Global Summitry in the Context of Global Governance – But Distinct

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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

 

Discussing Intensely the Future of Liberal Internationalism

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I had the great pleasure of returning to Princeton this past weekend to reprise the global governance workshop – and we’ve fortunately switched it from January to May.  This was the third edition.  With the partners in place including the Project on the Future of Multilateralism, from Woodrow Wilson, led by John Ikenberry, the International Institutions and Global Governance Program from the Council on Foreign Relations led by Stewart Patrick, the Stanley Foundation led this year by Keith Porter and a number of us – myself and Munk School Director, Janice Stein – from the Munk School of Global Affairs University of Toronto and the Global Summitry Project, we gathered together experts to discuss – “The Future of Liberal Internationalism: Global Governance in a Post-American Hegemonic Era”.  It proved to be a fruitful and even at times somewhat fiery.

The four organizers decided to set a series of five panels – each with a theoretic lens to look at liberal internationalism.  Obviously the first panel examined the future of liberal internationalism from the perspective of the proponents and immediate critics of liberal internationalism.  So panel one – “America and the future of liberal internationalism” – led off with John and was followed by Charlie Kupchan who in his new book No One’s World argues that the decline of the United States and the rise of rest will lead us away from American hegemony and from liberal internationalism as well.  Liberal internationalism, according to Charlie, is inextricably tied with American hegemony.

Panel two focused on Peter Katzenstein’s civilizational analysis in a session entitled “does civilizational analysis define and constrain liberal internationalism?”  The session was indeed led by Cornell’s Peter Katzenstein and proponents and critics joined battle almost immediately.

Panel three turned attention to the rise of networks and the impact of the coming/present existence of the age of communication networks and the impact of these networks on global governance and liberal internationalism.  This session was ably led by Princeton’s Anne-Marie Slaughter – long an observer of networks – and now a strong proponent for the influence of communication networks – on governance.

Panel four focused on the rise of the rest.  This panel was led deftly by Andy Hurrell from Oxford a keen observer of the rise of the rest – especially Brazil – but more generally, Brazil, China and India.  On this panel experts from each provided commentary from India, Pratap Mehta from the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi, Brazil, Matias Spektor from the Fundacao Gitulio Vargas and Minxin Pei from Claremont McKenna College.

Panel five and the last panel of the conference was an interesting panel focused on “liberty, democracy, and the liberal international system”.  The panel was led from two contrasting perspectives on the influence and need for democracy. One perspective was presented by Dan Deudney.  In his lead in he focused on liberal internationalism and the impact on liberty and limited government.  Princeton’s Andy Moravcsik took a second lead examining the case for whether the democratic deficit was enlarged or not by international organizations and liberal internationalism.

Each of the panels provided unique insights into liberal internationalism and its decline, or demise or continuing dominance – with or without the United States as the hegemon.

It is impossible to capture all the discussion, dialogue, agreement and contention that went on in the day and a half we met in these five panels.  In addition I can’t possibly capture all that we heard and discussed from Steve Clemons.  Clemons is currently the Washington editor at large for The Atlantic and editor in chief of Atlantic Live. He joined us for the Friday dinner and reflected – from a beltway insider’s view – on US politics and policy in remarks he gave to conference gathered after dinner.

So what are some of the things I take away from these panels and discussions?   On a central question – whether liberal internationalism has a life of its own apart from United States hegemony, or is inextricably linked to US leadership such that the decline of the US and the rise of the rest will lead to the end of a liberal internationalist global order, the conclusion is not clear.  Indeed the hanging question was posed by GWU’s Martha Finnemore.  She raised a critical question.  What, she asked, is the box that defines liberal internationalism so that in the future we could assess whether the changes we identify in global governance would enable observers to conclude that liberal internationalism was continuing, or that the changes had resulted in the end of liberal internationalism and the rise of some other political order.  A vital question.  While John was not prepared to describe in detail what was in the international liberalism box, what detail he did describe provided what many saw as a rather thinner structure to liberal internationalism than many had expected focusing primarily on open trade and a rules-based system.  Obviously John avoided suggesting that the powers all needed to be democratic but rather surprisingly John did suggest that liberal democratic states needed to be at the heart of the system.

