The 2020 U.S. Presidential election is the most important election in recent U.S. history. Domestically, the institutions that are meant to guarantee democratic stability have been undermined and are endangered just at a time when the country faces several internal crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic recession, and political unrest. Internationally, the outcome of the U.S. election is of no less importance. The U.S.’ global leadership role has made it a central actor in stabilizing the global order, and the outcome of the election will have significant implications for whether and how it will carry out this role in the future. Given the stakes—and no matter what the outcome—in the coming months the central political question will be: What way forward for America at home and abroad? Lora Anne Viola is currently University Professor in the Politics Department of the John F. Kennedy Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin (FUB). She received a PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago, a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the University of Chicago, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Economics from Columbia University in New York City. Before joining the FUB she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Berlin Social Science Research Center (WZB) and a visiting scholar at Stanford and Oxford Universities. She has held research fellowships at the European University Institute and the Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich. Viola’s research areas include international institutions and global order, U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy, international relations theory, historical institutionalism, and inequality in the international system. Viola’s book on inequality and hierarchy in the international system, "The Closure of the International System", has been published in 2020 with Cambridge University Press. She is a native New Yorker and an adopted Berliner. Organizer: Bavarian American Academy https://www.facebook.com/BayerischeAm... https://www.amerika-akademie.de http://www.amerikahaus.de http://www.facebook.com/amerikahaus http://www.instagram.com/amerikahaus http://www.twitter.com/amerikahausWeniger anzeigen