http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/13/global-economic-crisis-li_n_134393.html
Global Economic Crisis Likely To Have Profound Consequences For US
Politics, World Relations
October 13, 2008 11:12 PM
The global economic crisis is likely to have profound, long-range
consequences for American politics and for the relations of the United
States with the rest of the world, severely constraining any effort to
maintain or revive the Bush administration's propensity for
unilateralism, and posing a broad international challenge to free market
ideologies, according to a range of experts.
The scope of these changes remains uncertain, and all those who
responded to October 11 and 12 inquiries from the Huffington Post warned
that predictions in these circumstances are perilous. But there is a
strong consensus that it would be a mistake to minimize the coming
upheavals.
In the United States, economic developments have the potential to lay
the groundwork for a political transformation with major alterations in
both the composition of, and balance of power between, the major
political parties. There are "reasons for thinking that the American
election of 2008 may be the equivalent of the election of 1932 - an
electoral sea change ushering in a new wave of government intervention
and, if that intervention is successful, a durable electoral
realignment," says Peter Hall, Krupp Foundation Professor of European
Studies at Harvard, in a wide-ranging analysis he provided to the
Huffington Post, available in full at the end of this article.
In Europe, Hall contends, "the political effects are likely to be more
diffuse. If the ensuing recession is not too deep, the current crisis
may provide Prime Minister Gordon Brown with just enough credit for the
Labour party to survive the next British election and Angela Merkel with
the wherewithal to remain German Chancellor. But history suggests that
electorates tend to punish governments that preside over deep recessions
and to look, in some cases, to the political extremes for new faces and
voices. Therefore, there is reason to worry about the rise of far right
parties in Europe, in particular, where they have already made inroads
by running against the market-oriented policies of the European Union."
"Although enthusiasm for market competition has been waning in European
capitals for some years, the current financial crisis will strike it a
serious and potentially fatal blow," according to Hall.
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