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.
Well I must say, I have a fair bit of catching up to do. Much in the way of travel and international legal action, but not much action on the blog front. Well that is at an end.
And we are approaching as well, if you hadn’t noticed, a milestone event in international relations – the 100th anniversary of the commencement of the “War to End All Wars” – the First World War. If you haven’t noticed, there has been a notable uptick in the number of books on the approach to war and the initiation of World War 1 – August 4, 1914. So I shall be delving into various of these books and articles on this crucial twentieth century event.
And here are some thoughts on the St. Petersburg Summit from David Shorr, Program Officer, for the Stanley Foundation
David …
So putting the last items in the bag for the trip to St. Petersburg. This one looks like trouble. Five years in to G20 Leaders Summits and St. Petersburg would appear to have all the characteristics of a major distraction. This would not be the first. I certainly remember how the Greek Euro crisis drove France’s G20 Agenda at Cannes right off the cliff. It would appear that Syria – and the use of military force in retaliation for the use of chemical weapons – could be even more of an agenda killer.
Finance Ministers and Central Bankers Moscow July 2013 Image Credit: x.dawn.com
The Finance Ministers and Central Bankers of the G20 met as scheduled in Moscow at the end of the week. This periodic meeting is just a part, though a key part, of the “iceberg” that is global summitry today. A fascinating factoid – this meeting of “finance” officials does not generally include the central bank officials when it gathers at the actual G20 Leaders Summit. Given the key role that central bankers have been playing in trying to “right” the global economy, that probably should come to an end. But in any case their communiqué underlined the Iceberg Theory that I and others have identified for some time.
So so much for a return to the informal. There was all this talk at Camp David about reducing the length of communiqués – to go back to an earlier time of G7 simplicity and face-to-face leadership. One of my good colleagues, Stewart Patrick at the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) in a blog post at the Internationalist his blog at CFR (I should note the post was prepared pre-summit meeting) fell prey to host hype and the general view from the established states of the G8 of the value of the oldest of informals the G8 – or more precisely the G7 and the G8. Stewart Patrick chiming in on the continuance of the G7/8 declared:
One of the G8’s obvious advantages over the G20 is its modest size, which enables the unscripted, candid dialogue that world leaders crave. The first summit of this kind, a G-5 meeting … remains the model for this sort of interaction. After intimate discussions over the world economy, the leaders produced a concise declaration of only fifteen paragraphs. David Cameron, this year’s host, is anxious to go back to those first principles. There will be no lengthy communique. No armies of officials telling each other what each of their leaders think. As last year’s Camp David summit, leaders will roll up their sleeves, outside the prying eyes of cameras and reporters, and get down to business.
Well, I suppose the best you can say, was – that was then, and this is now. So the Camp David communiqué – a relatively svelte 39 paragraphs over a mere eight pages and accompanied by serious declarations of the end of lengthy communiqés, proved not to be. The Lough Erne communiqué is a rather “plump” one might even venture to say “bloated” 95 paragraphs over 22 pages with appendices that include a “G8 Action Plan to prevent the misuse of companies and legal arrangements”, another annex the “G8 Open Data Charter”, a section on “Collective Actions” and a G8 Lough Erne Declaration, a document on tax evasion. In all we have at least 33 pages – and a host of declarations.
Now before I try to summarize what this cascade of documents suggests about the G8, it is worth noting that Patrick attempts to characterize the global summit landscape. It is, “dare I say” a rather US-centric vision of “let a hundred flowers bloom”. As Patrick describes it, and in the effort tries to put Ian Bremmer’s rather bleak “G-zero” world to rest:
In fact, the “G-Zero” label is misleading – a barren caricature of the rich landscape of international cooperation that actually does exist. What is distinctive about our era is not the absence of multilateralism, but its astonishing diversity and flexibility. When it comes to collective action, states are no longer focusing solely or even primarily on universal, treaty-based institutions like the United Nations – or even a single apex forum like the Group of Twenty (G20). Instead, governments have adopted an ad hoc approach, coalescing in a bewildering array of issue-specific transient bodies depending on their situational interests, shared values, and relevant capabilities. Welcome to the “G-X” world.
The dismissal of the G-Zero world is probably right, and the “bewildering array of issue-specific and sometimes transient bodies” may indeed also be correct but this is nothing I think we should be celebrating. As I have argued in past blog posts the reality of US leadership is that it unfortunately has found the G20 really heavy work and so has joined in in the policy generating process in a variety global summit settings that has, if nothing else, undermined the G20 legitimacy as the apex of at least global economy summitry and left most of wondering where are we going to get international policy outputs from in global summitry.
The fact is if you read the G8 Lough Erne communiqué, the rather hortatory nature of so many elements of the declaration leaves one – well “cold”. What’s the likelihood of implementation? And how many of these declarations need to be taken to the G20 to obtain the necessary “buy-in” to constitute a collective push to advance a particular policy?
Now I am not one to generally question agendas in the global summitry context but this summit really suffers from a major disconnect between what the officials spent, I suspect, months preparing and what the public got to see and hear at the Leaders Summit. The communiqué is a vast display of tasks, declarations and policy initiatives with a focus on what the host David Cameron declared was the focus of this summit – trade, taxes and transparency – and a day and half of combat and cajoling with Russia over the Syria conflict. Syria, however, is assigned to the back of the communiqué (though it is a subject mentioned in the preamble). If you miss it, Syria is examined in paragraphs 82 to 87.
