The Roberts Court (the period of the Supreme Court since John Roberts became Chief Justice in 2005) is one of the most unpopular Supreme Courts in modern American history. Its controversial decisions have eroded landmark legislation, such as the Voting Rights Act and Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, empowered President Trump to take legally suspect actions, and rescinded the constitutional right to abortion. The Court’s eagerness to transform American politics and public policy has elicited growing public backlash and arguments that the Court’s actions are anti-democratic.

These concerns about the Court’s anti-democratic role echo the longstanding worry about what is known as “countermajoritarian difficulty”, a pattern where the judicial branch can overrule laws and policies that have been put in place by legislators who have been elected by a majority of the public. A group of political scientists and legal scholars sometimes known as “regime theorists” explored this concern and largely dismissed it, finding that even an active Court was generally aligned with, and drew legitimacy from, the elected branches. In new work, we revisit this concern and argue that developments in party politics have reshaped the role of the Supreme Court in American democracy, unlocking its potential to act against majoritarian governance.

The countermajoritarian difficulty and the regime theory response

The “countermajoritarian difficulty” describes a fundamental tension between representative democracy and a robust judiciary. On one hand, democratic governance is based on majority rule, which can be undermined by an unelected judiciary that is not accountable to public majorities. On the other hand, a powerful judiciary can protect minority rights and ensure elected officials abide by the “rules of the game”. In the mid-20^th century, critics of the Warren Court argued the Court had become too active as a national policymaker and argued that it should defer to elected lawmakers.

In political science and legal studies, a prominent response to the countermajoritarian difficulty has come from “regime theory”, which examined cases of significant policymaking by the Supreme Court in the 20th century and earlier. Regime theorists showed that the Court has typically worked alongside a dominant governing coalition or “regime” in the elected branches. For much of American history, large and ideologically diverse political coalitions have dominated control of the presidency and Congress for long stretches of time, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Competitiveness and Party Control in National Government, 1860-2025

Source

Through judicial appointments and other coalition building efforts, these dominant coalitions built a Supreme Court that is broadly aligned with them. Under these circumstances, the Court supported majorities in government by legitimating legislative achievements of the national government, disciplining state and local outliers who are out of sync with national standards and addressing issues that may internally divide the dominant coalition in government. Through these functions, the Court supported a coalition that is backed by electoral majorities and tended to rule in alignment with what the public wants. According to regime theorists, fears of a countermajoritarian court may be theoretically compelling, but were not reflected in reality.

Contemporary party dynamics 

The Roberts Court operates in a far more different political environment than previous Supreme Courts, however. Compared to past Courts, the Roberts Court serves in an era of unusually high levels of competition between the parties, where neither party has been able to dominate control of government and divided government – where no-one party controls the White House, House and Senate – is often the norm (see Figure 1). Cohesion within the parties has also increased, with both parties becoming more ideologically united.

As with past Courts, the Roberts Court maintains an alignment with a party coalition. But in today’s context, this means the Court is aligned with one of two competitive coalitions rather than a dominant one. For the Republican Party, this means they can rely on the Court to consistently advance their agenda even as they are in tight competition with Democrats for control of the elected branches.  

““Equal Justice Under Law”” by John Brighenti, CC BY 2.0

It is these dynamics that mean that the judiciary has become able to operate in a counter-majoritarian way. Instead of legitimatizing legislation, disciplining outliers, and addressing splits within political parties, the Supreme Court supports the party coalition it is aligned with by curtailing policy implementation by the opposing party and advancing controversial issues that would be risky to pursue by the elected branches.

Closer national election results make it increasingly difficult for Congress to enact legislation for the Court to legitimate as narrow majorities struggle to overcome a veto-riddled legislative process. Meanwhile, ideological unity within the parties means there are fewer internally divisive issues for the Court to address, with some exceptions. Instead, the Court more routinely advances the agenda of one competitive, unified political coalition at the expense of the other competitive political coalition.

The Roberts Court in action

Major rulings from the Roberts Court show that in periods of close electoral competition and unified parties, the Supreme Court can advance controversial and unpopular aspects of a party’s agenda. For example, the Roberts Court has struck down provisions of the Voting Rights Act and Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Elected Republicans could have pursued these changes through legislation, but that would have posed political risks and cost valuable resources that they can now avoid.

The Roberts Court has also supported the Republican Party by curtailing the Democratic Party’s ability to enact and implement its own policy agenda. For example, the Roberts Court nullified the mandatory Medicaid expansion provisions from the Affordable Care Act and blocked major executive initiatives taken by the Biden Administration, including student debt relief and vaccine-or-test mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the Court has largely been permissive of Republican presidents’ executive actions.

What this means for American democracy

The current state of American politics sees two largely unified parties competing to win narrow majorities in the national government. This will position the Supreme Court to be a countermajoritarian institution for the foreseeable future. Even with consistent turnover in the elected branches, one party coalition can seize long lasting control of the US Supreme Court, which in turn helps it to implement its most controversial policy preferences and blocks policy implementation by their rival party.

These concerns are magnified by the ideological distance between the Republican and Democratic parties, which means the Court is delivering on a policy agenda that is often highly polarized and contentious. The current competitive and polarized environment also makes it difficult for Congress to discipline or override the Court, eroding the mechanisms of accountability that previously curbed judicial power.

Today, these dynamics favor the Republican Party. But regardless of the coalition with which the Court is aligned, under periods of high party cohesion and high electoral competition, the Supreme Court can be a counter-majoritarian force in American politics.

• This article is based on the paper, “The Countermajoritarian Difficulty Revisited: Theorizing Court–Party Relations in the United States”, in Perspectives on Politics.
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The post Changing American politics have given the Supreme Court unprecedented power to support one party’s agenda over another first appeared on LSE United States Politics and Policy.

• This article is part of our ‘The 2026 Midterms‘ series curated by Peter Finn (University of Greenwich). The series explores the run-up to the 2026 US midterm elections at the state and national levels. If you are interested in contributing to the series, contact Peter Finn (P.D.Finn@greenwich.ac.uk).

“The Democratic Party is at a crossroads,” wrote Bernie Sanders in 2025 following Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in the New York City mayoral race. As the United States looks ahead to the 2026 midterm elections, that assessment appears more prescient than ever, particularly in light of a series of progressive victories in Democratic primaries this summer.

While some commentators may have dismissed Mamdani’s win last year as a uniquely New York phenomenon, Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary earlier this month suggests that progressive candidates are capable of mobilising significant support well beyond blue urban strongholds, including in key swing states.