Also revealing were the efforts by our experts to describe the behaviors of the current rising powers.  Doing so remains evidently a work in progress.  Nevertheless the experts suggested that all – China, Brazil and India – had eagerly become ‘club joiners’ in the world of global summitry.  All seemed eager be seen within the circle of leaders in global governance; but none appeared willing to rush to leadership. Moreover all seemed ambivalent over the rules/norms of if liberal internationalism though none appeared to be seeking to replace liberal internationalism either.  The closest to that was expressed by Minxin Pei who described the alternative vision of Chinese leadership – pointing in this case to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.  According to Minxin, the Chinese leadership has committed significant attention and resources to the SCO, which is a closed, China-dominated institution exercising a ‘dialogue and consensus’ approach to policy-making. For China the current strategy is to exercise a minimum level of cooperation, manage the material costs of being part of global summitry and ensure that global governance has a minimum impact on China’s sovereignty.

In examining networks, its seemed largely unremarkable to most that the state is far more disaggregated than traditional international relations suggests.  Today most observers acknowledge the active engagement of non-traditional actors – ministers and ministries and transgovernmental regulatory networks. Foreign ministries no longer hold the monopoly of global summitry policy.  Many accepted that the “Iceberg Theory of Global Governance” is a fact in policy making.  There appeared still strong skepticism over the influence, however, of the communications networks that represent the next chapter of networked governance, according to Anne-Marie Slaughter – what I referred to as Slaughter 3.0

In the final panel there was a fascinating rather surprising I suppose debate of the impact of global governance on national sovereignty.  While world government was generally acknowledged as not the goal of liberal internationalism nevertheless conservative critics – especially Jeremy Rabkin from George Mason – raised the threat to democratic sovereignty from the creation and maintenance liberal internationalism.    Collective leadership and the actions of faceless officials could still raise a threat to national sovereignty – and undermined the ideal of liberty and limited government.   Though largely an American contestation, it reminded us of the tension between national interest and global governance.  It underscored the difficult task of overcoming the collective action problem in the contemporary global political order.

 

Image Credit:  Wikimedia Commons – Nassau lions at Princeton University

 

 

 

 

A ‘Temperature-Taking’ on Global Summitry Health and Well-Being

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[Editors Note:  This post is somewhat long – too long –  my apologies, as I am attempting to describe the meaning of ‘Global Summitry’.  The explanation follows.]

It was the receipt of a very informative piece by Mexico’s Minister of It was the receipt of a very informative piece by Mexico’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Patricia Espinosa-Cantellano that got me thinking about success and effectiveness in global governance.  We are closing in on another G20 Leaders Summit – this Los Cabos in June – hosted by our Mexican colleagues.  This will be the seventh Leaders Summit since its inauguration with the global financial crisis in November 2008 in Washington.  As one of the Editors of the soon to be launched ejournal – Global Summitry – look for it! –I am fortunate to be in possession of an upcoming article from the Mexican Foreign Minister.  I am not about to ‘spill the beans’ here – but stay tuned for its appearance and also possibility of further examination of the role of Mexico as the host of the G20 summit.  But receiving that first article got me to thinking about the progress of the G20 specifically and in fact more generally global summitry.

This original impulse to examine the progress of global summitry was further encouraged by several upcoming conferences in Chicago – the first organized by the Chicago Council of Global Affairs – I’ve already commented on the New York Workshop in the recent post “Strange Members“.  It will be held on May 8th. The next conference – commencing on May 10th is organized by the Stanley Foundation, happily a frequent partner with us at the Munk School of Global Affairs and additionally in this case the Roberta Buffet Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern.  In the “shadow” of the G8 Leaders Summit – though the President very inconveniently switched the venue to Camp David  – and the Leaders NATO meeting, the partners organized a Conference entitled “The Apex of Influence – How Summit Meetings Build Multilateral Cooperation”.  By the way you will be able to livestream the proceedings of this conference – if you are so inclined at fora.tv.  Join us virtually if you cannot be with us in Chicago.  The topic directly raises the question of global summitry health. And a quick read of the conference agenda will identify as an early panelist – our colleague Dan Drezner from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.  You need not wonder any further why Dan raised the question of summitry success/failure in his recent post at Foreignpolicy.com.