Though again I am not one to spend too much time worrying at who is at the table, I do tend to agree with comments recently from former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. For him the notion that Syria is being discussed with the former imperial types – the UK and France – much despised in the region as opposed to the wider circle – dare I say – the G20 – makes little sense. But then Zbig has little good to say about current US policy which he believes is too little too late. The US needs to focus on a peace setting, though stabilizing the sides – making it clear that neither can obtain their objectives through the use of force – is probably a critical element. As for that I don’t sense the Russians are prepared to “play ball” yet on that front. The horror goes on.
With the Lough Erne Summit now in the books we are back to the same overhyped diplomatic-speak document from the G8. While the incremental policy making of officials is critical, the Eight have done themselves few favors by the disconnect between the Leaders activities and the that of their officials.
And one last thing is rather pathetic statement in the communiqué about their own accountability – once again highlighting the limit to the transparency of leaders. The Report is described at paragraph 51 as a:
… comprehensive report covering the 56 development commitments that were the subject of the 2010 Comprehensive Accountability Report and the additional commitments Leaders made at Muskoka, Deauville, and Camp David Summits.
And their conclusion (subject to wading through the Accountability Report 2013):
The Report shows good progress in areas such as supporting maternal and child health; access to clean water; improving food security; and the helping to build peace and security. particularly in Africa. But it also identifies that more action is required to deliver on our promises in some areas.
So for the ordinary citizen – there is no transparency offered by the G8 in the communiqué. We deserve better.
Image Credit: insideireland.ie
A quick trip to London enabled me to enjoy the valuable discussion at a small gathering brought together at Chatham House. The conference sponsored by Chatham House and the Australian Lowy Institute spent the good part of a day examining “From the G8 to the G20 and Beyond: Setting a Course for Economic Global Governance.” Presentations by officials, former officials and policy experts produced a rich context for informal discussion.
My own view was that the most intriguing discussion of the day was a back and forth over the evolving summitry structure. Now I know there will be an immediate chorus of sighs – oh geez architecture again – but the summitry structure has important implications for the global economy and the conduct and stability of international relations. So back to the discussion.
I think there was a general consensus in the room that the large emerging market powers – frequently labelled as the BRICS countries – were failing to take up leadership at the G20. This view was aptly described recently by Harvard’s Dani Rodrik. In a piece first posted at his blog and then slightly enlarged upon at Project Syndicate – my favorite economics blog site – Rodrik examined the recent efforts of the BRICS, most notably at the BRICS Leaders Summit at Durban.
Rodrik in these posts took the opportunity to first express disappointment in what is at the moment the signature initiative of the BRICS – the effort to launch a development bank, which Rodrik described rather disparagingly in the following terms:
This approach [infrastructure financing] represents a 1950’s view of economic development, which has long been superseded by a more variegated perspective that recognizes a multiplicity of constraints – …
But Rodrik did not stop there. In a criticism that was reflected in various comments at the conference, Rodrik argued:
What the world needs from the BRICS is not another development bank, but greater leadership on today’s great global issues. … If the international community fails to confront its most serious challenges … they are the ones that will pay the highest price. Yet these countries have so far played a rather unimaginative and timid role, in international forums such as the G-20 or the World Trade Organization. When they have asserted themselves, it has been largely in pursuit of narrow national interests. Do they really have nothing new to offer?
One of the conference participants took direct aim at this tepid leadership. He suggested that the premature death predicted for the G7 and now arguably countered by revival and renewed energy evidenced by the G8 or more precisely the G7, might conceivably pressure the large emerging market countries to step up to take greater leadership in the G20. It might indeed be true that the G7 efforts especially on economic questions might give the BRICS the kind of fillip that might cause them to step up in the G20. But equally possibly these countries, the BRICS especially, might view the G7 activism as isolating the BRICS – not to mention the non-G7, non-BRICS countries like Australia, Korea or Turkey – and give impetus to those who see the BRICS as a conscious counterweight to G7 and its economic statements.
Certainly circumstances conspired to show the economic efforts of the G7. For the day following the conference the G7 finance ministers and central bankers met outside London at Aylesbury. In a statement by the UK Chancellor George Osborne the Chancellor targeted the vital economic questions of the day, “monetary activism, fiscal responsibility and structural reforms.” There certainly wasn’t consensus on these difficult issues but you coud see the rising image of the established powers working on these key economic issues as they have for decades before the emergence of the G20.
It would be a terrible waste, not to mention a destabilizing step were the G20 to lose momentum and to fail to serve as the common setting for the established and rising economic powers. Certainly the meeting of these groups at the margins of various G20 meetings can be seen to be helpful – indeed they already have – but the focus on separate coalitions is overall in my estimation unhealthy for global summitry. The G7 needs to be sensitive, more sensitive then they appear to be currently, over their gatherings and the absence of colleagues from the rest of the G20.
Let’s not throw away the first and best setting for collaborative efforts between established and rising states. Both form and substance are required.
Image Credit: G7 Finance Ministers May 11, 2013 Alyesbury – google.com