So a quick trip to Moscow!  Moscow you say – in December?  Yes indeed.  Russia took over hosting of the G20 Leaders Summit on December 1, 2012 and decided to declare a kind of G20 ‘Party’ of sorts.  To initiate Russia’s leadership in organizing the agenda for the G20 and to then actually host the G20 Leaders Summit in September in St. Petersburg, the Russian President and Russian officials called for a Sherpa meeting for December 11^th but added additionally a B20 meeting, a Think20 meeting and a civil society.  There was much ‘hustle and bustle’ of the G20 sort.

And of course lot’s of thinking!  This from all the gatherings including the G20 business, civil society groups now identified as the C20 and experts from the G20 think tanks.  I couldn’t resist, therefore, picturing all that thinking.  So there I am on the official Russian website – presumably thinking quite a bit.

Now the Russian President in his first remarks as G20 Host struck this very broad consultative cord – which G20 leader hasn’t – but here is President Putin:

Russia is ready for the broadest possible cooperation on reaching the G20’s objectives.  In order to make the G20’s work more effective and transparent and increase trust in what it is doing, we will hold the broadest consultations with all interested parties, with countries not part of the G20, and also with international, expert and trade union organisations, and business community, civil society and youth representatives.  Practice shows that global measures are only effective when they are based on the views and take into account the interests of different groups.

All right so broad consultation it is.  But where are the Russians hoping to take the agenda for the G20 leaders summit?  In his remarks President Putin identified Russia’s G20 priorities:

• Growth through Quality Jobs and Investment;
• Growth through Effective Regulation; and
• Growth through Trust and Transparency in Markets

With these priorities, so the President claims, G20 policy progress will occur with further efforts on:

• A framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth;
• Jobs and employment;
• International financial architectural reform;
• Reforming the currency and financial regulation and supervision systems;
• Energy sustainability;
• Development for all;
• Enhancing multilateral trade; and
• Fighting corruption.

And the President identified two additional issues on the financial agenda:

• Financing investment as a basis for economic growth and job creation; and
• Modernizing national public borrowing and sovereign debt management systems.

In a column from Sergey Strokan a Russian journalist posted by Russia’s RT titled, “Uphill battle: Russia at the helm of G20“,  Strokan reports:

The key issue Russia’s G20 presidency needs to address is the restoration of investor confidence, adds Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. In a situation, when economic growth in the locomotives of the world economy, including China, is still slowing down and the southern countries of the EU are in recession, global investor confidence is crucial for meeting the main global challenge of jump-starting economic growth, says Mr. Siluanov.

It appears the Russian Presidency hopes to hold – beyond the usual Sherpa and Finance Ministers and Central Bankers gatherings, a meeting of Finance and Labor Ministers as well as a meeting of Energy Ministers.

What can we make then of all of this?  First, as usual there is far too much G20-speak; for the ordinary citizen from the G20 and beyond, this appears like a lot of ‘gobble y-guck’.  It is hardly transparent to them.  Even to the G20-types there is much vagueness and a lack of clarity over the specific policy objectives – probably to satisfy large and disparate interests in the G20.  Then there appears to remain a conundrum at the heart of G20 policy – a key clash by G20 countries that appeared at the Toronto Summit – and remains to this day.  That is which lever should G20 countries pull – the austerity and fiscal consolidation lever, or the stimulus lever.  Now it is likely that the answer lies in timing and reflected in the specific conditions of various country budgets, job creation, debt accumulation and most critically economic growth.  But the fiction remains of an overarching  G20 policy agenda.

It would also appear that Russia can’t help but poke at the traditional economies with calls for monetary reform.  What is urgently needed is a more serious discussion over currency manipulation whether China’s or the United States or now with a new Prime Minister in Japan.  This is a tough issue but currency reform starts here.