So I propose to do two things here.  First, I wanted to examine the scope of what we at the Munk School refer to as ‘global summitry’.  Is it different/the same as global governance – the now accepted term – I think – for what the international relations types generally referred to in the past as  ‘multilateralism’? And does the addition of ‘global’ alter significantly the scope of inquiry?  And then what I want to do – as the title suggest is do a bit of ‘temperature taking’ on the matter.

My effort to describe the scope of global summitry and distinguish it from global governance is enmeshed today in a strong and loud debate over the changing power distribution among the leading states of the international system and indeed in the overall shape of the international architecture as a result of that changing power equation.  A ‘hot’ and continuing debate rages over whether the United States is in decline and whether it is fading as the hegemonic leader in global politics.  Linked to this decline debate is the ‘Rise of the Rest’ and the consequence for governance of both US decline and the rise of the emerging market countries, especially China but also Brazil and India and occasionally throwing in Russia and South Africa.  At the one end is Charlie Kupchan at Georgetown who in his recent book, No One’s World: The West, The Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn determines the west is declining including, possibly especially, the United States and that the Rise of the Rest will end the current liberal internationalism order as those rising powers will be unwilling to adopt the norms and rules that US hegemony created and shaped after World War II.  The outcome of such a change will be that there will not be a single power there to replace the leadership of the United States, nor will there be defined ‘rules of the game’ for states in the global order. By implication disorder will reign.

Now firmly in the debate over decline, rise and transformation is Princeton’s John Ikenberry. John acknowledges the decline of the United States (see his Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order) but believes that Rise of the Rest will remain attracted to, or committed to, the current order – capitalism, open markets, rule of law, etc., Liberal internationalism will continue to frame the political order in some significant fashion.  As the title implies there may be a crisis but if there is, it is a crisis of US leadership not of liberal internationalism.  And of course there is Robert Kagan of Brookings, at the other end – his recent book, The World America Made – who suggests that the declinism thesis is well, overdrawn and that the United States will remain the continuing leader, or it better for the sake of order.

Now Dan Drezner in a broad-ranging review of Kupchan – not to mention some of the variants authored by others in the May/June issue of National Interest – places the variants of the current global order debate before us this way:

  • Power is diffusing from the United States to developing countries;
  • Power is diffusing from states to non-state actors; and
  • As a result of the bullet points above, global governance is going to be horrible for quite some time

In the opening of the recent special issue of The National Interest on crisis of the old order titled, “Crisis of the Old Order” Brent Scowcroft the former national-security adviser to President Ford and then to George H.W. Bush suggests this sharp picture of the changing international political order:

We are struggling with institutions and practices of an Old World when the Old World is fading.

How then do we best describe the current architecture of the international political order?  How does it operate? And who are the principal actors and what are the drivers that describe its operation – and ultimately its success or failure?  There is little question that the old order is changing – but how?

The concept of global governance really took off with the end of the Cold War.  This sudden revolution in the international political order is the exclamation point in the evolution of the geopolitical landscape of the international system.  There were, and are, both analytic and practical, or real-world reasons for the emergence of global governance discourse.  On the analytic side the demise of the Soviet Union completely altered the shape of the international political order.  As Michael Barnet and Raymond Duvall wrote in their edited volume Power in Global Governance in 2005:

The Cold War was not only a description of a bipolar system; it also represented a mode of organizing the analysis and practice of international politics.  With the end of the Cold War, the issue became what would and should take its place.  For many, global governance represented a way of organizing international politics in a more inclusive and consensual manner.  … Alongside the eclipse of the Cold War was the emergence of globalization.  Although globalization had various dimensions, a unifying claim was that intensifying transnational and interstate connections requires regulatory mechanisms – governance, although not a government  – at a global level.

