American global leadership faces a crisis—not of economic vitality, diplomatic prowess, or military strength but of legitimacy. Around the world, polls and interviews show that publics and elites in countries that consider themselves U.S. allies harbor doubts about the state and direction of American democracy. They no longer see it as a model, and they worry whether the American political system can still produce trustworthy outcomes.
Such sentiments are cause for alarm. In the past, the U.S. image abroad rose and fell depending on who was in the White House or what actions the United States was taking overseas, but views about American democracy remained steady, albeit less positive than many Americans might have supposed. Now, that is starting to change. Behind the constantly fluctuating popularity of U.S. presidents, there is a steady decline in the international assessment of the strength of the U.S. political system. The United States ranks 26th, between Chile and Estonia, in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s most recent Democracy Index, which first labeled the United States a “flawed democracy” in 2016. Freedom House ranks the United States one notch below Argentina and Mongolia in access to political rights and civil liberties. If people around the world can no longer rely on American democracy to lead by example and to deliver decisive U.S. action on shared challenges, Washington will lose its moral authority to lead.
Americans intuitively sense their loss of standing: for the last two decades roughly two-thirds have believed that the United States is less respected internationally than it was in the past, according to a Pew Research Center survey. And such respect is likely to deteriorate further. While a median of 61 percent of publics in 13 transatlantic countries polled in 2022 by the German Marshall Fund thought the United States was the most influential actor in global affairs today, just 35 percent expect it to be the most influential in five years.
To regain that lost stature, American democracy must overcome the challenges of partisan politics, institutional gridlock, and instability. The U.S. government will need to prove that it is able to produce sustainable international policies that the United States’ friends and foes alike can count on. This job is too important to be left solely to those preoccupied with domestic issues. The foreign policy establishment needs to see the revival of American democracy as the cornerstone of future U.S. global leadership. This will require direct engagement with the American public, not unlike the concerted effort to promote the Marshall Plan to reluctant Americans in 1947 and 1948. It is not simply a sales job; policymakers must first listen to Americans to try to understand and alleviate their frustrations with their democracy in the interest of maintaining and strengthening U.S. influence in the world.
DO YOU LIKE ME?
Foreigners’ assessments of the United States are driven largely by their perceptions of the U.S. president. The most comprehensive public opinion data on foreign views of the United States began in 2002 with the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project. And the United States’ image has been on a rollercoaster ride ever since.
In 2000, 83 percent of people in the United Kingdom, 78 percent in Germany, 77 percent in Japan, 76 percent in Italy, 62 percent in France, and 50 percent in Spain held a positive view of the United States, according to a U.S. State Department survey. This assessment slid dramatically during the administration of President George W. Bush; at its low point in 2008, the global image of the United States was down 47 percentage points in Germany, 30 points in the United Kingdom, and 27 points in Japan. Public sentiment then rebounded markedly when President Barack Obama took office in 2009, with approval of the United States up 33 percentage points in France and Germany, and 25 points in Spain. Favorable views of the United States spiraled downward again during the presidency of Donald Trump, reaching record lows, down 32 points in France, 31 points in Germany and Japan, and 30 points in Canada. In the first years of the Biden administration, U.S. favorability rebounded to levels comparable to that in the Obama years in most countries, up 34 points in France (to 65 percent), 33 points in Germany (to 59 percent), and up 30 points in Japan (to 71 percent).
For the most part, foreign publics, especially those in Europe, where the data are most comprehensive, liked Bill Clinton, grew to dislike George W. Bush, loved Obama, and hated Trump. What has been striking is the increasing volatility in such sentiments, meaning that the pendulum is swinging much farther and more quickly from presidency to presidency. For example, between 2008, before the U.S. election, and 2009, after the election, confidence in the U.S. president in France went from 13 percent to 91 percent, in Germany from 14 percent to 93 percent, in Japan from 25 percent to 85 percent. The reverse happened between 2016, before the election, and 2017, after the election: confidence fell in France from 84 percent to 14 percent, in Germany from 86 percent to 11 percent, and in Japan from 78 percent to 24 percent. One German official commented to me in early 2017, “Isn’t it interesting? It took Bush eight years to get to this low level. It took Trump three months!”
Who happens to be sitting in the Oval Office clearly colors international views of American democracy. A 2020 Eurasia Group Foundation survey found that 26 percent of German respondents believe that American-style democracy would be more attractive if a different person were U.S. president. But the international challenge facing U.S. stature in the world transcends personalities. Foreigners have growing worries about the health and direction of American democracy—its deepening partisanship, its dysfunctionality—that predate the Trump presidency. Such worries bedeviled the Bush administration, lingered in the background of the Obama administration, and now raise doubts about the Biden administration.
A MORE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM
In 2012, Pew Research found that a median of 45 percent of those surveyed in 20 countries across the globe said they liked American ideas about democracy, including 64 percent of Japanese, 60 percent of Tunisians, 58 percent of Italians, and 52 percent of Chinese. Such appeal was up in every country that had been surveyed in 2002.
Today, however, few people around the world express much faith in American democracy. According to a Pew survey of 16 countries conducted in 2021, just 11 percent of respondents in Australia, 14 percent in Germany and Japan, and 20 percent in the United Kingdom said democracy in the United States is a good model. A median of 57 percent said American democracy used to be a good example but has not been
