Organized by the Centre for European Studies, on April 19th, 2011 the Faculty of Political Sciences held a lecture entitled "The EU and the USA.: complementarities and differences" with guest professor Dr Alan Draper from the University of St. Lawrence, USA (also a Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the University of Innsbruck) with Dr Damir Grubiša and Dr Nenad Zakošek. This lecture is the result of cooperation between the Center for European Studies and the Faculty of Political Science, with representatives of the Fulbright Program at the American Embassy in Croatia, who also attended the lecture of Professor Draper.

Professor Draper spoke to the fourth year students of political science and to the postgraduate students of European Studies about the similarities and differences between Western Europe and the United States, the role of unions in modern American political history, the national wealth and inequality in American society, examples of non-democratic institutions in the United States and the rules and practice of electoral political "game" in American politics.

At the beginning of his presentation, Professor Draper has warned that comparison of the European Union, i.e. Western Europe and the United States is not an easy task. What these countries share are free, fair and secret elections, developed capitalism, post-industrial structure of employment with the majority of tertiary sector employment. Americans have certain stereotypes towards the Europeans, while the reverse is true too, but Americans are just as the Europeans see them, says Professor Draper. Using the book "The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America and Europe are Alike" by Peter Baldwin, a professor in the Department of History of the University of California (UCLA - University of California, Los Angeles), Draper highlighted the thesis that America and Europe share much more similarities than they have differences. Using the tabular statistical data (on the expenditures for education, crime rates, the effects of the health system, etc.) Professor Baldwin shows that the differences between America and Europe are no greater than between individual European countries. Sweden, as an example of "leftist" social democracy, is nothing more representative of Europe than it would be Vermont (“the most leftist” U.S. state) if it was located in Europe. Also, the United Kingdom and Belgium differ from each other as well as Minnesota and Mississippi.

But Professor Draper pointed out that some differences can not be displayed in tables, as Baldwin does it. Those are the differences in anthropological studies (e.g. when it comes to the American obsession with money) and ideological differences like the Arab-Israeli conflict which Americans view within the liberal prism and Israelis’ rights on security and defense.

What drastically separates the U.S. and the EU is the concept of inequality in society, which has been increasing constantly in America over the recent years (there is a so-called hyper-concentration of wealth), while in Europe it slightly varies or stagnates . Namely, not only that the richest 10% of American citizens increasingly segregate from the rest of the population by the level of wealth, but also revenue begins to vary significantly within the group, which increasingly separates 1% of the wealthiest Americans from the others. Professor Draper has offered several arguments to substantiate it.

The first is the decrease in influence of the working class in the U.S., where workers have never had an anywhere near significant impact as the workers in Europe. The second is the anti-democratic bias of American political institutions, as he explained in the example of the Senate, where the number of Senators is disproportionate to the size of the state they come from (such "bad distribution" is in favor of those who want to protect the interests of the "small" at the expense of the "big"). The third is a very great importance of money and organization needed for sustained combat and victory in the political arena. In fact, money allows the organization of "political games" to preserve itself until it wins, while in Western Europe that is not the case. The growing influence of banks, investment and insurance companies is characteristic. Increase of diversity happens within groups of the rich, and not between the groups of the rich and the poor, for which Draper draws an analogy with higher education. The problem is not the difference between those who graduated and those who don’t have a diploma, but between those who have diplomas, says Professor Draper.

When asked about the way Americans view the current proposal on the health system reform, Professor Draper replied that Americans are generally skeptical regarding their own government, although in practice they believe that they should provide health care to those who need it. Professor Draper ended the lecture about financial inequalities in society and opportunities in the political game with the analogy to the American baseball, in which the richest team can buy the most expensive player, but ultimately victory is achieved in the field, where the same rules for all teams are applied.