That last comment by the authors is telling.  Global governance language initially evoked concern among many international relations experts that the in a post Cold War world the political order that was being described by analysts was moving to global government.  US scholars in particular stuck rather overlong to “multilateralism”.  But slowly the language of global governance assumed something of primacy in international relations discourse.  As Margaret Karns and Karen Mingst in their text International Organizations: The Politics and Processes of Global Governance in 2010 suggested:

Thus global government is not global government; it is not a single world order; it is not a top-down, hierarchical structure of authority.  It is the multilevel collection of governance-related activities, rules and mechanisms, formal and formal, public and private, existing in the world today.

Many who have come to examine global governance have focused particularly on its non-hierarchical dimensions and on the informal structures that have emerged.  They have emphasized non-state actors in many varieties including individuals.  While global summitry acknowledges – embraces even – the flattening of authority structures, the state and institutions of the state remain at the heart of global summitry.  But as Princeton’s Anne-Marie Slaughter suggests in her examination of governmental organizations and networks, the state does not disappear but it does often find itself “disaggregating into its component institutions.”

Thus global summitry remains focused on state institutions and its numerous variations.  It consciously eschews, however, a focus on just traditional formal treaty-based institutions.  Global summitry is tuned to leaders summits for sure but it acknowledges and  focuses on the many organizations – governmental, and non-governmental, formal and informal – that constitute the galaxy of global summitry.  This examination adopts the “Iceberg Theory of Global Governance”.  Below the leaders, lie the growing system of meetings and work of ministers, and their ministries, international institutions but also transgovernmental organizations and regulatory networks with formal and informal regulatory actors.  These actors are all part of global summitry.  As Klaus Dingwerth and Philipp Patterberg described in their article in Global Governance in 2006 “Global Governance as a Perspective on World Politics”:

In essence global governance implies a multiactor perspective on world politics. … the term global governance conceives of world politics as a multilevel system in which local, national, regional, and global political processes are inseparably linked.

Global summitry accepts this far more complex political order where the sharp boundaries of international, regional and national policy have been partially erased but where the leaders and governments remain at the heart of international politics.  International institutions have also not disappeared but traditional institutions, the UN and Bretton Woods systems are now in many instances displaced or supplemented by informal organizations.  And the world of traditional diplomacy conducted by foreign ministers and their officials have been remade with the appearance of many meetings of their mainline ministers and their officials – finance, and trade, central bankers, etc., and the numerous meetings of regulatory officials both public and self regulatory of many varieties.  Again Princeton’s Anne –Marie Slaughter, a strong proponent of international networks since the turn of the century suggests:

From a theoretical perspective, government networks straddle and ultimately erase the domestic/international divide.

Global summitry examines all these actors in the organization and execution of global politics and policy.  The focus is then theoretic but more centrally, empirical and policy-attentive.  It is alert to the repositioning of global politics and policy premised on changing dynamics and dimensions of international relations.  Besides the redistribution of power among states there are other changing dimensions that are very much a part of global summitry and impact this redistribution as well.  The international system has seen a marked shift, some of which I have talked about earlier: from ‘hard’ law to ‘soft’ law; from formal institutions – often hierarchical – to informal ‘flattened’ or horizontal institutions; from national sovereignty to globalization.  The last dimension marks a continuing struggle of states and their leaders with many both offensively and defensively asserting national sovereignty. The rhetoric remains fixed on national autonomy yet reality is often matched against the reality of globalization and the impact of tight and possibly ever-tighter interdependence.

