Author Archives: Alan Alexandroff

About Alan Alexandroff

Alan is the Director of the Global Summitry Project and teaches at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Alan focuses much of his attention on difficult global order issues including the appearance and consequences of the multilateral environment and the many global summits, especially the Informals such as the G7 and G20.

An Addendum to the Hamburg G20

Posted on by
Reply

So, I was struck almost immediately by the headline in the Atlantic blog on the Hamburg G20.  It turns out that the post was by my good friend Tom Wright from Brookings. The headline – “The G20 is Obsolete”. Just as I thought but so soon after Hamburg!

Tom’s defense – when I caught him – he didn’t write the headline, which I suspect is perfectly true – but really. At least a protest!

My only immediate reposte -“you had better hope not” that is at least with respect to the conclusion.  Now, Tom generally edges to the realist side when examining the liberal internationalist order, but I was surprised by the vehemence.  Take this line:  

But the divisions in the G20 run far deeper than frustration with Trump: The body itself is a vestige of a world that no long exists.

Whoa.  That’s strong!

Continue reading →

Paris, Fossil Fuel Prices and Innovation and their Impact on Climate Change: Global Summitry Podcast – An Interview with UCSD’s David Victor

Posted on by
Reply

At Oxford’s, Global Summitry: Politics, Economics and Law in International Governance, I was lucky enough to sit down with David Victor to talk about climate change. David is a professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the director of the School’s Laboratory on International Law and Regulation. He has been a contributor to the UNFCCC’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  He is one of the leading political scientists examining the consequences of climate change on global politics.

This interview with David examines the complicated requirements for the transition to a low carbon economy. David discusses questions of fossil fuel pricing, the role of coal and carbon capture and storage (CCS), and the impact of innovation on the road to deep decarbonization, the adequacy of today’s electric grids and the consequences of the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord. 

The Global Summitry’s podcast is Episode 12 in the podcast series: “Climate Change Policy in the Aftermath of the Paris Accord”. It can be found at Oxford’s, Global Summitry and also at iTunes and Soundcloud.

Image Credit: un.

The G20 – It’s Relevant But Different it Appears in the ‘Age of Trump’

Posted on by
Reply

 I suspect we’ll hear, once the dust settles a little on the chaos of the G20 Hamburg Summit, a litany of allegations that the Hamburg Summit reveals the irrelevance of the G20 in the Age of Trump.  Au contraire my ‘ill-observant friends’.That is certainly not the conclusion one should draw from this most recent G20 Summit, even in the ‘Age of Trump’.

There is likely to be varying views of the progress arising from the Hamburg Summit.  Our colleague Jonathan Luckhurst at Rising Powers in Global Governance posted a blog titled, “Hamburg G20 Summit Reaffirms Decentralizing Global Authority”.

Continue reading →

Climate Change Policy in the Aftermath of the Paris Accord. An Interview with Thomas Hale at Global Summitry Podcasts

Posted on by
Reply

So at Oxford’s  Global Summitry podcasts, we’ve begun a new series – this on the Paris climate change accord.  The podcast series ‘Climate Change Policy in the Aftermath of the Paris Accord’ begins with an interview with Thomas Hale, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.  Tom has been at the forefront of efforts to understand climate change policy and indeed other critical transnational policy challenges.  The podcast interview explores the nature of the Accord, why this negotiation succeeded after so many years of fruitless effort to reach a climate change agreement. Tom also reflects on the decision of President Trump to withdraw the United States from the Agreement.      

Give it a listen.  There will be others soon.  And let us know what you think.  

 

Image Credit: carbonbrief.org

Description and Evaluation of It All: Launching a Global Summitry Archive

Posted on by
Reply

Here at Rising BRICSAM for some time now we’ve been concerned with Global Summitry, and summitry more generally. While Rising BRICSAM was born some years ago concerned with the emergence of new energetic emerging market actors – the BRICs, then the BRICS, and more – Rising BRICSAM has remained focused on all the ‘Influentials’ in global governance. As part of that focus we have sought to describe, examine and evaluate the effectiveness of the variety of states, institutions and now non-state actors (NSAs) that form the architecture of global order governance.

Under the umbrella of the Global Summitry Project (GSP) we have over the years launched a number of initiatives: the Global Summitry Reports (GSRs), Spotlight, China Perspectives and our most ambitious project the Oxford University Press journal, Global Summitry: Politics, Economics and Law in International Governance.

The Global Summitry Archive

And it is with great pleasure now that GSP announces the launch of the Global Summitry Archive (the Archive). This Archive aims to collect, preserve and make publicly available all information and the websites related to global summits.

Continue reading →

So Many Lose-Lose Propositions – ‘Shaking the Global Order’

Posted on by
Reply

We are beginning to understand the consequences of an ‘America First’ leadership of the Global Order. And to just about any observer of it, it isn’t pretty.  As we wait here today for President Trump’s announcement on the Paris Accord – and whether he pulls the United States officially out or not –the US is surely out at least for the next four years. 

The retreat of US leadership from the Liberal international order continues. Maybe the most startling recent statement actually comes from two Trump officials. In an opinion piece in WSJ assessing the success of Trump’s first overseas trip to the Middle East, to NATO and to the G7 in Italy, H.R. McMaster, the White House national security advisor and D. Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, described the America First view of the Global Order:

The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a “global community” but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage. We bring to this forum unmatched military, political, economic, cultural and moral strength. Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it.

