2020 Election Insights
Ohio Wesleyan Professor Sean Kay Addresses International Audience
When it comes to predicting what’s going to happen in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, “your guess is as good as mine,” confesses Ohio Wesleyan University politics and government professor Sean Kay, Ph.D. But, Kay notes, there are some important trend lines worth watching as the election nears.
In the international arena, Kay says, those areas include historical isolationism, the clash of liberal interventionists vs. neoconservative republicans, and the idea of burden sharing, especially when it comes to the cost of supporting NATO and its work.
“There’s a long tradition in America of people favoring restraint … staying out of wars, if possible, and engaging adversaries,” says Kay, a NATO expert.
In the United States, he says, areas of significance include health care, judicial appointments, taxes, and the right to bear arms.
“My sense is that the world is kind of waiting us out to see what comes next,” Kay says.
Kay made his remarks Nov. 29, when he presented “The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election: Implications for Europe” at an Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) summit in Dublin, Ireland. The independent, not-for-profit IIEA is considered Ireland’s leading European and international affairs think tank.
Kay’s experience with presidential politics include serving as a policy adviser with the Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders campaigns.
During his career, Kay worked with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels, the U.S. Institute for National Strategic Studies in Washington D.C., and as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Intelligence Council.
A professor in Ohio Wesleyan’s Department of Politics and Government since 1999, Kay also serves as chair of the University’s International Studies Program.
In addition, he is the author of several books including “NATO and the Future of European Security,” “America’s Search for Security: The Triumph of Idealism and the Return of Realism,” and “Global Security in the Twenty-first Century: The Quest for Power and the Search for Peace.”
Learn more about Kay and his background at www.owu.edu/politics. Watch Kay’s complete presentation on the IIEA website.