Finally a word on the term ‘global’ in global summitry.  A perspective could well be that global is exactly that – universal such as the UN – especially given the focus on states.   The term should not be taken as that.  Even in the UN the critical UN Security Council is not universal – far from it.  And so many institutions – often described as regional – seem perfectly a part of global summitry especially those that are not particularly geographically narrow in scope but generate policy that impacts the global order.

Global summitry remains focused on state actors but in many new arrangements and again examines all these actors in the organization and execution of global politics and policy.  And because it focuses not so much theoretically but more analytically and empirically on policy and policy impacts, it is sensible to assess the success/failure of the actors and their global governance policies.

But we’ve gone on far too long already.  So, that’s for another day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forward – Not Forward – Success and Failure at the G20!

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The G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bankers met this past weekend at the Spring Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank. The news story was the success of the IMF’s Managing Director Christine Lagarde to raise approximately a $430 billion fund  to strengthen – the firewall – against Eurozone default – currently Spain as the key target of market concern.  A declared victory for the G20 Leaders?

Well, not so obviously.  Indeed my colleague Dan Drezner at his blog at foreignpolicy.com has suggested – quite rightly – that there appear to be two camps of thoughtful expert types – hey, I have to say this since Dan included me in the “success” camp of global governance decision-making – along with colleagues John Ikenberry from Princeton, Brooking’s Senior Fellow, Robert Kagan and finally my good colleague from NYU Bruce Jones – certainly not bad company.

So where are we in achieving progress in the main tasks for the G20 – IMF reform, or economic rebalancing or achieving Strong Sustainable and Balanced Growth (SSBG)?  I understand from his blog that Dan himself will – something like Houdini – reveal himself , or at least his position as he says, “in the coming months” on the functioning of global governance.

Well, while I along with you wait with anticipation for Dan’s announcement – I can’t wait totally.  Now in arriving at a judgement on progress, there are two elements that many commentators are quick to ignore when trying to assess success for the G20 Leaders Summit, or any other global summitry aspect of global governance.  First, global summitry is not just about Summit leaders gathering together – the so-called photo-op appearance.  As I have argued frequently in the past (“The Iceberg Theory” of Global Governance – Seeing it Work“) global summitry sweeps in the tasking  by leaders of  ministers and ministries, transgovernmental regulatory networks (TRNs) and even private bodies – what I’ve referred to as the “Iceberg Theory” of global governance architecture.

Second, most collective decision-making reached at a global summit such as the G20 seldom gets implemented there. Many, if not most, of the agreements are only implemented at the national level.  Without national implementation – executive or legislative – or both – there cannot be successful decision-making.  The global summitry world has not been capable of – what international law colleagues like to call “delocalization” – global governance generally still requires national action.

So to progress.  First let’s look at the Communique issued by Foreign Ministers and Central Bankers on April 20th.  Even a cursory glance will reveal a series of critical reports being prepared and/or being being forwarded to the Leaders:

  • work by the Financial Stability Board (FSB)  and the The Basel Committee on Banking and Supervision (BCBS) on modalities for extending the SIFI Framework to domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs) and the completion of their work by November 2012;
  • a progress report from the FSB on strengthening the oversight and regulation of the shadow banking system with final recommendations in June 2012;
  • work coordinated by the FSB to provide safeguards supportive of a global framework for central counterparties (CCPs)  – on the road to an agreed over the counter (OTC)  derivatives reforms – looking to standards and requirements of CCPs by the end of 2012;
  • work by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards BOard (FASB) to achieve convergence – a single set of high quality international standards –  and to complete their study by mid-2013;
  • work by the FSB to establish a global legal entity identifier (LEI) with a report by June 2012;
  • work to be completed by June 2012 on an agreed internationally consistent standard on margining for non-centrally cleared OTC derivates;
  • an Interim Report for the Los Cabos G20 Summit from the OECD on a new set of reviews and on necessary steps to improve comprehensive information exchange in the Mutual Assessment Process (MAP);
  • the Ministers taking forward the financial inclusion agenda to present to Leaders in Los Cabos the G20 Set of Financial Inclusion Indicators thus assisting countries on measuring and tracking progress on access to financial services globally;
  • on financial education an OECD/International Network on Financial Education (INFE ) and the World Bank presentation of a Report on the High Level Principles on National Strategies for Financial Education;
  • on inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, a report of progress on the phasing out in the medium term of these subsidies;
  • a progress report for the Finance Ministers and Central Bankers in November 2012 from the International  Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) on the implementation of  the Principles for the Regulation and Supervision of Commodities and Derivatives Markets;
  • a report by the World Bank and the OECD with support from the UN to be provided to G20 Leaders at Los Cabos compiling country experiences with Disaster Risk Management (DRM); and
  • a report to Finance Ministers in November to facilitate the assessment of risk and financial strategies towards implementing DRM.

