
The NYT
March 5, 2009
The French writer François Mauriac once said during the cold war that he loved Germany so much, he was glad there were two of them. After what an undivided Germany had done to France in World War II and before, that was understandable.
To paraphrase Mauriac, I love France, but I don’t want there to be two of them, least of all if one is in the United States.
Don’t get me wrong, I think President Obama’s counter-revolution goes in the right direction. In fact, it’s less a question of right and wrong with his budget than of necessity. After the excesses of Reagan-inspired deregulation and the disaster that unfettered markets have delivered, the pendulum had to swing.
Still, the $3.6 trillion Obama budget made me a little queasy. There is a touch of France in its “étatisme” — the state as all-embracing solution rather than problem — and there’s more than a touch of France in the bash-the-rich righteousness with which the new president cast his plans as “a threat to the status quo in Washington.”
Of course, the budget proposal represents a maximalist position that Congress will claw back. Obama knows that. Still there was something breathtaking about the scope of the president’s targets and ambitions. For everyone from the oil and gas industry to drug companies, the message was clear: Off with their heads!
I’d thought of Obama as less Robespierre than Talleyrand. I still think he’s more bridge-building centrist than revolutionary. He needs to be. Money has never been more fungible than today.
Punish capital and it will punish you by saying, “Hasta la vista!” The former French President François Mitterrand learned that a little over a quarter-century ago when, after an initial wave of nationalizations, he reversed course.
Obama, too, will have to adjust and make trade-offs, while keeping his eye on core goals, like bringing health coverage to the country’s 45 million uninsured. As he does so, he should be careful to guard America’s spirit, without which recovery will stall.
I lived for about a decade, on and off, in France and later moved to the United States. Nobody in their right mind would give up the manifold sensual, aesthetic and gastronomic pleasures offered by French savoir-vivre for the unrelenting battlefield of American ambition were it not for one thing: possibility.
You know possibility when you breathe it. For an immigrant, it lies in the ease of American identity and the boundlessness of American horizons after the narrower confines of European nationhood and the stifling attentions of the European nanny state, which has often made it more attractive not to work than to work. High French unemployment was never much of a mystery.
Americans, at least in their imaginations, have always lived at the new frontier; French frontiers have not shifted much in centuries.
Churn is the American way. Companies are born, rise, fall and die. Others come along to replace them. The country’s remarkable capacity for innovation, for reinvention, is tied to its acceptance of failure. Or always has been. Without failure, the culture of risk fades. Without risk, creativity withers. Save the zombies and you sabotage the vital.
If America loses sight of these truths, it will cease to be itself.
When the Big Three automakers, their heads in the sand, have made the wrong models with the wrong technologies for years, while their competitors adapted, I think it’s inevitable that one — probably Chrysler — must pay the price. Bankruptcy is not necessarily the same as liquidation.
I know, this is an exceptional moment. Decidedly the “Decider” delivered a debacle. President Obama, its recipient, sometimes resembles the trustee-in-chief of national bankruptcy proceedings. Hope is on hold.
Trillions are the new billions and because 80 is the new 70, or so we are led to believe, you will get to live longer to witness where all the debt accumulated by throwing money into the bottomless pit of A.I.G., and its cohorts in leveraged fleecing, leaves the country.
We are told that the collapse of A.I.G. would pose a “systemic risk,” but it would be a tonic to my particular system if someone in the Obama administration could explain why in plain language.
The battle lines are being drawn. Mitt Romney, the former Republican presidential candidate, said of the Democrats: “As they try to pull us in the direction of government-dominated Europe, we’re going to have to fight as never before to make sure that America stays America.”
Romney’s got it upside-down. The Republicans under Bush destroyed the American economy and what America stood for in the world. But that does not change the fact that Obama, in his restorative counter-revolution, must be careful to steer clear of his French temptation.
Greek tragedy holds that hubris, or overweening pride, leads inexorably to nemesis, divine judgment and at the last may usher in utter destruction. The United States is in full post-Bush nemesis. In its core values, un-Gallicized, lies the long road to redemption.
Voir de même:
Le vieux canard
More nonsense about Europe and America
The Economist
Mar 12th 2009
More nonsense about Europe and America
A SPECTRE is haunting the United States—the spectre of Europe. Republicans such as Newt Gingrich, the grand old man of the party, and Mike Pence, one of its firebrands, say that Barack Obama’s Democrats are imposing “European-style socialism” on America. “As they try to pull us in the direction of government-dominated Europe,” says Mitt Romney, arguably the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2012, “we’re going to have to fight as never before to make sure that America stays America.”
This sort of sentiment is not confined to the cave-dwellers of the right. Roger Cohen, a liberal New York Times columnist, worries that “one France is enough”. Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard economist, says “I take the 2008 US elections as marking a turn toward continental Europe.” Six years after Robert Kagan claimed that “Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus”, there is a growing feeling that the two planets are destined to merge.
