Talk: 2012 - Year of Elections, Year of Change? | Quadriga

In no less than three of the world's most powerful nations -- the US, Russia and China -- people will go to the polls in the coming year. France, too, could see power change hands. Whether the US vote will bring continuity or change depends largely on the economy's ability to pull out of its long slump. What the Russian transition will mean looks less certain now than it did three months ago, when Vladimir Putin announced his intention to return to the presidency. Meanwhile in China, the jockeying for power goes on behind the scenes.

Our guests: Hao Gui -- Born in Nanjing, Chinese journalist Hao Gui grew up in the People's Republic of China. He went on to study journalism in Germany, in Dortmund and elsewhere. Gui then did an intership at the western German broadcaster, WDR. Hao Gui has also published several books. Since 2003, he has worked in the Asian newsroom at DW-radio. Gui covers economics and politics in Eastern Asia, as well as culture and the media.

Andrew B. Denison is a political scientist from the United States. He studied both there and in Germany, and is an expert in foreign policy and security issues. He works for the Institute for Strategic Analysis in Bonn, as a researcher and author. Denison is also director of "Transatlantic Networks", a research consortium based in Königswinter, Germany. His main emphasis lies on international and domestic security policy focusing particularly on Obama and the USA's second century, the relationship between US and European economic policies, the future of NATO, Moore's Law and future security policy.

Michael Stürmer -- has been the senior correspondent at the German daily "Die Welt" since 1989. Born in Kassel in 1938, Stürmer studied History, Philosophy and Languages in London, Berlin and Marburg. He is also Professor of Modern History at the University of Erlangen.