And then there is hollowness of the consultation process.  While it is valuable to encourage the various interests – business, think tanks, youth and labor – it lies rather uncomfortably with a government that still retains legislation that requires foreign-funded NGOs to declare themselves as “foreign agents”.  It is dispiriting to witness this Janus-like behavior and the willingness of NGOs largely to ignore, this oppressive domestic behavior in the face of what appears a seat at the table – if a small one and far from the core table.

So the picture remains clouded but let’s see if the Russian presidency takes it upon itself to order transparency and accountability in the G20 agenda and policy process.  There is time yet.

Image Credit: Official Russian Website of the G20.

As I was catching up on my global governance reading – yes, this is what I do at the beach – I came across a study by by two Brookings scholars – Homi Kharas and Domenico Lombardi on the G20 Leaders Summit.  Homi Kharas is a senior fellow and the deputy director for the Global Economy and Development Program at Brookings and Domenico Lombardi is a senior fellow and in the same Brookings program.  The piece “The Group of Twenty: Origins, Prospects Challenges for Global Governance” is worth reading and provides excellent detail on the work of previous G20 ministerials and the the more current G20 leader summits.   The study appears to have emerged in August though it also seems to have been written prior to the Los Cabos G20 Leaders Summit.  No matter.

What remains interesting are the conclusions the two authors draw on this relatively new “high table” of global governance   The fact is experts continue to struggle to comprehend fully the influence of this new global summitry institution and to determine moreover its effectiveness.  It would seem that the two authors see the G20 as more “effective” than the predecessor G8 but they continue to dwell on its shortcomings especially with respect to representation and legitimacy.   I would also suggest that the authors still struggle to understand where the G20 has most effectively moved the yardsticks of global governance.

So how do they see this new global summitry “beast”:

As we look back, however, there is a sense that, although the G-20 was quite effective as a crisis manager, its effectiveness as an enduring facilitating framework for international cooperation has proved mixed at best. … The G-20 does not operate on the basis of setting specific goals, financial commitments or timelines in the same fashion as the G-8. That is because it has organized itself as a process-oriented forum [emphasis added] for first helping to build a consensus and then providing the required political momentum to ensure implementation. … In fact, those decisions are being made through an engagement with other forums and treaty-based institutions where there are established governance procedures for representation and voice.  … For the time being, the G-20 appears to be the “best available option” for global economic governance. It is not designed to achieve institutional legitimacy per se, and thus it has chosen to work with other bodies that have a more inclusive and universal representation. It is not an implementing body, but it encourages others to rise to the challenge of addressing the issues that its agenda advances.  … Leaders who now participate in it are finding ways to demonstrate to their own electorates that they are making a difference in the conduct of global affairs through the stance they take at its summit meetings.  This link between global and domestic dialogues, and the building of popular support to address global challenges, may yet become the greatest value that the G-20 adds.

I see their first point as significant.  Most observers would argue that no matter what else one says about the G20, the early coordinated success of leaders’ efforts to avoid a complete global financial meltdown marks a highpoint in the effectiveness of the organization.

So the G20 is an effective crisis manager.  But it may not be true at all.  While the G20 effectively steered the global economy away from the abyss, thereafter it has proven itself to be a rather feeble crisis manager.  In fact the insistent intrusion of the eurozone crisis has significantly distracted and sapped the Leaders Summit.  Ambiguity surrounding its role in the crisis and the German determination to enforce austerity has motivated the eurozone and then the G20 to “kick the can down the road” as many experts have commented on.  G20 Leaders have found themselves unable to “move the yardsticks”  on this crisis but  – and more importantly – the Leaders have found themselves unable to redirect the agenda firmly toward to big item crisis prevention matters.  Both the French and Mexican agendas have largely been jettisoned.  So the G20 is has foundered between the Scylla of crisis management and the Charybdis of crisis prevention.  And it appears that is where we sit today.

