Denver-Pécs and about whom everyone is talking …
Dr. Sheila Rucki is a political economist and an associate professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her work is mostly on Gramsci and notions of the relationships between culture and economy. After two conference participations at the University of Pécs she came to teach here as visiting professor to launch a faculty exchange with the Department of Political Science and International Studies.
The relationship between the two universities was established by the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology of the UP, and now there's a minor at MSU Denver, in which both Hungarian and American professors have been teaching. In order to further strengthen this bilateral relationship, as part of the Internationalization Strategic Program, the Center for International Relations of UP tries to involve other faculties of the UP into the co-operation. For example, during the spring another visiting professor’s arrival will bring new methodology to the Faculty of Business and Economics. Sheila Rucki taught students majoring in International Relations at the Faculty of Humanities.
How much publicity does Hungary get in the United States?
Hungary did appear in the news quite a bit when the refugee crisis was at its height: there were a lot of stories in the major press about the way immigrants was treated, the difficulties they had and so on.
On the 20th of January United States will have a new president. (The interview was done on 17 of December, 2016. - the ed.)
It may sound terrible but the voters of Trump are called low information voters who actively engaged in politics but not committed themselves to the media or to education. There is also serious division in race, so Hillary Clinton did very well among African Americans, the Hispanic community and Asians, whereas Trump ran much better among white men. Another division is between rural and urban regions: Hillary Clinton did very well in urban communities whereas Trump won in rural areas.
For me it was totally obvious that Clinton will win the elections. Did social media destroy her chances?
One of the things what's remarkable about this election is not that it was that close, but the two sides don't even know how to talk to one another. I think that relates to the facebook phenomenon. The fake news were introduced through facebook and twitter feed and these could not get repeated frequently enough to not be able to cover it by the mainstream media. The MSM had no idea how to handle the fake news.
The expectations were quite high for Obama's Presidency. According to many people these did not align with reality. How do you see his work from this angle?
I think that the original hopes that people had for Obama were reflected more about them than it reflected about Obama himself. Even as a senator he was a very centrist politician not the revolutionary firebrand people expected. When he became president he was consensus oriented, he had to negotiate with the congress and as a result of that his entire program got tiny. I'm not saying that he had not done anything or his presidency was unimportant. I think he is one of the most important presidents. But he achieved so much less than people had hoped.
What can we expect from Trump's foreign policy?
That's a very good question. If we look at his foreign policy appointments so far we see people with a paranoid, anti islamic world view that supports totalitarian leadership. Maybe that would be okay except that he also shows no intention to uphold the previous US foreign policy commitments.
Is the historic role of the US being the “world's policeman” over?
We'll see. If the president can't cooperate with the bureaucracy there will be little change.
Related to the ongoing refugee crisis the traditional European values are not existing anymore. Can traditional American values change in any way?
I think they have to. Immigration is mostly accepted when there’s not a lot of immigrants coming in the United States. The great waves of immigration historically have also been matched by great waves of xenophobia. The difference is that the Trump administration seems to attach this xenophobia to Islam in an explicit way which means that not only will the United States be less welcoming for Islamic refugees but also for muslims who are already living in States.
Hungarian society has been divided in the last couple of elections. Do you see similar tendency in America?
Absolutely. After the election there were articles and tv shows about how to talk to your family member who voted for Trump. Some of them was funny, but some of them was not funny at all.
Robert Balogh, UnivPécs International