Global Culture

Do you think that foreign nations should participate in the election of American presidents?
Writer David Usborne writes Outside Influence - USA in the February 2008 issue of Monocle:

Look beyond the cliché of hidebound insularism and you quickly see that just as the rest of the world is not immune to American influences, America is not immune to the rest of the world, even in its domestic affairs.

I had already explored the cultural influence that the world exercises on the United States, but given the political strength of the super power, it would seem absurd to expect that the United States would open up to the point of allowing foreigners to exercise any kind of influence on the outcome of their elections. Nevertheless the fact is that such influence is not gained in the form of votes (at least not of the popular kind), but through lobbyists that represent the most diverse interests, from foreign countries to global corporations trying to advocate their private causes. Somehow the idea of a few global corporations paying the salaries of lobbyist that work side by side with the most influential politicians of the United States doesn’t seem as crazy as gathering a open forum of global citizens speaking their mind about who should be the leader of the United States.

However, since money is the one language that the American system understands well, let’s hope that a growing number of concerned global citizens will be able to influence their business peers in the United States and eventually state the higher goals that may lead to benefits abroad. The following table shows some of the countries already making an impact on specific regions of the United States through business deals in most cases:

Source: Monocle, Issue 10, Pg 24-25