I couldn’t tell you who the Prime Minister of Canada is, but it seems like the people in most other countries know who our (USA’s) president is.
Is this a misperception on my part? If not, why do so many other countries care about our internal politics?
On a sidenote, I’d like to apologize the rest of the world for our ignorance of your countries’ politics and culture.
The Prime Minister of Canada is Stephen Harper. There’s really no excuse for not knowing that. 
The reason many other countries know who about the US president is because the US remains the world’s sole superpower, and American foreign, economic, military, and trade policy has a substantial effect on the rest of the world.
It is also a mistake to assume that many people outside the US are particularly interested in internal politics. The US president is also in charge of foreign policy, diplomacy, intelligence, and the military. That’s why people are interested in keeping tabs on what he does.
Having lived internationally, I don’t get the impression that most people would be any more deeply interested in American politics and culture than Americans are in theirs, except to the extent that it affects them.
And frankly, I think a world where everyone takes intense interest in other countries’ politics sounds pretty lousy.
I’d guess it’s a matter of scale; the US is both the most economically and militarily powerful country by far, as well as one of the largest nations on earth, both in land area and population.
It would seem to me that as a result our President would get a larger share of media attention elsewhere; things he does can affect other nations indirectly, so I imagine they pay attention.
This works on all levels of the international food chain: most Europeans know the name of the French President oder the British Prime Minister, but for instance many Germans draw a blank when they’re asked about the current Chancellor of Austria or the Prime Minister of Denmark. Most Austrians or Danes, on the other hand, probably know who Angela Merkel is. But many Americans, I assume, couldn’t care less about the German Chancellor.
This has to be it, yes. Although I doubt many British people could tell you the name of the US Vice President, Secretary of State and so on. But most folks can name the President.
You have the world’s most powerful military, capable of projecting force around the world. You have done so regularly, most recently in Iraq.
It’s simple self-interest for people in other countries to have some idea of how the US political system works.
I think most news-savvy Americans do pick up the names of the Western heads of government, especially those who serve for a long period. Heads of state may be a tad different- while I knew who Angela Merkel is, I had no idea who Joachim Gauck was (President of Germany).
We’re also not always so good at keeping up with changes; by the time Gordon Brown was succeeded by David Cameron in the UK, I was just getting used to the idea that the PM was no longer Tony Blair.
FYI- this also works the same way within the US; it’s not uncommon to know the names of the governors of large or politically powerful states, like Rick Perry, Jerry Brown or Andrew Cuomo, but I’d have to go look up who the governor of Utah is.
Some aspects of domestic American politics get reported here , like gun control (if only to contrast it with the situation here) but not everything.
Having lived internationally, I get the impression that most people are a lot more aware of (and therefore interested in) American politics than Americans are about theirs. One often sees impassioned editorials in foreign papers about American domestic and foreign politics, but rarely the reverse.
This is partly because American politics has the potential to affect them in some way, not just in obvious areas like foreign policy but also the many ramifications of domestic policy. The Bush economic meltdown affected pretty much the whole world, especially US trading partners. The other reason is that American politics often has aspects of extremism that make it quite entertaining. Conversely, I think surveys have pretty consistently established that Americans tend to be extraordinarily insular and tend to regard other countries as irrelevant.
I don’t know what you purport to mean by “intense”, but I fail to see a problem with understanding how other countries and societies do things. There’s even a chance one could learn something! The argument that societal successes in other countries hold no lessons for the US is typically employed by dishonest political partisans protecting an agenda.
Besides just the U.S. being the sole true remaining Superpower both economically and militarily speaking, the U.S. also controls a disproportionate amount of the world’s media. TV news agencies like CNN are international and have a very wide reach. I have yet to have visited anywhere in Europe, Canada or even Central America that didn’t have American centered news featured quite prominently in their channel lineup. I am sure that many locals don’t watch those much but they are there unlike the reverse. The web in general also has a disproportionate American slant for obvious reasons.
It is fairly difficult for literate media consumers from anywhere in the world not to absorb lots of American content just by osmosis (even if it is just through movies). The reverse isn’t generally true but there are some exceptions. I would guess that most Americans could not tell you the current Prime Minister of the UK off the top of their head (Thatcher and Blair were well-known but not the more recent ones) but the British Royal family gets a whole lot of coverage in the media. Almost everyone knows about Queen Elizabeth and her extended brood…the royal family of the Netherlands or Denmark, not so much. Angela Merkel hits the news a whole lot as well especially on the stations I listen to. Putin also gets a ton of coverage but so has every other Russian and Soviet political leader in living memory.
The United States is important. It’s that simple.
Importance is fame in politics. I know who Angela Merkel is because Germany is important. I have no idea who the head of government of Laos is, because Laos is relatively unimportant.
I think it helps that the President of the US is elected in a general election, with a media circus that focuses on the individual candidates. I can’t think of any other country that has anything similar. In most countries, the head of government is chosen by the parliament (or equivalent), not a general election.
The Presidents of Russia and France are both directly elected. And, while both countries have a Prime Minister, the Prime Minister is appointed (and dismissed) by the President. And South Korea has a directly elected President, who is also the head of government.
Also, the American style is to have a new president every 4 or 8 years, like clockwork, whether during peace or war. Around the world, people are able to keep up with the news.
Parliamentary governments, however, seem to play musical chairs with the Prime Ministership, losing one or getting a new one on irregular schedules, but frequently. Who, outside their own countries, can keep up with that?
I’d bet that a fair number of Americans know that Angela Merkel is the top dog of Germany, because she’s in the news from time to time, and she’s been in the job for a while. But who can keep track of who is the PM of Italy this week?
Rapid turnover isn’t an inevitable feature of a Parliamentary system. Germany, for example, has had eight Chancellors since the Federal Republic was founded in 1949. By my tot, in the same time the US has had twelve Presidents. The UK has had thirteen Prime Ministers in the same period, which is not that dramatically different from the US. Sweden has had eleven Prime Ministers. Australia has had thirteen Prime Ministers - and one of those was a caretaker following the sudden death of Harold Holt. Ireland has had twelve Taoisigh.
It’s partly since some countries’ politicians — such as those here — are so fucking awful it actually clinically depresses one to see their stupid names or stupid faces. US politicians, by virtue of the size of their remit, even if near insane, appear larger than life in comparison.
At least you people can watch the organ-grinders and ignore the caperings of their miserable monkeys.
I see a lot of strange reasons being offered upthread in response to the OP. The answer, IMO, is simple: If people recognize leaders of countries other than their own, it’s because they’ve been exposed to those names/faces in the media. Plain and simple.
To be fair, from our perspective, a lot of smaller nations ARE irrelevant. I mean, Uruguay has a smaller population than our 16th largest metropolitan area, and smaller than 29 of our 50 states.
Belgium is smaller than 7 of our states, and smaller than our top 2 metropolitan areas.
Why should we care?
Because CNN is on cable in virtually every country in the world. And the US has a military presence in virtually every country in the world. And American bankers are steering (or blackmailing) the local economy in virtually every country in the world.
Is it a fact that any American leader (besides the president) is well-known outside the country? How many people on another continent would be able to look at a video and name, say, Ted Cruz, or Justice Robeerts, or John Boehner? I think fewer people in the world would know those people, than Putin or Merckel or Mandela. Even as an American, would you be able to name the Secretary of the Treasury and pick him out of a group photo?
The bottom line is that people outside the US know a great deal more than Americans do about the entire world.