Newswise — The election of Barack Obama is historic not just for the United States, but for the developed world in general, a University of Indianapolis expert says.
Electing a non-white person as chief executive " one who serves both as symbolic head of state and functioning head of government " sets the United States apart from the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and even highly liberal Sweden and Norway, says Milind Thakar, associate professor of international relations at UIndy.
"It is not as if other developed states don't have substantial non-white minorities," Thakar notes. In the UK, immigrants from South Asian and Caribbean backgrounds represent 7.5 percent of the population. Germany's has many immigrants from African and Asian states, and France has a large population of naturalized citizens from Arab and African nations.
Canada's governor general " the representative of the British monarch " is Michaelle Jean, a woman of Haitian descent, Thakar notes, but that post is largely symbolic, with little practical power. Peru elected President Alberto Fujimori, an immigrant of Japanese ancestry, and in the 1980s Argentina elected Carlos Menem, who was of Syrian descent. However, neither of those nations fit the definition of an advanced democracy, or liberal democracy, to use the term more common to scholars.
Thakar says the U.S. election outcome is even more noteworthy considering that most developed states have parliamentary, cabinet-style governments, in which the electorate votes for parties rather than individuals, and the prime minister or chancellor is selected by internal party election. In other words, the decision to put a non-white person at the head of government would take place at a party or coalition level, thereby requiring fewer people to concur in the decision.
"Obama's election to what is arguably the most powerful office in the world sends out a signal that America has crossed an important barrier and is substantively, not just procedurally, a liberal democracy," Thakar says.
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