While some initiatives are more meaningful as opposed to others, it is evident that much is being tasked and reported on at the global summitry level.  Be sure that little if any of this will ever be reported by the global financial media – far too complicated and messy.

So while there is progress, let’s look at the other side of the ledger.  One of the major reforms proposed and accepted at the 2010 G20 Seoul Leaders Summit was IMF reform that would enhance the role of the large emerging market powers such as India, Brazil and especially China (see Edwin Truman at the Peterson Institute for International Economics for a detailed review of the progress of the reforms “The G-20 is Failing” posted originally at at Foreign Policy )in the IMF .  Several steps were agreed to by G20 Leaders in Seoul including:

  • doubling of the IMF quota subscriptions – the resources the IMF uses to lend to other IMF members;
  • amendment to the IMF Charter that would redistribute seats on the IMF’s Executive Board away from the overrepresented Europeans; and
  • a revision by January 2013 of the formula used to adjust the IMF quota shares.  The formula revision would be followed  by a substantial increase in the IMF quota subscriptions and resources by January 2014.

The problem: it ain’t happening!  With respect to item one countries are required in many instances to obtain legislative change to gain approval.  Though the IMF requires that 60 percent of IMF member countries – holding 85 percent of the of total IMF votes approve the change, key members have failed to enact legislation.  And who are these key members.  The key holdout is the United States and given congressional deadlock it is unlikely the United States will be in any position to achieve legislative approval – especially with an election looming in November 2012.  In addition other significant countries including traditional economic powers Canada and Germany and emerging market powers  – Argentina – the badboy of the G20 – Indonesia, Mexico – the host for the G20, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey – have all failed to pass the necessary legislation.

And with respect to item two – the amendment of the IMF Charter – and the anticipated power sharing agreement –  the action is “Europe’s Court”.  It is expected that Europe will reduce its representation by two seats – it has 8 seats currently, three possibly  if you include the Swiss seat.  These seats will then be farmed out to the large emerging market powers.  Well so far there is no agreement with respect to the two seats – which of Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Denmark will give up their seat on the Executive Board – and it would appear that Switzerland is prepared only to rotate its seat with Poland.  So there we have it.  Promises to reform the IMF to enable a transfer of power to the new large emerging market states – and no forward action to date.

So it is hardly surprising that so many commentators and folks from media argue that the G20 is failing.

Strange Members

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This narrative is not about odd appendages – although possibly metaphorically – it is.  It is about who is – and who is not – strange members in some of the ‘Informals’ – in this case the BRICS and the G20 Leaders Summit.

Now I am not one to spend my days worrying about representation and membership in global summitry.  Membership in most of these Informals is self identified.  Nobody is running  for ‘Class President’.  Having said that frequently debates have broken out among the experts and the critics over the failure to include one country or another.

There was for years a drumbeat of criticism over the membership of the G7/8 – the so-called ‘Club of the Rich’. There were frequent charges advanced over the lack of legitimacy of these original 7 and demands that the Club expand to include the newly emerging large market counties – and others as well.

When the G20 Leaders Summit was born out of the global financial crisis and brought together for the first time the traditional economic powers with the newly rising economic powers including China, Brazil and India, the legitimacy debate quieted briefly but reemerged over the lack of representation for one region or another. The representation and legitimacy debates really are a discussion without resolution. But experts and commentators can’t leave it alone.