But crossroads are nothing new for the Democratic Party. Rewind four decades to the eve of the 1986 midterm elections, for example, and the party was similarly confronting fundamental questions about its future – grappling with ideological divisions, debating how best to challenge a dominant Republican in the White House, and searching for a winning formula in a rapidly changing political landscape.

Indeed, the Reagan era may offer important lessons for Democrats navigating the Trump era. To be clear, any attempt to draw historical parallels is fraught with danger: it risks flattening distinct political contexts and imposing false equivalences on fundamentally different moments. But while history never repeats itself exactly, it can illuminate interesting comparisons – and the choices made by the Democrats in the mid-1980s may shed light on the challenges they face today.

The Reagan Era: The 1986 midterms and the limits of moderation

Following Walter Mondale’s heavy defeat in the 1984 presidential election, many Democratic leaders concluded that the party had become too closely associated with liberalism to remain electorally competitive. In response, prominent figures established the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in 1985, a top-down organisation dedicated to steering the party towards the political centre through a greater emphasis on market-oriented policies, fiscal restraint, and moderation on social issues. To the DLC, the lesson of 1984 was clear: Democrats would only return to power by moving rightwards and appealing to centrist voters who had drifted towards Ronald Reagan.

Yet the 1986 midterm elections complicated that diagnosis. After a sustained period of grassroots organising, liberal activists helped mobilise key Democratic constituencies, particularly women and minoritised voters, to drive the party to recapture of the Senate and secure unified control of Congress for the first time in the Reagan era. Rather than confirming the DLC’s argument that Democrats needed to moderate their message, the election suggested that the party’s progressive coalition remained a potent electoral force when effectively organised and energised.

Significantly, many of the Democratic candidates elected in 1986 did not run as centrists or “Republican-lite” alternatives. While their campaigns varied in emphasis, they often focused on issues associated with the party’s liberal wing, including social welfare, economic fairness, and the growing importance of identity-based political concerns. As Boston Globe journalist Martin Nolan observed at the time, the election represented a “defeat for Me-Tooism” – a rejection of the view that Democrats could prosper only by moving right.

The consequences of the 1986 elections extended far beyond the immediate electoral cycle. By securing a liberal-leaning congressional majority, Democrats gained the institutional power to place meaningful checks on Reagan and his eponymous revolution. Over the next two years, the Democratic-majority Congress passed a series of significant pieces of legislation, defeated one of Reagan’s Supreme Court nominees, and frustrated much of the administration’s domestic agenda. Indeed, Reagan’s legislative success rate during the final years of his presidency fell to the lowest level recorded since Congressional Quarterly began tracking in 1953.

The 1986 experience therefore offers a broader lesson about the relationship between party leaders and their grassroots supporters. At a moment when much of the Democratic establishment had concluded that the party’s future depended upon moving to the centre, it was the mobilisation of liberal constituencies that delivered one of the party’s most consequential victories of the decade. In doing so, the election not only reshaped the balance of power in Washington but also demonstrated the risks of ignoring a party base whose priorities and energy can, at crucial moments, prove decisive.

“A roll of “I Voted” stickers in Aitkin Public Library on Primary Election Day, Aug. 11, 2026. in Aitkin” by Lorie Shaull, CC BY 4.0

The Trump Era: The 2026 midterms and the debate over Democratic direction

Forty years later, Democrats once again find themselves engaged in a debate over whether electoral success lies in moderation or mobilisation. Recent progressive primary victories have reignited tensions between the party’s moderate and progressive wings, with centrists warning that the left’s gains could damage Democratic prospects in competitive races and reshape the party’s ideological direction. The debate bears a clear resemblance to that which emerged after 1984, when the DLC argued that the party needed to move beyond its traditional liberal coalition.

Yet recent contests suggest that many Democratic voters are drawing a different conclusion, with increasing numbers rallying behind candidates advocating more ambitious economic and social reforms. Responding to criticisms from centrist Democrats following a string of progressive victories in congressional primaries this summer, Mamdani posed a simple but politically significant question: “What’s a party if not its voters?”

His remark captures a growing sentiment among progressive activists that the party’s future should be shaped from the bottom up rather than imposed from the top down. Mamdani’s victory in New York and El-Sayed’s success in Michigan, among others, do not, in themselves, prove that the Democratic electorate has moved leftwards. They do, however, indicate that a growing segment of the party’s base is seeking a more confrontational alternative to both Trumpism and establishment caution.

To be sure, the circumstances of 2026 differ substantially from those of 1986. Reagan entered the latter half of his presidency with approval ratings and electoral successes that Trump has yet to replicate, while today’s political environment is considerably more polarised and marked by deeper divisions over both domestic and foreign policy.

Mobilising grassroots liberal support may be the key to a Democratic electoral victory

Nevertheless, the underlying question remains strikingly familiar: should party leaders prioritise persuading swing voters through ideological moderation, or by mobilising the base through a clearer articulation of Democratic values? The lesson of 1986 is not that the Democratic Party should automatically embrace every demand of its progressive wing. Rather, it is that party elites ignore their grassroots supporters at their peril.

Towards the end of his 2025 article, Sanders questioned whether the Democratic Party’s leadership would learn the lessons of the Mamdani campaign, concluding pessimistically that too many of them would rather be “the captains on a sinking Titanic” than change course. Yet he also argued that the party’s future would ultimately be shaped by its base, not its leaders.

The history of 1986 lends weight to that argument. At a moment when many Democratic elites believed the party’s path back to power lay in ideological moderation, it was the mobilisation of liberal constituencies that helped deliver one of the most consequential victories of the Reagan era.

If this summer’s primaries are any indication, that grassroots energy is once again becoming a significant force in Democratic politics. Whether that energy translates into electoral success in November remains uncertain. Nevertheless, forty years after the 1986 midterms challenged assumptions about the limits of liberal politics, Democrats are once again at a crossroads. What happens next may well shape who leads the party into 2028.

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The post The 2026 Midterms: What the Democratic Party can learn from the 1986 Midterms first appeared on LSE United States Politics and Policy.

