The Hokkaido Summit, as I imagine and sense other G7/8 annual summits – now 34 and counting – have been, was an intensive, word-strewn affair. Take a look at the University of Toronto’s G8 Research Group website. The site is filled with Hokkaido’s outpouring of Reports and Statements by G7/8 officials. Even the evaluation of the Summit, entitled, “A Summit of Substantial Success: The Performance of the 2008 G8“, by G8 Research Group leader, Professor John Kirton of the University of Toronto comes to some 45 pages and that doesn’t include appendices that adds another 45 pages. John is taken with Japanese summitry and what he sees as consistent success in leading the summit, which it has done 5 Continue reading
Author Archives: Alan Alexandroff
Keeping the League Alive
The Russian and Chinese vetoes of the US-sponsored sanctions resolution on Friday July 11th (along with South Africa’s negative vote) has done much to keep the question of a ‘league of democracy’ alive in global governance circles. Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) has written recently a useful examination of the League of Democracies concept in the most recent issue of Foreign Policy. His article entitled, “A League of Their Own,” reviews the origins, history and even the influence of the concept of the League of Democracies.
Born in the academic byways, the concept discussed by John Ikenberry and Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter in their Continue reading
What Kind of Power Will it Want to Be?
In a nutshell one aspect of China’s ‘peaceful rise,’ – or not, can be found through evaluating the type of nationalism the Government and the Party have promoted or channeled. Chen Zhimin is currently Professor and Chair the Department of International Politics, School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University, Shanghai. In 2005 Chen Zhimin published an excellent analysis of Chinese nationalism entitled, “Nationalism, Internationalism and Chinese Foreign Policy.” (see full cite below).
I had the great pleasure of meeting Chen Zhimin a number of his colleagues in the recent series of meetings I and my Continue reading
The Oriental Pearl TV Tower
There is no more dramatic symbol of China’s ‘peaceful rise’ than the Oriental Pearl TV Tower in Pudong Park in Lujiazui Shanghai. Standing on Waitan (the Bund), the quay along the Huang Po River that divides Pudong from Puxi, a few nights ago took me back to my last trip to Shanghai 19 years ago. Standing there those years earlier, no Tower, no city in Pudong, no lights – nothing. Today the gleaming height of the Tower (at least until 10 pm) along with the gleaming surrounding towers startle you at the overwhelming Pudong presence.
So from nothing to an overwhelming presence. The Tower symbolizes China’s appearance on the world stage. It Continue reading
Two to Tango
In a recent blog post, “To Enlarge; or not to Enlarge – That is a Question“, I looked at current G7/8 members, their views of G7/8 enlargement and the Heiligendamm process.
The G7/8 discussion begins with two questions: Does the G8 constitute a Great power club with adequate authority and influence to act as a significant institution of global management? If not what membership and enlargement does the G8 need to address the legitimacy/effectiveness dimensions of this international organization?
The second question is does the Heiligendamm Process – this structured dialogue – provide an enlargement path for Continue reading
Visiting ‘Up the Country’
I must apologize for a bit of turbulence in the blog posts – read that as missing a few appointed posts. I am in China right now and in Beijing – or as the locals like to say – Yanjing (sparrow capital. The old but venerated name for Beijing.). So apologies. But hopefully the gaps won’t be too severe.
I would like to thank Arthur Stein, my UCLA colleague and friend, who as readers notice fills in periodically with his excellent blog posts on IR and all things pertinent to it.
I will avoid the usual clichés about the ‘new’ China. I’m sure you have grown ‘jaded’ (couldn’t resist) with the usual ‘gosh, golly’ expressions over the rapid growth, etc. etc. Continue reading
To Enlarge; or not to Enlarge – That is a Question
So is the challenge to legitimacy and the inability of the G7/8 today to solve key global problems – global finance, and climate change but two key problems – leading the Great powers to welcome enlargement? No. That’s not it exactly. The current enlargement plans – if that is what the HP process is (more on that in a moment) – appears to have been built on earlier enlargement efforts of the G7/8. In fact the G7/8 as great power organization, is itself a product of enlargement, since its initiation in 1975 was 5 and today is somewhat imperfectly the G8.
But enlargement models have periodically arisen. Thus, much praise has accompanied the emergence – at the Finance ministerial level – of the G20 created after the Asian financial crisis. In this forum China, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa Continue reading
More than you ever wanted to know!
For information on the G7/8 there is one must stop. It is the G8 Research Group. This Group is led by University of Toronto’s political science professor, director and co-founder of the G8 Research Group. It is a major if not the major global source on G7/8. Indeed, at the website you can find documents and analysis on every annual meeting, plus obligations undertaken by the member countries – The United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, (the EU is also present), Japan Russia. It is a treasure trove. And John Kirton, well he’s a walking encyclopedia. All you need do is ask him anything about any of the Leaders’ Summits, and in a flash John will tell you exactly what was decided in any of Continue reading
“BRIC by BRIC” Part I
Whether we look at the UNSC-P5 or the industrialized G7/8, or other global governance institutions, the refrain is the same – the organization cannot get the work done given current membership. The organization neither has the economic heft, in some cases, or the diplomatic leadership, in other cases, or both, to make decisions. But constructing the path to new global governance architecture – devising membership reform – is not simple. Indeed the redistribution of power in the international system and accommodating new leadership is the key dilemma in reform. Exploring the development of G7/8 enlargement is the purpose of a paper by Timothy Shaw (his appointments span the world but currently he is at the University of the West Indies and CIGI Senior Fellow) , Agata Antkiewicz (Senior Researcher at CIGI) and Andrew Cooper (Associate Director and CIGI Distinguished Fellow) (Shaw et al.) for the economic diplomacy Project at CIGI. The paper Continue reading
Africa’s Champion?
South Africa is a central player in the O5. But is it a BRIC or the extension – B(R)ICSAM/BRICSAM? This a more difficult question. In CIGI Distinguished Fellow Andy Cooper’s Heiligendamm Process Project, we have been fortunate to have Brendan Vickers join us and prepare a chapter on South Africa (SA) entitled, “South Africa: Global Reformism, Global Apartheid and the Heiligendamm Process.” Brendan, by the way, is currently a senior researcher in the multilateral programme at the Institute for Global Dialogue in South Africa (IDG). Before his appointment to IDG, Brendan was Deputy Director responsible for International and Trade in the Office of the President of South Africa.
On economic leverage, it would appear that SA is simply too small to be part of BRICSAM. Currently, SA has a GDP (PPP) of only USD$467 billion which places it as the 25th largest economy in the world. As Brendan suggest, “… there is little objective economic rationale for the country’s inclusion into the O5, let alone an expanded G13.” Brendan characterizes SA as a middle-income developing country with many of the development problems that this brings. Indeed, as he points Continue reading