As for the debate over institutionalization.  Well as I have pointed out in the past – I am not attracted to to the formal treaty-based structural forms of global governance. And even if I was – it ain’t going to happen.  But for experts and officials closer in to the reality of the Bretton Woods and UN system of institutions, the allure is just too great.  And that is certainly where the authors are, looking for integration with a reformed IMF, etc., etc.  But even though irresistibly drawn to formal institutions they go part way by pointing to the engagement with these formal treaty bound institutions.  But in fact the tasking by the G20 with the Bretton Woods institutions such as the IMF and the transgovernmental regulatory networks – FSB, IOSCO, BCBS, etc., is not only engagement but creation of a new structural architecture of formal and informal institutions.  It is all of one piece gents as I’ve argued in the “Iceberg Theory” of global governance.

Messy but effective possibly – as long as the G20 shifts from crisis to prevention.  And on that score we are not there yet.  So put your measuring instruments aside.

Image Credit:  TrendingAddict.com – Washington G20 Leaders Summit 2008

There continues to be a raging debate – all right so in global governance and global summitry there is hardly likely to be a raging anything – but there continues to be a serious difference of opinion among officials and experts over the success of the G20 Leaders Summit.  Some have argued that the G20 proved effective, at least in the immediate context of the financial crisis in 2008 – especially after the turbulence from the Lehman Brothers’s bankruptcy.  Others, while admitting the immediate success have suggested that as this critical crisis receded, so did the effectiveness of the G20.  Thus, the G20 Leaders has become unwilling to accept the economic and financial coordination identified by various international organizations and regulatory bodies.

Well I suspect there is no immediate way to resolve the debate – to determine definitively – the overarching success or failure – the final measure of effectiveness for global governance –   of the G20 Leaders Summit.

But I think there is a possibility of some assessment in the near future.  The possible metric that we may use to gauge the G20 Leaders capability to coordinate action and to avoid, or at least ameliorate a possible crisis comes in the area of food prices.   The assessment available is, or will be, the G20 action(s)/or not, to avoid a recurrence of food price spikes that led in 2008 to riots in a number of developing countries.

Since that time global summitry has been busy addressing – at least rhetorically – the question of food price volatility.  Former President Sarkozy was particularly engaged in food security though he leaned toward the influence of derivatives on commodity prices as much or more of a direct factor on food supply and demand.

First at the Seoul Summit the G20 Leaders identified a food security pillar in the Seoul Consensus.  Then the ministers of Agriculture gathered in June 2011 in Paris and produced an “Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture”.  And even more recently at the Los Cabos Summit the agriculture vice-ministers annexed a Report (Report May 18, 2012) to the Los Cabos Declaration (see paragraphs 55 through 62) describing the progress made on previous food security commitments.

Now comes the drought in North America that poses an immediate threat to the supply of commodities and the real prospect of significant prices increases. Apparently it would seem that Mexican, French and US officials are urging their colleagues to hold a conference call in the week of August 27th to discuss the possibility of calling a meeting of the Rapid Response Forum (RRF).  The RRF is a creature of AMIS or the Agricultural Market Information System  (AMIS) that was launched in September 2011.  The main objective of AMIS is to encourage major players on agri-food markets to share data and enhance information systems.  That would seem more than reasonable but a number of nations particularly China have been unwilling to do so and private agri-business – major players in the food distribution chain – are reluctant to play as well.

Now the RRF is a body designed to “promote early discussion among decision-level officials about abnormal international market conditions.”  What could this body discuss?  Well it might well encourage producing states to avoid placing food export bans on key commodities.  It was the Russian embargo that exacerbated prices in the already volatile commodity markets in 2008.  And major producers – the US for instance that uses approximately 40 percent of the corn crop to make biofuels – could consider lifting the mandates on bio-fuel production.

Well you’ll not be surprised that a number of experts have already “pooh poohed” the likelihood of action by G20 countries.  As trade expert Simon Evenett was quoted as saying:

Beyond words, expect little from the G20 on rising food prices. … With a string of broken promises on protectionism, no serious enforcement, monitoring well after the horse has bolted, and a tendency to pull their punches, any G20 promises on food trade won’t be taken seriously – by the G20 themselves or by anyone else.