But are they? They are certainly getting a bit closer. Mr Obama is raising taxes on the rich, bailing out failed businesses, tackling climate change and dramatically increasing public spending. A decade ago American government spending stood at 34.3% of GDP compared with 48.2% in the euro zone, a gap of 14 points; in 2010 it is expected to be 39.9% of GDP compared with 47.1%, a gap of less than eight points, according to Newsweek.
What is more, Mr Obama’s rise has coincided with a softening of American exceptionalism. America is unlikely to repeat George Bush’s America über alles foreign policy in the near future. A growing number of states have imposed moratoriums on the death penalty. Support is growing for everything leftish, from tackling global warming to letting gays marry.
Still, the two planets have a very long way to travel before they meet. Consider a horrific event at a First Baptist Church in Illinois on March 8th. An unknown assailant pulled out a semi-automatic weapon and started firing at the preacher. The preacher managed to deflect the gunman’s first four rounds using his Bible, sending a confetti-like spray of paper into the air, but was eventually felled. That is not the sort of thing that goes on of a Sunday in Tunbridge Wells.
There is nothing particularly “European” or “socialist” about Mr Obama’s stimulus package. Countries the world over are spending public money in a bid to boost demand and shore up the banks. Indeed, some of the most stubborn resistance to deficit financing has come from Europe, particularly from Germany and the EU finance ministers. Messrs Gingrich and Romney might note that the man who set this ball rolling was not Mr Obama but Mr Bush, the most un-European politician imaginable.
What about Mr Obama’s plans to raise taxes and redirect social policy? There are plenty of plausible criticisms of these (such as the fact that his numbers do not add up), but the idea that they entail “full-scale Europeanisation”, as Mark Steyn, a columnist, argues, is one of the least persuasive. Mr Obama’s budget will return the top tax rates to 36% and 39.6%—back to where they were during Bill Clinton’s administration. Mr Clinton ended up presiding over the high-tech boom and a surge in the number of small businesses. Mr Obama has eschewed the single-payer model of health-care reform long advocated by the European-minded left; he wants to use public insurance to supplement the private system, not supplant it. Many of the strongest supporters of his health-care reforms are business people who are being crushed by the exorbitant cost of health care.
For all Europe’s Obamamania Mr Obama is, in fact, one of the least European-minded of American presidents. JFK studied at the London School of Economics with Harold Laski, a leading British socialist. Bill Clinton went to Oxford University and surrounded himself with Rhodes scholars who liked to discuss the German educational model. John Kerry was famously not just French-speaking but also “French-looking”.
Mr Obama’s roots lie in Kenya, Indonesia and Kansas—any continent but Europe. His two books hardly mention Europe at all. “The Audacity of Hope” includes a disparaging reference to the idea that America should “round up the United Kingdom and Togo” as supporters—and then do as it pleases. The only European country that gets a mention in the index under “Foreign policy, US” is Ukraine—and that nation gets less space than Indonesia.
Consider the converse
The fury about “European socialism” is not just wrong as a matter of fact. It is foolish as a matter of policy. Europe has plenty of things to teach the United States (particularly about running a welfare state), just as America has plenty to teach Europe (particularly about igniting entrepreneurialism). Indeed, a more telling criticism of the Obama administration is not that it is borrowing too much from Europe but that it is learning too little.
Sweden and the Netherlands have a comprehensive system of school choice (the Dutch even allow public money to flow to religious schools). Switzerland and the Netherlands have a market-based system of health care which uses private insurers, covers everyone, and does so at a much lower cost than the American system. Britain has taken contracting-out in the public sector much further than America has done.
Europeans and Americans are never likely to coalesce: their cultural traditions are too strong and their solutions to the problem of regulating capitalism too distinctive. But they nevertheless have plenty in common—ageing populations, exploding entitlements and above all, at the moment, a wrenching recession. Europeans have thankfully toned down the America-bashing that was popular a few years ago. Americans might consider returning the compliment.
Voir enfin:
Is America the New France?
How President Obama’s Policies are Transforming the United States
Brookings
May 13, 2009
Event Summary
When President Barack Obama unveiled his budget proposal in February, many observers described it as a radical departure for the American experiment, one that put the United States on a path to become like a European social democracy. One columnist lamented that “one France is enough,” and a political opponent derided the budget as “a blueprint for the France-ification of America.” The new administration bears more than a passing resemblance to its European counterparts in setting aside funding for universal health care and high-speed trains, increasing federal intervention in the markets and embracing green industrial policy and greater social equality. But, is the Obama administration really taking the American model in the direction of European social democracies? If so, would that be such a bad thing?
On April 28, the Brookings Institution hosted a discussion to assess the scope and meaning of the “Obama revolution,” possible reactions by the American public and an apparent narrowing of U.S.-Europe differences. Panelists include Brookings Senior Fellows William Galston and Pietro Nivola; Guest Scholar Jonathan Rauch, a senior writer for National Journal and The Atlantic Monthly; and Clive Crook of the Financial Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and National Journal. Senior Fellow Justin Vaisse provided introductory remarks and moderate the discussion. After the program, panelists answered audience questions.