To discuss the issues surrounding AI in the gig economy, for the second episode of our mini-series on AI and the US, in June 2026 the Phelan US Centre spoke with Lindsey Cameron, Assistant Professor of Management and the Dorinda and Mark Winkelmann Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Further reading and resources

• O’Neil, C. 2017. Weapons of math destruction. Penguin Books.
• Luca, and Dan Svirsky. 2017. “Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from a Field Experiment.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 9 (2): 1–22.
• Hannák, Anikó, Claudia Wagner, David Garcia, Alan Mislove, Markus Strohmaier, and Christo Wilson. 2017. “Bias in Online Freelance Marketplaces.” Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing – CSCW ’17.
• Fast, Nathanael J, and Arthur S Jago. 2020. “Privacy Matters… or Does It? Algorithms, Rationalization, and the Erosion of Concern for Privacy.” Current Opinion in Psychology 31 (February): 44–48.‌
• ‌Doorn, Niels van, and Darsana Vijay. 2021. “Gig Work as Migrant Work: The Platformization of Migration Infrastructure.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 56 (4): 0308518X2110650.
• ‌Dubal, Veena, On Algorithmic Wage Discrimination (January 19, 2023). UC San Francisco Research Paper
• Edelman, Benjamin, Michael Weigel, Moira. 2025. “Notes Toward a World Systems Theory of Platforms: Made in China and India on Amazon.Com.” Social Media + Society 11 (2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251340863.
• ‌‌Rosenblat, Alex. 2026. “The Form Asked My Permission to Share My Health Data. Then It Wouldn’t Let Me Say No.” CalMatters. May 27, 2026.

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• Featured image: Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash
• Note:  This podcast gives the views of the interviewee and host, and is not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, the LSE Phelan US Centre, nor the London School of Economics.

The post AI and the gig economy with Dr Lindsey Cameron | The Ballpark podcast first appeared on LSE United States Politics and Policy.

This past April, in its Louisiana v. Callais decision the US Supreme Court significantly undermined a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) which now makes it much harder for electoral maps to be challenged as being racially discriminatory. The US has a long history of systematically excluding racial minorities from the voting process, effectively denying certain groups from political representation. Although the VRA helped reverse decades of disenfranchisement, recent Supreme Court decisions, such as in Louisiana v. Callais, have chipped away at these protections.

Among the most significant is Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which removed federal government oversight of states and counties with documented histories of disenfranchising voters. More than a decade later, how has the removal of federal oversight affected the political representation of racial minority groups in the US?

The impact of the Voting Rights Act on minority political participation

The VRA was one of the most consequential civil rights laws in American history, as it enforced the Fifteenth Amendment’s protections against racial discrimination in voting. Research demonstrates that the VRA helped expand political participation for minorities and paved the way for greater representation of racial and ethnic diversity at every level of government.

Figure 1 – Impact of the Voting Rights Act on minority voter turnout in presidential elections

Source

Section 5 of the VRA was widely considered one of the law’s most effective tools for preventing voting discrimination. Under Section 5, covered states and counties – those with a past history of the disenfranchisement of minority voters were required to obtain federal approval before making any changes to election laws or voting procedures, no matter how small. This process is called preclearance. Coverage was determined by the formula outlined in Section 4, which identified the jurisdictions subject to federal oversight. Many states in the South were covered for preclearance, in addition other fully covered states included Alaska and Arizona. Some states had counties (or townships) individually covered by federal oversight.

Figure 2 – Jurisdictions covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act

Source

Although preclearance successfully combated state-sanctioned disenfranchisement, the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder effectively dismantled the preclearance process. The Court ruled that Section 4’s coverage formula was outdated and imposed unjustified federal oversight on targeted Southern states. By invalidating the Section 4 formula, Section 5 preclearance became unenforceable.

Immediately following the Shelby County ruling, states quickly implemented stricter voting restrictions. Some of which had previously been blocked by the federal court through the preclearance process.

Previous research has shown that since 2013, voting procedures have become more burdensome, and the participation gap between white and Black and Global Majority voters has increased. But do these adverse effects translate into less political representation?

Political representation of Latino/a voters

To extend our understanding of the effects of Shelby County v. Holder, I examine changes in Latino political representation in formerly covered counties.

I focus on Latino voters because they are among the groups that have benefited most from the VRA and its subsequent reauthorizations, which expanded protections for Spanish-speaking voters. Figures 3 and 4 illustrate the growth in the number of Latino elected officials serving in the US House of Representatives and Senate from 1869 to 2025, where the growth largely occurs after the VRA’s passage. Moreover, similar advances have occurred in state and local offices.

Figure 3 – Number of Latino Representatives in the US Senate (1869-2025)

Source

Figure 4 – Number of Latino Representatives in the US House of Representatives (1869-2025)

Source

Using a database of Latino elected officials from the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, I created a variable that measures the number of Latino elected officials holding county- or municipal-level offices in each county each year. Then, I compared the number of Latino elected officials in counties previously covered by preclearance with those not covered from 2000 to 2021. I expected to see a change in the growth of Latino elected officials after 2013.

Latino representation grew more slowly after the Shelby County v. Holder decision

Figure 5 compares trends in Latino representation between counties that were previously subject to federal preclearance and those that were not. The vertical x-line marks the year of the Shelby County v. Holder ruling, which eliminated the preclearance coverage formula. The solid red line represents counties that were subject to preclearance before the ruling, while the dashed blue line represents counties that were not covered. Comparing the two trend lines before and after 2013, we can see that that before 2013, the two groups follow a similar upward trend in Latino political representation. However, after the Shelby County decision, the gap began to narrow, suggesting that representation grew more slowly after the removal of federal oversight.

Figure 5 – Number of local Latino elected officials in Shelby Counties and non-covered Counties (2000-2021)

Source: Schmitt (2026), Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics

Congress can still act to protect voters

The lesson from Shelby County is clear: voting rights protections affect not only whether people can cast a ballot but also who is represented in government. My findings suggest that the removal of preclearance was associated with declines in Latino political representation in counties previously covered by preclearance, highlighting the broader consequences of weakening VRA protections.

Congress still has the authority to protect voting rights through new legislation. One proposal, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, would restore preclearance by updating the coverage formula struck down in Shelby County. As the Supreme Court continues to gut the VRA, Congress’s decision to restore voter protections, such as preclearance, will be pivotal to the future of US democracy.

• Featured image: “Protect the Voting Rights Act rally at the SCOTUS” by SEIU, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
• This article is based on the paper, “Beyond Turnout: Examining the Impact of Shelby v. Holder on Latino Descriptive Representation” in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.
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• Please read our comments policy before commenting. 
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The post Attacks on the Voting Rights Act have meant falling Latino representation in local office first appeared on LSE United States Politics and Policy.