Well here is a useful test of the G20s capacity to coordinate action in the face of what appears to be a real prospect of price increase in such critical commodities as corn, wheat and soybeans.

Image Credit: OMAFRA report authored by John Chippa July 13, 2012

[Editor: Apologies to all for the lengthy silence. But graduation of my older daughter took precedence.  And let me just say that Princeton University knows how to conduct a graduation. Believe me!]

Every rescue effort brings momentary relief to world markets.  Within days, however, the  good feeling drains away. Worry returns and leaders then describe and urge the next step to solve the crisis.  We move from Greece, to Spain and now to Italy and then back.  The Eurozone crisis continues – at a low boil – but a boil nonetheless.

As significant time has passed on the Eurozone crisis, we are now faced with yet another G20 Leaders Summit in the midst of a Euro crisis.  In fact the Greece national elections will occur just before the convening of the Leaders Summit – shades of Cannes all over again.  And so the Los Cobos G20 Leaders Summit faces the fate that we experienced with the G20 in Cannes and the G8 in Camp David – a crisis in Europe that is likely to occupy and distract officials and G20 Leaders occupying, we presume, much of Leaders face time notwithstanding the agenda prescribed by the host country.

We are even more likely at the conclusion of this Summit – as opposed to earlier ones –  to receive a round of media condemnation for the distraction from the agenda, the lack of outcomes for the Summit and no doubt a round scolding for the Leaders’ inability to solve the crisis.

And at one level who can blame the media.  This slow motion Euro crisis results in each global summitry meeting “kicking the can down the road” on whatever agenda the host has prepared for the summit.  The problem is that the excuse wears thin after several Summits and it is unlikely that the media will be placated that the next G20 Summit is likely to be more productive – after so much delay – not to mention that the next Summit could be well be over a year away somewhere – and hosted in Russia.

To parry such “negativism” leaders and officials have begun to urge the G20 to not let the agenda to be set aside by the “hurly burly” of the European crisis.  Thus, for example, German officials have been urging a focus beyond Europe – now that of course is hardly a surprise since a crisis focus can only lead to greater pressure on Germany to take bolder action to end this seemingly “never-ending story”.  Thus Reuters reported that senior German officials urged that:

The euro zone will surely be a topic, but as Europeans we also want to talk about other themes related to the global economy that go beyond the euro zone, for example budget consolidation in the United States, currency flexibility in China and structural reforms in emerging markets. … We think when talking about global growth it is important to look beyond the euro zone, not to the discussion to Europe.

German officials also expect to see action – long promised – to provide for the strengthening of the global economy over the medium-to-longer term, but still not likely to provide concrete stimulus plans by the G20 Leaders.

Mexican President Calderon too has spoken out expressing his hope that this action plan will form an important deliverable for this Summit:

(The action plan) will not only include measures to confront and resolve the European crisis, which is ultimately an economic crisis, but will also put forward concrete measures on public policy in key areas in the realms of tax, finance and monetary policy, which will help to boost global growth in the long term.

Chinese officials have also spoken out for the need to tackle not just the European crisis but make progress on on financial reform and push forward on international financial governance reform.  Brazil has raised the spectre of even more conflict suggesting that it may cap its overall assistance to the IMF fund if there are not firmer efforts to address the quota and share issues – though Brazil is aware, as are the others, that the US Administration is not prepared to amend the IMF formula by way of legislative changes till after the November US election.

Forecasts are thus not bright for the Los Cabos gathering.  The transition of the G20 Summit to a permanent meeting targeted on more medium-term issues – whether financial regulatory reform or on macroeconomic issues – seems to have faltered.  It may be inevitable that leaders will be drawn to, or pushed, to deal with the issue of the moment.  But the inability to get out from under the European crisis over an extended period of time has eroded, or is eroding, a sense of  effectiveness of this Summit.  This is not good for global governance overall.