Continue reading →

‘America First’: American Foreign Policy in the ‘Age of Trump’

Posted on by
Reply

 

Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy  is only very slowly being revealed.  But this week will see an important addition.  On Thursday and Friday President Trump will be meeting China’s President Xi Jinping.  This meeting represents a crucial first meeting of the leaders though we have seen Secretary of State Tillerson in Beijing recently.  But Tillerson remains an enigma and it is not at all clear that he has the ‘ear ‘ of President Trump. This week we will see Donald Trump at the center of American foreign policy making with arguably the most relationship in the global order.

We have been working hard at the Global Summitry Project to chronicle and evaluate the impact of Trump on the Liberal Order.  Much of our effort can be seen at the Oxford’s journal, Global Summitry: Politics, Economics and Law in International Governance. The Journal is a partnership of the Munk School and the Rotman Management School.  I am one of the Senior Editors there. We have just launched a new podcast series – ‘Shaking the Global Order:  American Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump. Our first podcast episode, this an interview with Rory MacFarquhar a former Obama official, has just appeared. In celebration of the series, we have added the podcasts to iTunes and Soundcloud. Also, take a look at our analysis of Trump foreign policy: “Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy that its impact on the Liberal Order” that just recently appeared at the OUPBlog, 

Where will Trump take the United States? And where will he take the Liberal Order?  It remains an open question. Former Prime UK Minister, Tony Blair writing recently in the NYT about the politics of the centre and the challenges and pressures being experienced to both centre right and centre left parties raised the key issue:

The question is, will this be a temporary phase, perhaps linked to the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and Sept. 11, and will politics soon revert to normal, or has a new political age begun?

 

Continue reading →

‘Shaking the Temple’ – Trump and the Liberal Order

Posted on by
Reply

With the change in US Administrations we face possibly the most dramatic change in US foreign policy since the end of World War II.  The global leader has seemingly become the rogue seeking dramatic change in the Liberal Order the US has as much or more responsibility for over the last seventy years plus.

As has quickly become clear, however, we do not know if President’s Trump rhetoric of the campaign will be followed by actions matching the rhetoric.  There is some reason to think that his and his administration’s actions will not match some of the more highly nationalist expressions of his ‘America First’ rhetoric.  One need only look at Trump’s early statements and actions on China – phoning the Taiwan President, then questioning the ‘One China Policy’ only to reaffirm the policy in a call with China President Xi Jinping – to raise questions even doubts over the election rhetoric. But even without dramatic foreign policy actions it is not hard to see Trump and his Administration as possibly the greatest challenge to the Liberal Order that any of us have witnessed.

I will be periodically examining US foreign policy, and the policy toward the Liberal Order it and by key actors -supporters and detractors alike – hoping to assess the impact of the policies and actions on the Liberal Order. The first entry is the piece I was invited to post at the US-China Focus website.  There will be others. In addition, as Senior Editor of Oxford’s Global Summitry: Politics, Economics, and Law in International Governance, I intend to post a series of podcast interviews with experts and former officials on: ‘Shaking the Global Order: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump’.   I will back to you on additional posts and the podcast series.

 

 

Image Credit: abcnews.go.com

Looking at a Different ‘World Order’

Posted on by
Reply

It is evidently a result of the distemper of our immediate circumstances – brought on by President-Elect Donald Trump about to become President of the United States – that my colleagues are not unreasonably contemplating alternatives to the current Liberal Order.  Being apocalyptic is in; optimism out.  As my Cornell colleague and political economist friend, Jonathan Kirshner recently wrote in an article in the Los Angeles Review of Books: 

And so the election of Trump will come to mark the end of the international order that was built to avoid repeating the catastrophes of the first half the twentieth century, and which did so successfully — horrors that we like to imagine we have outgrown. It will not serve us well.

We have lost, we are lost. Not an election, but a civilization. Where does that leave us? I think the metaphor is one of (political) resistance.

Continue reading →

So Much Talk of ‘Disorder’!

Posted on by
Reply

So it appears just about everyone has joined in. There are of course insightful views of the current global order from some of my IR colleagues, including but not limited to by Thomas Wright at Brookings or Joe Nye at Harvard.  But it would appear that many others have joined in as well. And it is understandable.  The rise of populist forces, especially in Europe, the surprise election of Donald Trump in the United States and the continuing global economic slowdown, the decline in trade and the incomplete recovery from the financial crisis of 2008 leave an attractive political and economic landscape to contemplate the future of the global order,   

This is not to suggest that folks other than my IR colleagues don’t have the necessary insights to assess the implications of current actions and events.  Many do.  For there is after all a need to assess the political actions, the military capabilities and the economic trends in the global order.  And it remains, after all, that it it is still unclear how to determine great power capability, power and dominance.  Depending on who you read, it is all about military assets; others suggest it is economic capability; and still others introduce soft power aspects as well.  Thus, it is probably not very surprising that as well known an economist as Nouriel Roubini finds he is able to analyze the ‘disorder’ presented by recent events.  As he declares in a recent Project Syndicate article : 

Continue reading →