More than four million young people aged 16 to 24 in the US are what is known as opportunity youth, disconnected from both school and work. They’re not idle by choice. They’re navigating a labor market that has thinned the first rung of the career ladder so that too many young people, regardless of motivation, can’t find a footing. The US has promising programs to address this. What it doesn’t have is a system.

Lessons on youth work experience from the UK

A landmark new study from Britain helps explain why that distinction matters and what’s required to close the gap. Published by the Education and Employers charity, it’s one of the most comprehensive examinations of youth employment ever conducted. Its headline is that young people who experienced the highest levels of structured work experience before age 16 had 80 percent lower odds of becoming NEET (not in education, employment, or training) than those with the least exposure to work.

After more than two decades of building the evidence base, the conclusion is now hard to contest. Structured work experience transforms the trajectory of young lives. The question for the US is whether it will build what that conclusion demands.

The British study’s most important finding is about who and how young people get work experience. Eighty-one percent of them find their placements through themselves or their families. Nearly eight in ten school staff say family connections are the primary reason some students benefit more than others. So, the access to structured work experience is rationed by social capital, or the relationships and networks they have.

Disconnected youth in the US lack the networks they need to develop their careers

That same dynamic operates in the US. Researchers have documented the concentration of youth who are disconnected from both school and work in communities with weak employer ties and thin professional networks. That contrasts with the kinds of social connections that middle-class families take for granted. Additionally, research from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows that the US significantly underperforms OECD averages on structured career development activities like internships, job shadowing, and employer encounters, despite high levels of student interest in career planning.

The American psychologist Shane Lopez argues that exposure to work develops the social connections that develop hope in young people. This isn’t simply a feeling but a cognitive skill with three elements: goals, agency, and pathways thinking. This includes the practical capacity to see options, generate routes, and adapt when the first route is blocked.

Most young people have goals. What they lack, particularly those without strong family networks, is pathways thinking. That capacity to see more options is built through structured exposure to the world of work, which makes the occupational world visible. A formal system must do that work.

But the US has no statutory work experience guarantee, no national body coordinating employer engagement across its K-12 school systems, and no single program comparable to Britain’s national brokerage infrastructure that matches students to employers. What it has is a patchwork of excellent programs that reach a small fraction of the young people who need them.

US youth apprenticeship programs, modelled on Swiss and German dual systems, have grown over the past decade. CareerWise, now expanding nationally, places high school juniors and seniors in paid, structured apprenticeships with employers, with strong outcomes across income levels.

Year Up and Per Scholas connect young adults without college degrees to employer networks and skill-building that their family backgrounds would not otherwise have provided. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funds a national network of American Job Centers providing career counselling, training, and employment services for young people.

The now-underway implementation of Workforce Pell that extends federal Pell Grant (financial support for undergraduate students) eligibility to short-term workforce credentials is a significant step toward democratizing access to career-connected learning. But eligibility is limited to those who have already completed high school. For most young Americans, the critical period of occupational exposure happens, or fails to happen, during secondary school, which remains largely disconnected from employers in any systematic way.

Photo by PTTI EDU on Unsplash

Building new programs and systems to get young people back into work

The result is the American version of Britain’s 81 percent problem. Access to quality work experience depends heavily on whom you know, where you live, and what kind of school you attend. Excellent programs exist, but there is still no system.

Britain is now attempting to improve and expand its approach. The Government has announced 300,000 new work experience and training placements backed by a £2.5 billion youth employment support package. It’s also introduced a Work Experience Guarantee that requires every secondary school student to accumulate 50 hours of progressive workplace encounters from age 11 to 16. It will also expand its Sector-based Work Academy Programs. These are short, employer-linked training programs with a guaranteed job interview built in, with four in ten participants moving into sustained employment within six months. These are not small experiments. They are attempts at system-building.

But the British experience also carries a warning. The Education and Employers report is direct. Without funded brokerage infrastructure, organized intermediaries who match students to employers systematically regardless of family background, any guarantee risks becoming a check-the-box exercise that gives advantages to those that already have them.

Britain once had that infrastructure, through its statutory Careers Service and then through Connexions, a network of personal advisers embedded in every secondary school. Both were defunded and abolished after 2010. The US never built a comparable system.

What the US needs to build now to help young people get work experience 

The lessons are the same for both countries. Programs without infrastructure deliver boutique results. Infrastructure is what makes a program a system. Here are four actions the US can take.

First, treat the evidence as settled and act on it. Young people with structured employer engagement before age 16 are dramatically less likely to become disconnected from education and work. This finding is robust enough to build policy on. Federal and state governments, K-12 school systems, and employers need to treat structured work experience not as enrichment but as guaranteed infrastructure.

Second, build the brokerage infrastructure. The US has never built, at the federal or state level, an organized intermediary system that matches students to employers. Career brokers, employer networks, and navigation supports that operate systematically across K-12 schools, regardless of resources or location, are the mechanisms to build a work experience system. The intermediary model being developed in youth apprenticeship offers a template but needs to be adopted at scale, not left to individual school districts to improvise.

Third, start earlier and make it progressive. Disconnection does not begin at 18. The OECD data on career uncertainty and the concentration of opportunity youth in communities with weak employer ties point to warning signs that appear well before students reach the end of secondary school. The work-based learning frameworks now being developed in the US, moving through career exploration, preparation, and experience, reflect the right logic. The challenge is implementation at scale across the K-12 system, not as a late-stage high school activity.

Fourth, create shared accountability for destinations. In the US, the transition from education to work falls into a gap between institutions, each responsible for part of the journey but none clearly accountable for whether the journey is completed. Schools are measured on graduation rates, not on whether students successfully enter employment or further education or training. Workforce agencies serve those who have already become disconnected. Employers are asked to participate but rarely held to account. Someone needs to be responsible for the outcome, not just the inputs. Britain is still working out how to do this. The US hasn’t yet seriously tried.

Britain now has evidence that work experience works. The US has programs to build on. What both countries still lack is the system, a funded and organized infrastructure. That approach makes structured employer engagement a normal part of every young person’s education rather than a privilege for those who already have the most. The first rung of the career ladder has thinned. Rebuilding it is the work that remains.

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The post The UK shows that work-based experience can help young people into employment, but the US still needs systems to support it first appeared on LSE United States Politics and Policy.

