4:1 | 2022
Regular Issue
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Symposium
Policy Transitions from Trump to Biden: Issues of Science, Race Relations and Global Trade in Critical PerspectiveThe transition of power and policy from one governmental administration to another is never an easy political task. But the case of the transition from Presidents Trump to Biden is an especially difficult case. Given that Trump and his populist followers sought to turn governmental goals and practices upside down in practically all policy areas, the challenge for the Biden Administration has been fraught with political and administrative barriers. In the mini-symposium that follows three contributors seek to analyze Biden’s progress in three important policy domains after one year in office. One of the most controversial policy practices during the Trump years wasan attack on scientific and policy expertise. Against this backdrop, Frank Fischer, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Politics and Global Affairs at Rutgers University in the USA, examines the effort to return to science based policymaking in climate change and Covid-19 policies. He points to a fairly swift administrative return to science-oriented decision-making, but notes that this does not in and of itself bring an end to the post-truth denial of climate and Covid policy advise. Another very controversial issue was the Trump Administration’s fanning of racial tensions, especially as they pertained to the Black Lives Matter movement, the murder of George Floyd, and the white supremacy march in Charlotteville, Virgina. Against this backdrop, Sanford Schram, Professor of Political Science at Hunter College of the City University of New York explores the racial dimensions of the Biden agenda and the prospects for advancing the cause of realizing a multi-racial democracy in the post-Trump era. A third issue involved Trump’s rejection of long-established global trade relations. In this regard, Christoph Scherrer, Professor of Politics and Globalization at the University of Kassel in Germany, assesses the challenge the Biden Administration confronts with People’s Republic of China. So far Biden’s trade strategy with China ,he argues, isinformed by the lessons drawn from the failures of his predecessors, Obama and Trump, as well as by the interests of his electoral coalition that brought together finance, tech, and labor.
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Book Review