As my colleague Dan Drezner says –  “Am I missing something”.

Image Credit:  Government of Mexico

Observers of global summitry recognize how difficult it is “kill off” a summitry settings.  In 2009 when the United States was eager to promote the newly minted permanent “high table” of economic global governance – the G20 Leaders Summit – there were whispers – unnamed official sources –  that the US was encouraging the “fading away” of the G7/8.

Two problems with that scenario appeared.  First, a number of the “smaller” members of the club – Japan, Italy and Canada – clung to the decades-old G7.  They declared it more informal and intimate in contrast to the  stiffness and formality of the new club.  And the G7 was a setting where these less powerful members held greater sway.  Look at poor Japan.  In the G7 Japan was the only Asian country; but in the G20 Japan was but one of 6 (and yes I do include Australia in this Asian grouping).

The second problem was quick to appear as well.  Notwithstanding early Administration enthusiasm for the enlarged group that now included China, Brazil and India, it proveed to be very heavy lifting to move to consensus and agreement in the enlarged high table of global governance.  Look at the protracted discussion over global imbalances.  American officials began to back away from their earlier enthusiasm and determined regicide and began to suggest a rather more a la carte approach to global summitry – looking at the forum likely to achieve forward movement and to favor that gathering for the specific goal.

So the G7/8 didn’t go away and there was frequent reference to the warm like mindedness that the G7 at least represented.  Here was a club with similar norms and values that could focus on a goal and achieve forward progress in overcoming the collective action problem that plagues global governance.

Well, how’s that view holding up?  Not so well.  So, there we were with about as intimate and informal a setting as you could achieve – Camp David – and what we got was – very little.  And why.  Well, there was deep contention between Germany and the rest over the question of the resolution of the eurozone crisis.  The officials struggled long into the night but the Camp David Declaration failed to deliver.  No agenda – no targets – but strong rhetoric “Our imperative is to promote growth and jobs” and:

Against this background, we commit to take all necessary steps to strengthen and reinvigorate our economies and combat financial stress, recognizing that the right measures are not the same for each of us.

Read that as  – We agree to disagree over growth and austerity.   And as the Multilateralist, David Bosco, chronicled recently in his post “Can the Obama administration get the G8 back to basics?” the US sherpa, Michael Froman turned the agenda in to a grab bag of global governance issues:

But Froman then proceeded to outline an agenda that included a remarkable number of things under the sun, including Syria, Iran, Burma, Afghanistan, energy security, the Eurozone crisis, the Arab Spring, and food security. The scattershot agenda is a reminder of how much the forum has changed from its original economic focus.

So the “like-minded”  – what a number of the original G7 had pinpointed as a peculiarly relevant aspect of this gathering – failed to prove its value.  Sorry global summitry is hard! And whether states are democratic or not provides no guarantee of achieving success.  It remains unclear what the G7 forum, let alone the G8, is all about other than a caucus of states drawn from the larger G20. It might then make greater sense to hold this meeting at an extended meeting time of the G20 – two days plus – rather than one for the G20.  And eliminate the separate time for the G8.  Global Summitry is too precious to squander – like-mindedness or not.

Image Credit: Xinhua/AFP – G8 Summit

As mentioned in the last blog post I was in Princeton revelling in the company of colleagues on the question of liberal internationalism – its present and future.  Not content with such a feast of expert views, this last week I travelled to Chicago to continue various dialogues.

The Chicago meetings were not coincidental.  Chicago is soon to host leaders for global summitry.  First there is the G8 Leaders Summit (well it at least it had been planned for Chicago but is now relocated to Camp David) and then the NATO Leaders Summit. The G8 Leaders Summit – the 38th in a series (if you count G7 as well) – will now take place on May 18th and 19th.  It will be followed immediately by the NATO Leaders Summit in Chicago on May 20-21st.  Well there you are: back to back leaders summits.