In 2020, the murder of George Floyd produced divergent reactions from White Americans. Some took to the streets to protest police misconduct, while others critiqued the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and rejected its claims of police brutality. This event is a clear indicator of increasingly polarized viewpoints toward BLM. In recent years, polarization has become an ardent topic in the United States. In new research, I connect this concept to race and racial issues, exploring it as a category of polarization. This work sheds light on the role of racial events in altering racial attitudes and on the polarization of white attitudes towards BLM.

BLM Polarization is perpetual and consistent

Using the 2016-2020-2024 American National Election Studies (ANES) survey of the US electorate, I define BLM polarization as a growing divergence in how white Americans see the movement. As early as 2016, there were polarized feelings about BLM, with some white Americans expressing positive feelings, whereas others objected to it. That polarization was made worse in 2020, after the death of George Floyd became a highly discussed topic among the public and lasted through 2024.

This polarization is not surprising as in the months following George Floyd’s killing, there was an upsurge in cultural counter-movements against BLM. What makes these findings fascinating, however, is that it shows the length of time that BLM polarization persisted and how awareness of Floyd’s murder intensified it. Because the ANES survey interviews the same respondents over time, we can see a growing divide in BLM feelings among individuals from 2016 to 2020 and 2020 to 2024. Prior studies on BLM polarization employed data collected at one single point in time, thus making it challenging to determine if polarization was ongoing. Now we have evidence that points toward a widening gap in attitudes towards BLM, lasting well beyond Floyd’s murder.

Partisanship and racial attitudes drive polarized attitudes about BLM among white Americans

What drives BLM polarization? One key element is party identification. From 2016 to 2020 and 2020 to 2024, Democrats’ assessments of BLM grew more positive, while Republican opinions grew more negative. This may stem from party cues, in that Democratic and Republican leaders framed how the mass populace should perceive BLM.

Alongside party identification, racial attitudes played an important role in polarization. For instance, as Figure 1 shows, white individuals who strongly believed that Black people defy American values, preferred socio-racial hierarchies, and/or favored conformity over autonomy, displayed increasingly negative BLM feelings from 2016 to 2020 and 2020 to 2024. Alternatively, those who strongly rejected those premises demonstrated increasingly positive BLM attitudes over time.

Figure 1 – The factors the drive BLM polarization from 2016 to 2020 and from 2020 to 2024

Source: 2016-2020-2024 American National Election Studies Panel Survey

Note: All standardized effects are statistically significant at p<.05. Also, each bar value is from an individual regression model.

There was also a reverse-causal effect happening over time as well: white Americans who backed BLM became more likely to identify as Democratic, whereas those who disliked BLM grew more likely to support the Republican party. The same logic applies to racial attitudes. White Americans who supported the BLM movement became less likely to desire socio-racial hierarchies or conformist norms and were unlikely to believe that Black people contest American principles. Those who disliked BLM were more likely to believe these presumptions.

Photo by Luis Morera on Unsplash

The new normal for how the mass public understand racial politics

My results show the power of partisanship and racial dispositions in interpreting and perceiving new information and events. Put differently, partisanship and racial attitudes have now become a lens through which individuals process political and non-political information, which in turn makes polarization worse. We now see that events and subjects that are not typically polarized or racialized have become so, like healthcare.

A similar pattern is occurring here. At first, it appeared like the BLM movement was depolarizing, as the mass public seemed to bond together to collectively mourn and rectify Floyd’s wrongful death. However, once George Floyd’s death became nationally important to the mass public, partisan actors began to report on his murder and the subsequent BLM protests, conceivably tapping into partisanship and racial presumptions. In turn, polarization worsened. These findings also indicate that when high-profile incidents raise political topics to the forefront of individuals’ minds, it can potentially change racial attitudes among the white public.

Race and racial attitudes are important factors to be considered when studying American political polarization. Moreover, heavily racialized incidents open opportunities for politicians to facilitate, and for the mass public to engage in racially perceptive thinking. These events have set a new normal in how the mass public understand racial politics. More specifically, the emergence of technology, such as social media, and its ability to document events in real time allows Americans to see the current state of racial politics.

At the same time, amid the spillover of racialization unto political issues, white Americans continue to show that they have divided reactions to current events. At this moment, it is unclear if there is a limit to racialization. However, what we do know is that these racial issues produce strong reactivity and activism on both sides of the political spectrum and will likely continue to do so.

• This article is based on the paper, “Polarized White Attitudes Toward Black Lives: Did The Party Do It?’, in the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.
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The post Partisanship and racial attitudes have widened white Americans’ divided opinions on Black Lives Matter first appeared on LSE United States Politics and Policy.

The idea of America being an “indispensable nation” has been embedded in its discourse since the Puritans arrived at the New World, and colonial leader John Winthrop declared that they would create a “city upon a hill”. The United States has constantly debated how much or little it should engage with the world from its founding in 1776. In his 1796 farewell address, George Washington warned that the US should “steer clear of permanent alliances”, and involving itself in matters much beyond its borders, and focus on building the then newly created republican liberal democracy.

Spreading American ideals by one way or another

By the 1800s the US pursued westward territorial expansion through the policy of “Manifest Destiny”, which stemmed from the belief that its people had a divine and unique global role to promote its political system and ideals abroad by engaging in global affairs, even coercively. These contesting US foreign policy approaches have long been known as the exemplars and crusaders. The former advocate perfecting America’s democratic experiment at home for others to replicate, whilst the latter believes in proactively spreading US ideals abroad with force if necessary.

While the United States has contested how it should be exceptional, there has been a long-term consensus within it, and more importantly, confidence, that it is exceptional. Moreover, the crusading foreign policy approach has been the more dominant school, bar the inter-war years, as the United States continues to struggle to avoid foreign entanglements, even if its electorate and politicians have called for an end to the “forever wars” more recently.

Trump’s new form of American exceptionalism

However, today, America is uncertain about how it wants to be unique, and whether it wants to be a global leader. The United States’ semi-quincentennial celebration demonstrated that American exceptionalism remains central to US identity. President Donald Trump explicitly mentioned exceptionalism in his address at Mount Rushmore on July 3^rd. He stated, “we are the strongest and most powerful country on earth. And by the grace of God, the United States of America is the most successful, most accomplished, most exceptional nation ever to exist in human history”.

As president, Trump’s view of American exceptionalism has been inconsistent. In his first term when responding to the statement that the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin is a “killer”, by saying, “you think our country’s so innocent”, implying that the US was not morally better than the autocrat. Indeed, after Trump won the 2024 election, the political scientist Daniel Drezner declared that it was “the end of American exceptionalism” because in his view, the US had abdicated its moral global position as a democratic leader of the free world. Drezner warned that Trump would treat geopolitics transactionally for personal self-interest and overtly undermine America’s ideals around democracy and liberty to make it more like its autocratic rivals, China and Russia. Nevertheless, Trump was not rejecting American exceptionalism itself, but its Wilsonian liberal interpretation that stresses idealistic and proactive democracy promotion.