Transcript
MR. VAISSE: Hello everybody. My name is Justin Vaisse, I am a Senior Fellow at the Center on the US and Europe. I would like to welcome you here at Brookings for a debate on the new direction America is taking, a debate on the scope and the interpretation of the changes we have witnessed in the last hundred days.
We have picked a catchy title to encapsulate these changes, a title that some will find slightly scary: “Is America the New France?” But really, they should think again. If America was the new France, – You would get from here to New York City in an hour and a half in a high-speed train like the TGV; – 80% of your electricity would be carbon-free because it’s nuclear; – Everybody would have robust health insurance and you would live longer; – Of course, the food and wine would be much better.
Beyond the jokes lies a serious question about the possible turn of the American experiment. Two months ago, when President Obama unveiled his proposed budget and his far-reaching reforms, many commentators decided this amounted to a radical departure from the past, putting the US on the road to becoming a European social democracy.
Roger Cohen (from the New York Times) wrote that “One France Is Enough”, and assured the reader that “in America’s core values, un-Gallicized, lies the long road to redemption”, while David Brooks warned against “a transformative relationship that turns us into France.”
And it is true that in setting aside funding for universal healthcare and high-speed trains, increasing federal intervention in the markets, embracing green industrial policy and greater social equality, the new administration bears more than a passing resemblance to countries like France. But before jumping to conclusion, there are at least three questions to answer about the current turn of events. The first one is the following:
Is there such a thing as an “Obama revolution” – are the reforms contemplated by this administration far-reaching enough in their scope to be compared to the historical changes that presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson or Ronald Reagan brought about?
Second question: Are these changes putting America on the path of becoming a European social democracy – and if the answer is yes, is that a good or a bad thing?
The third question: Does it help to think in terms of models and metaphors, or are these misleading oversimplifications? It is not only that Americans don’t like to think of themselves as anything other than Americans or, worse, as following a model. It is also that maybe we are operating on stereotypes rather than realities – whether for France and Europe or for the US.
Let me give you one example. Instinctively, you would think that the French model would be closer to the heart of liberals here. But just 3 days ago, Senator Lamar Alexander, a conservative Republican from Tennessee, extolled the virtues of France in his response to President Obama’s weekly radio address. He was bashing the Democrats for not following the French model on nuclear energy, but not only – and let me quote from him: “We Americans always have had a love-hate relationship with the French. Which was why it was so galling last month when the Democratic Congress passed a budget with such big deficits that it makes the United States literally ineligible to join France in the European Union. Now of course we don’t want to be in the European Union. We’re the United States of America. But French deficits are lower than ours, and their president has been running around sounding like a Republican – lecturing our president about spending so much.”
And indeed, as you may know, the big question of the past two years in Paris, since Nicolas Sarkozy was elected, has been: Is France the new America? – which makes the point that maybe our Transatlantic models are not working very well and don’t describe the true situations. To help us entangle these questions, we have four distinguished panelists, and I will introduce them in the order that they will speak. Clive Crook here on my left will speak first. After being with The Economist for 20 years, Clive is not Chief Washington Affairs Commentator for The Financial Times. That would normally keep any of us busy, but Clive is also writing for The Atlantic, and for The National Journal. And it is for this last Journal that he wrote a very thoughtful column last month about this precise question of whether Obama is turning America into a European social democracy, so he will give us his opinion on that.
Pietro Nivola will speak next. He’s a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies here at Brookings where he hold the Douglas Dillon Chair. After being Director of Governance Studies for four years, he’s now Codirector of the Red and Blue Nation Project which studies the implication of partisan polarization in America, and this is precisely the question that we will be asking Pietro: Is the American public ready to become French? Or rather, what part of the American public or the elite is ready for this? Joke aside, is the political environment permissive for an ambitious progressive agenda where the Government would assume a much larger role to the extent that it defines the Obama Revolution?
Bill Galston, who is sitting next to Pietro, is also a Senior Fellow here at Brookings where he holds the Ezra Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies. A former advisor to President Clinton and presidential candidates, Bill is an expert in domestic policy, political campaigns and elections, and he’s also involved in the Red and Blue Nation Project. We will ask Bill not only his take on whether America is becoming French, but, more importantly, if these labels “France” and “America” are as clear-cut as they seem to be, and if they help us to understand the current changes or not.
Last but not least, Jonathan Rauch is a senior writer and columnist for National Journal magazine, and a correspondent for The Atlantic. But he’s also a guest scholar here in Governance Studies. Jonathan is a policy commentator and a few years ago he was awarded the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary, which is the equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize in the magazine world. We will ask Jonathan whether we really are at a turning point in the American experience and whether this is limited to the election and the administration of Barack Obama. In other words, what are the longer-term tendencies, especially in the comparisons between America and Europe.
