A panel discussion in German language with Jessica Gienow-Hecht, Thomas Risse, Johannes Thimm, Dominik Tolksdorf, and Sarah Bressan (moderation) to make sense of the midterms’ impact on US politics and foreign policy, liberal democracy, and the liberal international order. Live with free admission at the silent green.

About the Event

Midterms matter, to the US and, at least potentially, to the rest of the world. While the Republican Party has taken control of the House of Representatives, Democrats have retained the Senate. What do the midterms reveal about the trajectory of US democracy? Is their outcome a reaffirmation of liberal core values, norms, and institutions or just a prelude for continued democratic regress, especially given Trump's renewed candidacy? At what point would the US have abandoned liberal democracy? What is more, the midterms also have a potential impact on the current and future US foreign policy, although foreign policy concerns seem to have mattered little to the outcome: A divided Congress could impede the US engagement in Ukraine. 

The panel will discuss the implications of the midterm elections for US politics and foreign policy, liberal democracy and the liberal international order. They will also explore how the outcome of the midterms could affect Europe, and Germany in particular. In the end, the question will be: Has the liberal order been saved by the election’s outcome?

In cooperation with the silent green.

Speakers

Prof. Dr. Jessica Gienow-Hecht is a historian for international and American history and Chair of the Department of History at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. At SCRIPTS she is a Principal Investigator. A former Heisenberg-Fellow as well as holder of the Alfred Grosser Chair at Sciences Po (Paris), she has taught at numerous universities in Germany, France, the US and Japan. Her research focuses on the role of culture in international history -with a focus on the interplay between cultural projection and interaction in conjunction to geopolical influence from the early modern period to the present. In addition, she has worked as a journalist (FAZ, Die Welt, Süddeutsche, Neue Rhein-/Ruhr Zeitung, and others), and continues to appear in the media with contributions related to transatlantic relations and North America.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Risse is Professor em. for International Politics, Freie Universität Berlin, Senior Professor of the Cluster of Excellence SCRIPTS, and since 2019 Director of the Berlin International College of Research and Graduate Training. Until the beginning of 2022, he was Professor of International Politics and director of the Center for Transnational Relations, Foreign and Security Policy at the Otto-Suhr- Institute of Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin. From 1997-2001, he was Joint Chair of International Relations at the European University Institute's Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the Department of Social and Political Sciences in Florence, Italy. In his research, he mainly focuses on Transnational Relations, Human Rights and Security Policy.

Dr. Johannes Thimm is Deputy Head of “The Americas” Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), a think tank that advises, among others, the German parliament and the federal government on foreign and security policy issues. Having obtained his PhD in political science at Freie Universität Berlin in 2009, he has published numerous articles on transatlantic relations and global governance. His research focuses on US domestic politics and its impact on US foreign policy, US foreign policy towards international organizations, and international law.

Dr. Dominik Tolksdorf is a Research Fellow in the field of US/Transatlantic Relations at the German Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he worked as Programme Manager for Foreign and Security Policy at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Washington, D.C., focusing on current developments in transatlantic relations as well as US and EU policies towards EU neighbouring states. With a PhD from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, he has been a visiting researcher and lecturer at the US Institute of Peace, the SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, the Institut français des relations internationals, the Institute for European Studies (Brüssel) and the Centrum für Angewandte Politikforschung (Munich), among others.

Sarah Bressan (Moderation) is a Research Fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin. Her work focuses on international security, political violence, conflict prevention, as well as the role of data, technology, foresight, and evaluation in German and European foreign and security policy. She is an editorial team member at “49security”, a blog for expert and civil society input on Germany’s first national security strategy.