I’d at least expect it for the British elections-but I didn’t even realize that Blair has been out for almost a full year now, as his successor doesn’t even seem to get any ink on this side of the pond.
Is it just because the population density of non-US Dopers is too low, apathy on the part of you non-Yanks, or because the American presidential elections have much greater international import than those from other countries?
I truly think 90% of the reason is it’s a US based/dominated board.
And, in keeping with that premise-- 90% of most Americans, whether they belong to this board or not, have little more than a passing interest in political affairs of countries outside the US. And, I"m probably being conservative on my estimate.
Well, ya. We do in fact discuss politics in other countries, but it is an overwhelmingly US-centric messageboard. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
Personally, I think it’s that non-USians just aren’t as tiresome about their political processes. They don’t seem to think that caring about something means you have to obsess about it or discuss it ad nauseam.
Our politics, despite our bananarepublicanity, is quite predictable. Of course we had a good dose of crazy a few years back when we elected the stupidest president ever to walk this earth (I’ll call him Crazie). He was ran out of town on a rail.
So a little story:
A few weeks back we had elections again, the incumbent (who came to power after beating Crazie) against two more clowns. One of those clowns was from Crazie’s party. Since Crazie is wildly unpopular they kept him away from the press, but somehow he made it to the campaign trail.
When some journalist asked Crazie if his campaigning wouldn’t actually hurt Clown no. 2’s chance, Crazie erupted, saying that if the voters didn’t want to vote for for Clown no. 2 they could go fuck themselves (or words to that effect).
Good times. Good times.
Anyways. Now that the local electoral circus picked up the tent and closed I have to turn to the US election for my daily dose of crazy.
We’ve had some fairly good Canadian political threads, especially around election time.
I think there are a decent number of non-US political threads considering the board is hosted in the US. There was just one about the Irish vote on the EU treaty/constitution thingy, for example.
We’ve just had a couple of threads about David Davis, former U.K. Shadow Home Secretary.
Plus, there wasn’t an election between Blair and Brown. Not much to discuss there.
In addition, most other countries don’t take over a year between the candidates throwing their hats in the ring and the swearing-in of the new political leader. The lengthy electoral campaigns for POTUS pretty much guarantee endless threads on the subject.
We just had one about the Irish vote on the Lisbon Treaty. And we had a good one on the Mayor of London…
And we never, ever discuss the Middle East. Far too boring and uncontroversial. 
I’m not sure I agree with your figure (although do I think it’s probably fairly high), furthermore, I think a significant proportion of the remaining percentage is that American politics is such a bloody circus. Sheesh. It takes you how long and how much fuss to elect a new president?
Four years–or,Did you mean with court decisions thrown in? 
I think it it because the US makes a huge production out of the process. In Dubai politics is either hidden or simply boring (but still reported on). e.g.
“His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister and Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai today received a phone call from Badel Ndanga Ndinga, Minister of Industry, Mines, & Technological Development of the Republic of Cameroon in which they discussed matters of mutual concern.”
To build on this point a bit, many other countries don’t have fixed election dates that act as deadlines, allowing for a year-plus buildup of election activity. In Canada, for example, the constitution mandates an election every five years, but doesn’t specify a date–so an election can occur at any time during that period. Usually, they occur every four years, but can go the entire five, or sometimes less than four years in certain circumstances. Even though the media’s political pundits may report “it looks like there may be an election on the horizon,” there are generally only six to ten weeks between that kind of news and the actual election. Things happen very fast at that point, and there isn’t much time to get into the number of discussions that we see with the much-longer US presidential election process.
I’d love to hear somethin about Indian politics (as in the country of India) but I don’t know enough to start interesting threads. Xash being the only Indian-living-in-India doper I know, maybe he could start some threads.
I’d also like to hear more about Brit politics. I do try to understand what’s going on over there but it would be different not to mention easier if I could have more current discussions and news.
And yes, our election process is a bloody circus.
Well, see, that is really interesting. How do you decide when there is an election? Who says it? Do people just get tired of their jobs, or does the public decide?
Say, I guess that’s one US achievement that is cited as an example by other countries…we lead the world in production of Political Crazy.
As others have said, there are some threads about other countries politics.
But it’s US dominated because:
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