In part, I suspect, to capture the summit setting and media focus, a second one-day gathering was held by the the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, on Rise of the BRICS.   Rich Williamson the senior fellow project head called together a group of experts to Chicago as he had earlier in New York.  On this occasion Rich had the experts examine the international financial system, economic growth, trade and finance and energy security.

Then on May 10th and 11th the Stanley Foundation, the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern and the Global Summitry Project from the Munk School of Global Affairs put on the conference  “The Apex of Influence – How Summit Meetings Build Multilateral Cooperation” (by the way you may view the entire Conference at fora.tv).  The Apex of Influence Conference was designed to both examine the big picture questions of global summitry definition and evaluate success/failure and also to look more directly at the upcoming key global summit meetings – holding panels on the G8, the G20, NATO and then an examination of the financial crisis in Europe and its consequences for European unity and indeed for global governance.

The “Apex of Influence” Conference included a host of experts and proved to be an illuminating series of panels.  I am going to divide my remarks – looking first at what constitutes – and therefore what doesn’t constitute the scope of global summitry and then in a follow-on post I want to examine the impact of the G8 meeting at Camp David and possibly say something about evaluating success/failure for global summits.

In trying to tease out the contours of global summitry, we created two panels – bookends so to speak with a panel that commenced the conference and then a panel that concluded discussions for this conference.  We were very pleased to include both experts, officials and former officials in our two panels: “What Makes a Summit More Than a Photo-Op?” and “Fair Standards for Summit Success/Failure – Keeping Sight of Diplomatic, Political and Bureaucratic Realities”.

Dan Drezner from Tufts and foreignpolicy.com and David Shorr from TSF led off.  Dan in particular was good about trying to provide a precise definition of global summitry.  As you can see Dan focused on the institutions of global governance that in his mind make up global summitry.  His definition:

A problem solving forum that includes the regular participation of heads of government.

This institutional definition is useful.  It sweeps in a number of forum including:

• routinized gatherings – the G8 and the G20 of course but also APEC, the Summit of the Americas, the nuclear security summit, NATO and ASEAN;
• instances where leaders frequently show up – e.g. when leaders gather annually for the opening of the General Assembly;
• large annual gatherings where some leaders frequently attended, e.g. the World Economic Forum (Davos);

The definition and the  instances cited do help distinguish global summitry from the broader category of global governance.  Thus, annual meetings where leaders do not attend e.g., the Fall and Spring meetings of the IMF for instance are not included.  Other routinized meetings are excluded as well especially those where transgovernmental regulatory agencies meet with officials including public and private regulators but not with leaders, e.g., the FSB, the BCPS, IOSCO,.

The definition provided by Dan is very helpful but the institutional focus may in the end be both too broad and too narrow. In the final session I gave a definition that was more functionally focused, which picks up on Dan’s “problem solving” aspect in his definition.  Thus, the definition for global summitry that I gave was:

The political architecture in which the organization and execution of global politics and policy take place.

This more functional approach targets outputs as well as actors.  Thus, the gathering of leaders at the annual General Assembly opening would fail to qualify as would Davos.  On the other hand it would take the broader element offered by architecture into account including  ministers, ministry officials, working parties, IO (International Organizations) and the vast structure of transgovernmental regulatory networks that get tasked to do things by those up the governmental hierarchy and that find their way to Reports, etc., that leaders then discuss, ratify or request further work.  Dan’s leader focus approach to global summitry, though useful, does separate out the “worker bees” from those at the top.  I see global summitry as a an authority decision mechanism that links together this complex of leaders, officials, representatives – public and private and their agencies, boards and organizations – my so-called “Iceberg Theory of Global Governance”.  It is messy and certainly not “your mother’s international decision structure” – but it has the value of reflecting the politics and policy for today’s global governance.

The question then is global summitry successful?  How can we know?

Image Credit:  Wikimedia Commons – Chicago Landscape