Endgame Election?

The Endgame Election? European Views on the United States Elections of 2024 examines whether the 2024 U.S. presidential election marks a decisive turning point in American democracy by analyzing the contest and its broader political context from the perspective of European scholars.

Bringing together European scholars of American politics, this volume examines how Donald Trump’s return to power unfolded against the backdrop of democratic backsliding, institutional fragility, and shifting electoral coalitions. It analyzes the internal transformations of the Democratic and Republican parties, the extraordinary replacement of Joe Biden by Kamala Harris, the role of media ecosystems and misinformation, the dynamics of voter suppression and the Electoral College, and the growing openness to executive aggrandizement within parts of the Republican Party. The book situates the 2024 election within broader debates about constitutional accountability, partisan polarization, and the erosion of democratic guardrails, asking whether the election narrowed the avenues of democratic self-correction that once defined the American system. The European vantage point offers analytical distance and comparative insight into patterns of democratic erosion familiar from other contexts.

This volume will be essential reading for scholars, students, and researchers of American politics, comparative politics, and democratic governance, as well as for policymakers and informed readers seeking to understand the implications of the 2024 election for the future of U.S. democracy.

Maciej Turek is an assistant professor at the Institute of American Studies in Polish Diaspora of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. His academic interests lie in American politics, including U.S. political institutions, elections, campaign finance system, and the state of contemporary U.S. democracy Dr. Turek authored books about the American Vice Presidency and presidential primaries, and co-authored to other about the U.S. campaign finance system and legal aspects. He also co-edited, with Renata Duda, a volume The Crossroads Elections. European Perspectives on the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections (Routledge 2024).

Philipp Adorf is a research associate at the University of Bonn, specializing in the Republican Party and the influence of demographic changes on its radicalization and electoral dynamics in the United States. His scholarly work includes How the South Was Won and the Nation Lost, which examines the history and political consequences of the Republican Party's Southern Strategy, and Die Republikanische Partei in den USA, a comprehensive German-language history of the party. He has also analyzed the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the success of right-wing populist parties among the white working class. Additionally, he has co-edited compendiums on U.S. democracy (Die USA—eine scheiternde Demokratie?) and right-wing populism (Aufstand der Außenseiter).