Trump’s version embraces the “civilizational” feature of American exceptionalism that was more distinct in the 19^th century. This perspective was a key ideological driver of the Indian Wars under Andrew Jackson against “savagery”. When justifying the 1830 Indian Removal Act, he stated, “what good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms…filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion”? The Trump administration highlighted the centrality of “protecting” Western civilization in its worldview in the 2025 National Security Strategy. It warned European allies of “civilizational erasure” if they allowed mass migration and different cultures into their societies and a subsequent “loss of national identities”.

Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech similarly reflected a sense of identity crisis in American exceptionalism. He claimed that “in recent years, there’s been an undeniable attempt to change this exceptional character, to beat the American spirit out of us, alienate us from our history and to make it impossible to even answer the question, what does it mean to be an American?”. He revealed the increasingly widening faultline in American politics and identity around the question of what it means to be exceptional.

“P20260703MR-1036” by The White House, United States Government Work

From consensus to uncertainty about America’s global role

Since 1945, especially after the Cold War began against the Soviet Union, there has broadly been bipartisan consensus that on a practical level, American exceptionalism translated into the US proactively promoting democracy, free markets and liberty. US foreign policy bipartisanship regarding its perceived internationalist exceptional global role was demonstrated by the erstwhile isolationist, Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s claim that “politics stops at the water’s edge”. He said this when supporting the Truman Doctrine, and the Marshall Plan to sustain European market democracies devasted by World War Two to contain Communism. His central point was that the US must internally debate its foreign policy, but speak as one united nation to the world.

That is not to say that there were not internal faultlines during the Cold War. The US notably deliberated over its place in the world and political mission during the 1976 bicentennial, amidst Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation after the Watergate scandal, and the withdrawal from the Vietnam War a year later. Nevertheless, bipartisan political leadership continued to demonstrate a commitment to American leadership. Jimmy Carter advocated putting human rights at the centre of US foreign policy to rediscover America’s exceptional character. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan presented his rollback strategy through military strength in his primaries challenge to Gerald Ford, that later defined his presidency. Both nonetheless showed a belief in American leadership with divisions defined by clear positions of how to fulfil that role.

However, for the first time post-1945, US politics no longer stops at the water’s edge. Instead, the world is receiving a constant running commentary between the political parties on what global role it wants to have. America is unsure about how it wants to be exceptional on the left and right and whether it wants to lead and participate in the international order and institutions it has historically led. Last year’s Chicago Council survey found that Republicans overwhelmingly believe in American exceptionalism at 83 percent. However, this is not based on promoting ideals abroad, and is increasingly linked to addressing the threat of immigration and diversity to America’s exceptional character. By contrast, just 38 percent Democrats believe that America is exceptional. The party’s internal debate between moderates and rising progressives reflects how its voters believe the country is in need to significant change. This ranges from debates on bigger government domestically, to re-evaluating its relationship with Israel in foreign policy.

As the whole world watches this debate, allies are unsure whether the US can remain to be its guarantor. Although American exceptionalism can be deeply unpopular amongst global peers, including allies due to its jingoistic elements, it remains central not only to US identity, but international relations. Its ideological influence does not automatically produce good outcomes, but the consistent position, that America would lead brought some predictability. However, as the US works through what it means to be exceptional, the certainty that allies want has disappeared. The world is now not nervous about a vacuum, but about whether the US will make things worse rather than better. That comfortable assumption that American exceptionalism would improve the world has now been seriously undermined.

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The post At 250, exceptionalism remains central to US identity, but America is divided on what that means as never before first appeared on LSE United States Politics and Policy.

The story of American politics over the past half-century is usually told as one of rising corporate power. Firms abandoned collective business associations, hired their own lobbyists, and pursued increasingly narrow, short-term interests in Washington. Landmark research shows that economic elites see their preferences disproportionately reflected in policy. The natural expectation is that this trend has continued, with firms becoming ever more active and ever more central players in American lobbying. In new research we tested this expectation against roughly 180,000 lobbying records spanning two decades and found something else entirely. We find that the structure of the American lobbying system has barely changed since 1999.

Why everyone expected firms to take over

The expectation of growing firm dominance in influencing policymaking rests on a well-documented history. In the decades after World War II, American business lobbied policymakers largely through encompassing associations, adopting a moderate, long-term orientation and cooperating with labor unions and citizen groups. This changed in the 1970s and 1980s. Facing stagnation, government deficits, and international competition, corporate elites fragmented, and individual companies increasingly pursued their own concentrated, short-term benefits. Lobbying became a corporate affair, and corporations became political actors.

Political economists point to a second driver: globalization. As supply chains stretch across borders, firms within the same industry develop divergent interests, especially on trade. Associations struggle to formulate common positions when their members disagree, so firms increasingly go it alone. Both accounts predict the same trajectory, with firms steadily displacing associations at the heart of American lobbying.

Not every theory agrees. The economist, Mancur Olson’s classic work suggests that firms become more politically active as economies specialize, but each within its own niche, leaving associations to coordinate broader issues. Population ecology approaches go further, arguing that interest group communities settle into an equilibrium shaped by resources and government structure, and remain stable unless hit by truly massive change from the outside. A fourth perspective expects associations to lose centrality but to adapt, shifting toward service provision or the priorities of their most affluent members. We put the distinct predictions of all four of these theories to the test.

Two decades, 180,000 lobbying acts

We drew on lobbying disclosures filed under the US Lobbying Disclosure Act, accessed through the LobbyView database. We randomly sampled 5,000 lobbying records for every year between 1999 and 2018 and coded each of the roughly 24,000 organizations involved by type, distinguishing firms, business associations, and other actors such as labor unions and citizen groups, as well as by economic sector.

We then tracked two things. First, relative activity: the share of all lobbying acts carried out by firms compared to associations and other groups. Second, network centrality: how connected an organization is to others lobbying on the same issues. Centrality matters because policymakers tend to value well-connected organizations, which are best placed to convey the views of an entire policy network.

