Well it certainly has not been ‘the best of times’ – particularly not if you’ve been reading the international pundits. And indeed there is a lot of tension, strife and conflict in the international system whether in the Middle East, or in Eastern Europe or in Asia in the South China and East China Seas. No matter where you look it seems you can find these nasty conflicts.
Having just looked at the global economy, and more precisely, the efforts of the great powers, in significant measure through the G20 to avoid a new Great Depression, I thought it might be useful to turn my sights on another critical area of global governance – in this instance trade.
So the assessment of what is broken, and what is not, at the global governance level continues among the experts.
First a rare corrective to the gloom-and-doom assessments particularly from the international media.
Dan Drezner recently released his book examining the response, especially of the G20 to the Great Recession. The book is entitled – The System Worked: How the World Stopped Another Great Depression.
Global Leadership
Today’s realities demand positive international cooperation. Shared global challenges require creative multilateral solutions. Annual world leader summits like the G-8 and G-20 are free from the traditional trappings of fixed institutions like the United Nations. These gatherings adapt more easily to shifts in power, influence and political alignment.
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The above is from the current Stanley Foundation website. I have had the great pleasure of working with various individuals and experts from this serious and effective US foundation. The Stanley Foundation (TSF) has been in the multilateral business for quite some time. As its website identifies, the Foundation began programming in 1960.
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Much anticipated, the second cycle of the BRICS Leaders meetings commenced in Fortaleza Brazil on July 15th. And as expected the first really concrete contribution to international development got off the ground – the BRICS Bank called the “New Development Bank”. This will change how many view the BRICS.
I’ve just had the good fortune to return from Oxford University where I spent several very pleasant days examining with experts and others the health and direction of global governance. This almost annual Princeton University Workshop is a highly satisfactory partnership of the Council on Foreign Relations and Stewart Patrick, Princeton University and John Ikenberry, The Stanley Foundation, President Keith Porter and Program Director Jennifer Smyser, and ‘moi’ of the Global Summitry Project at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto.
While we all have been debating whether the Russian intervention in the Crimea warranted expelling Russia from this or that organization, a very serious wound has been inflicted on global summitry.
I was caught by the discussion in this morning’s New York Times in the “Room for Debate” section. At the NYT site several old friends from global summitry analysis and a few new acquaintances set out their opinions on whether to kick Russia out of the G8 or not.
The G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bankers (Ministers) met this weekend in Australia to further develop the G20 Brisbane Action Agenda. They released, mercifully, a short communique that identified, whether stated or not, their continued measured efforts to achieve in G20-speak ‘strong sustainable and balanced growth”. This meeting is just one piece in a continuing effort to provide policy coordination for the G20 – and a step along the road to the completion of the Brisbane Action Plan.
So my colleague and friend Stewart Patrick, the Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations has given us a full picture of the contemporary global governance system recently in Foreign Affairs.
But say it ain’t so Stewart. The bottom line for him is an unruly and largely unorganized global governance architecture delivering only partially what is needed:
The future will see not the renovation or the construction of a glistening new international architecture but rather the continued spread of an unattractive but adaptable multilateral sprawl that delivers a partial measure of international cooperation through a welter of informal arrangements and piecemeal approaches.