“Maryland State House – Lobbying” by Daniel Huizinga, CC BY 2.0

Stability all the way down

The results are strikingly consistent. As Figure 1 shows, firms account for roughly 45 per cent of all lobbying acts in virtually every year between 1999 and 2018, business associations for about 20 per cent, and other organizations for the rest. There is no upward trend for firms, and no decline for associations. If anything, associations punch above their weight: despite being far fewer in number, they carry out the most lobbying acts per organization.

Figure 1 – Lobbying activity as a percentage of lobbying acts per year.

The same holds for centrality. Firms do not become more central in lobbying networks over time. A modest increase in centrality appears after 2014 (Figure 2), but it applies to all organizational types equally, leaving the relative positions of firms and associations unchanged. The broader network structure, shown in Figure 3, tells the same story: dense, highly clustered, with short paths between organizations, and no meaningful change across four consecutive five-year snapshots.

Figure 2 – Average network degree centrality

The same holds for centrality. Firms do not become more central in lobbying networks over time. A modest increase in centrality appears after 2014 (Figure 2), but it applies to all organizational types equally, leaving the relative positions of firms and associations unchanged. The broader network structure, shown in Figure 3, tells the same story: dense, highly clustered, with short paths between organizations, and no meaningful change across four consecutive five-year snapshots.

Figure 3 – The four network firms (blue) and associations (green) are equally central in every period

This is a clear verdict on the four theories. Our findings contradict the accounts predicting firm capture or firm specialization and align squarely with population ecology and equilibrium theories of lobbying. When one set of actors intensifies its lobbying, others respond in kind. This counteractive dynamic keeps the system in balance. Even 9/11, the financial crisis, and rising political polarization did not disturb it.

Why stable lobbying systems matter for democracy

It is tempting to read this stability as stagnation, as if nothing interesting happens in Washington lobbying. We draw the opposite conclusion. Interest group systems are not just arenas of competition; they also function as stabilizing institutions. Through counteractive lobbying and mutual adjustment, organized interests absorb the effects of crises rather than amplify them. The system bends, but it does not break.

That resilience has real value for democratic governance. Policymakers operate in an environment where the cast of organized voices, and their relative weight, remains broadly predictable. In an era of eroding norms, polarized publics, and institutional stress, a lobbying system that does not lurch with every crisis provides a rare source of continuity. Stability in interest representation may be one of the quieter foundations on which democratic stability rests.

Two caveats matter. Our data capture relative positions, not the absolute volume of lobbying, which may well have grown. And activity and centrality are not the same as influence: firms may have gained sway over policy outcomes without becoming more central in lobbying networks. The disproportionate responsiveness to economic elites documented in earlier research can persist within a structurally stable system.

Still, our core finding stands. The widespread expectation of ever-rising firm dominance in American lobbying finds no support in twenty years of data. The US interest group system is robust, integrated, and remarkably resilient. Understanding what sustains that equilibrium, and what could eventually break it, should be high on the research agenda.

• This article is based on the paper, “The Evolution of Firm Lobbying in American Politics: Testing Theories of Lobby Activity and Centrality (1999–2018)” in the British Journal of Political Science.
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The post Despite a turbulent two decades the structure of American corporate lobbying has barely changed first appeared on LSE United States Politics and Policy.

As the 2026 midterm elections come into focus, an ascendant left wing of the Democratic Party has notched a series of striking primary-election victories over more-moderate opponents. In Michigan, Dr Abdul El-Sayed captured the Democratic Senate nomination over centrist Representative Haley Stevens, while progressive House candidate Will Lawrence won a key battleground nomination the same night. A few weeks earlier, all three of Zohran Mamdani’s endorsed candidates for Congress won their primaries, and democratic socialist Francesca Hong has emerged as the front-runner in Wisconsin’s gubernational primary.

How donors can influence who runs for office

For more than 20 years, research has shown that voters tend to penalize parties that swing to their ideological extreme, although this pattern has weakened substantially in recent years. Yet, another audience plays a critical role in American elections and answers to very different incentives: donors. What happens to a party’s fundraising prospects when it nominates a relative extremist candidate in the primary election?

In new research I find that donors in congressional and state legislative elections punish parties that nominate relatively extreme candidates. When a party runs an extremist nominee, both individual donors and corporate PACs contribute less, on average—particularly in open-seat races and competitive districts, where contributions tend to be most consequential. This financial penalty, however, has declined by half over the past two decades and is now largely driven by corporate donors.

Using coin-flip primaries as a natural experiment

To identify these effects, I focus on districts where an ideologically extreme candidate narrowly defeated a more-moderate opponent in the primary election (or vice versa), such as Dr El-Sayed’s victory on Tuesday. In the context of my research, a relative “extremist” is a candidate farther from the other party than a moderate. Extremist candidates typically prevail in places that are unusual to begin with—that are more ideologically lopsided, and with distinct donor bases—so simply comparing districts that nominated an extremist to those that nominated a moderate would confuse the effect of the nominee with the character of the district. Focusing on these “coin-flip” elections is useful because those differences wash out, and a district that barely nominated an extremist looks statistically identical to one that barely nominated a moderate.

To identify relative moderate and extremist candidates, I used a combination of incumbents’ rollcall voting records and candidates’ primary-election campaign contributions. I applied this measure to primaries for Congress and state legislatures between 1980 and 2022.

General-election donors punish extremist primary nominees

The results are striking. When voters narrowly nominate the more-extreme candidate in the primary election, their party suffers financially in the general election. Concretely, I find that the “coin-flip” nomination of an extremist over a more-moderate opponent decreases their party’s share of general-election contributions by seven percentage points in the median contest and 18-19 percentage points when the ideological contrast between candidates is largest. In raw dollar terms, an extremist’s nomination costs their party’s nominee roughly $42,000 in foregone contributions while steering $46,000 to their opponent.

This aggregate effect masks a significant difference between the two major types of donors. Corporate PACs react most strongly to extremist nominees, trimming an extremist’s share of contributions by 13 percentage points, while individual donors pull back by only about five percentage points. The aggregate penalty, in other words, is driven in large part by corporate money.

“Abdul_meet-and-greet-1” by Conlan Houston, CC BY-SA 4.0

Extremist nominees face a shrinking financial penalty

This moderating filter, however, is waning. The aggregate financial penalty to extremist nominees is about half as large today as it was at the turn of the century. In fact, my estimates suggest that individual donors did not punish extremist nominees at all in 2022; the entire aggregate penalty was driven by corporate donors. Donors, in short, are steadily doing less to pull their parties toward the centre.

Why the retreat? The answer lies in the interplay between corporate PACs and voters. Corporations are considered classic “access-seeking” contributors: they back candidates likely to win, largely independent of their policy positions. Through the early 2010s, moderates won far more often than extremists, so this access-seeking money flowed disproportionately towards moderate nominees. As moderates’ electoral advantage eroded in the 2010s, backing an extremist no longer meant backing a likely loser, and corporate dollars followed, wearing away the very penalty that had once nudged parties towards the centre.

A financial brake on extremists is giving way

For decades, individual and corporate donors alike rewarded the parties for running moderate candidates. A party that nominated an extremist could expect donors to pull back or even bankroll the other side. That incentive is now much weaker than it once was. This matters because fundraising plays a critical role in American elections. Long before voters cast their ballots, donors shape the set of candidates who can mount credible campaigns and, ultimately, the outcome of the election.

Which brings us back to 2026. The nomination of a left-wing candidate like Abdul El-Sayed would have carried a substantial financial price in the general election two decades ago. Today, that penalty appears modest and—in the case of many Democratic candidates who have refused corporate contributions—effectively zero. The ascendant left wing of the Democratic party is not only winning more primaries but doing so in a campaign-finance environment that penalises parties less for running extremists.

• This article is based on the paper “Do Donors Punish Extremist Primary Nominees? Evidence from Congress and American State Legislatures” in American Political Science Review.
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The post Campaign contributions used to pull parties to the centre, but that filter is eroding first appeared on LSE United States Politics and Policy.

On 19 June, as part of the LSE Festival 2026, the Phelan US Centre hosted the event, “Saving the planet in an age of geopolitical rivalry”. The event featured Professor Robert Falkner of LSE’s Department of International Relations, Professor Tang Xiaoyang and Professor Zhao Kejin of Tsinghua University, Professor Stephanie Rickard of LSE’s Department of Government, Professor Catherine Boone of LSE’s Department of Government and Department of International Development, and was chaired by Peter Trubowitz, Professor of International Relations and Director of the Phelan US Centre.

Is the traditional era of geopolitics over?

Professor Kejin opened the discussion with an assessment of the world at large: traditional geopolitics forefronts national security and issues of strategic competition within a firm world order that has since fragmented. The resultant shift towards multipolarity has allowed China to continue to consolidate its focus on the Global South, which makes up 40 percent of global GDP. Similarly, the EU has also begun to prioritise its strategic autonomy. Professor Kejin outlined the new frontiers of geopolitics: for example, the race towards accessing minerals like cobalt and nickel in resource-rich Africa, where China’s relative progress has put significant pressure on the US. Other such frontiers include deep-sea technology, cyber, and AI, which have spurred a focus on human security as another element of geopolitics.

Professor Boone then argued that whilst allowing foreign access to precious minerals may be a “good opportunity” for an African country in the initial five to ten years, the lack of political capital renders these states vulnerable to any negative externalities that may occur because of the “resource curse”. Referencing Mark Carney’s January 2026 comment at Davos, that if a country was “not on the table, [they’re] on the menu”, Professor Boone highlighted that the Chinese government has been more successful in its pursuit of African minerals due to a more accommodative attitude than the US and EU, and the EU’s prioritisation of regional security and economic issues over building a presence in Africa. The resulting situation is one where the onus for African development is on the African nations themselves through regional competition and collective action, via organisations like the African Union, which can increase capacity for collective bargaining and decrease the propensity for ‘intensified exploitation’.

How has trade and green policy changed in recent years?

Shifting the discussion towards trade, Professor Rickard observed that international trade has become increasingly fractionalised, with bilateral or regional trade agreements being favoured over multilateral agreements. The lack of consensus and overall low-trust environment in global politics have normalised the violation of existing agreements and regulations, whilst hindering new agreements on trade, or indeed, on climate. Much of this, Professor Rickard noted, is rooted in domestic politics, as the “losers” of globalisation have successfully politicised the issue — the results of which are visible in elections across the West. Mitigating this low-trust environment is a systemic issue going beyond a single administration, requiring more transparency on the logic underpinning economic policy decisions, and more regular contact between global powers.

On green policy, Professor Xiaoyang considered China’s relatively successful green transition. His overarching argument was that green policy in China is not part of a politicised discourse where mass consensus is required — rather it is a developmental necessity, where mass consensus already exists. China has thus maintained several long-term investments and commitments on green energy. Professor Xiaoyang reflected on how in the West, politics often contain ample ‘talk’ around sustainability, but seldom much tangible action: in China, 50 percent of cars are electric vehicles, whereas rates across Europe remain significantly lower.

In response, Professor Falkner outlined the obstacles that European states have faced in the energy transition. Overall energy price increases resulted from the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the recent US-Israeli attacks on Iran (which Professor Falkner added were more befitting of the name ‘Operation Strategic Blunder’ than ‘Epic Fury’). These shocks encapsulated the reliance of European economies on foreign, particularly Russian, energy imports, and the importance of decarbonisation in addressing this dependency. Highlighting Spain, Professor Falkner noted that the investment of the Spanish government into solar and wind energy has made Spain less sensitive to energy price shocks. Likewise, the domestic production of oil and gas in the US has reduced its need for imports. Professor Falkner concluded by observing that energy independence is a spectrum, where “electrostates” like China still maintain coal-fired power plants, and petrostates like the US also utilise natural resources.

Moving forward…

Questions from the audience covered the possibility of a tripolar world order, possibly including India or other Global South players. Professor Kejin considered that we must remember that geopolitics is not inherently bad but comes down to each country doing what it deems is the best for its domestic interests, and India alongside other Global South nations are independent middle-powers with their own political inclinations and alliances. Professor Xiaoyang added that the resource-richness of the Global South can provide opportunities for growth, if the competition between the US and China to exploit these resources is utilised strategically.

On trade and green policy, Professor Rickard noted that WTO rules should be updated to account for developments in the AI and service economies. Professor Falkner concurred that great powers continue to maintain spheres of influence, and to maintain healthy competition, the multilateral trading framework must be ‘kept alive’. Finally, Professor Kejin stated that going forward, it is important to shift from a policy of regionalism to a more pragmatic, multi-stakeholder model of regionalisation, focussing on working together collaboratively, rather than regional and institutional power play.

Watch the event recording – Saving the planet in an age of geopolitical rivalry – 19 June 2026

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The post Saving the planet in an age of geopolitical rivalry – LSE Phelan US Centre Event Review first appeared on LSE United States Politics and Policy.