Earlier in the week I was fortunate enough to join friends and colleagues in New York City at the Asia Society for a conference on the “Rising Powers and a New Emerging Order” .  This Conference had been called together by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the principal interlocutor on this Project – Richard “Rich” Williamson. Williamson is the senior fellow at the Chicago Council for multilateral institutions.  Rich has had a varied career serving various Republican Presidents in various foreign policy posts and has served also as the Chair of the Illinois Republican Party.    Today he is a senior advisor to the presumptive Republican presidential candidate – Mitt Romney. Rich is deeply interested and involved in evaluating the adequacy of global governance institutions.  This current project is designed to understand the new power dynamics of the international system and to evaluate the adequacy of the current international institutions in the face of major transition and evolution.  Besides assessing the adequacy of the current leadership of the United States, Rich is keen to understand the impact of the rise of the large emerging market countries on international institutions.  To do so Rich and his colleagues from the Chicago Council have brought together some of the “talking heads” in global governance to look closely at the operation of these international institutions.  In the context of the rising powers – of course – the group was soon into examining the BRICS – though there was frequent reference to the potentially unique role of China.  It is not unreasonable in the context of  current global summitry to examine the BRICS – but any close inspection immediately raises questions over whether there is any there – there.  And for the moment I don’t think there is.  I mean the group couldn’t even agree to support a single candidate for the position of president of the World Bank.  While this may represent for some politicians and commentators – the revenge and return of the Group of 77 – it is not.  And as the group was able to tease out, China has a laser-like policy that focuses on its own national interest  – and avoids distractions unrelated to these interests.  The BRICS remain the invention of Jim O’Neill at Goldman Sachs – and not a terribly vital instrument of these key powers.  I hope to comment more on the impact of the rising powers – as seen from this workshop – but let me turn to yet another strange member.

And to do that I am led back to the G20.  I was met yesterday morning with a smiling picture – and a lead story in one of the global financial papers on the seizure by Argentina of Spain’s Repsol’s majority stake in Argentina’s largest oil company – YPF. Argentina has also announced that it will not pay fair market value for the seizure of Repsol’s majority stake.  The quote accompanying a smiling President – you can find it in the “pink paper” is: “I am a head of state and not a hoodlum” evokes for most of us aging North Americans the words of a US President. “I am not a crook.”  But I think the President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner reveals exactly what she is and and what kind of government she leads – a “hoodlum gang”.

Argentina’s bad economic behavior has over the last few years become all too apparent. In the near past the Argentinian government has seized private pension funds. It has been ordered to pay many millions of dollars in damages by international arbitration tribunals and insistently refused to do so – even abandoning the World Bank facility on international investment.

And yes Argentina is a member of the G20.  How can this be?  By now we are all familiar with the story that led to Argentina’s inclusion.  While details differ the fact is that those putting together the membership of the G20 in 1998 – then finance ministers – were partial to the then Argentinian finance minister – and so magically Argentina became a member of the G20.

But seriously folks – how can Argentina continue to be included in the High Table of Global Summitry?  This apex of global leadership is dedicated to maintaining the vitality of the global economy including no trade protectionism, open borders and the global health of the international economy.  It has to be embarrassing to G20 Leaders to be faced with a member country so destructive of the rule of law in the global economy.  It really is time to do something.  But don’t worry – they won’t.

Image Credit:  Wikipedia – Barack Obama and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in 2009

A Focus on Dialogue in the Face of “Strategic Distrust”

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A significant document on China-US relations was released by the John L. Thorton China Center at Brookings to coincide with the visit to the United States of China’s likely next leader Xi Jinping last month.  The document, “Addressing US-China Strategic Distrust” was authored by two well-known academics – on the US side Kenneth Lieberthal and on the Chinese side Wang Jisi. A key feature of this document was the wise decision to allow each to express the perspective from their respective countries – without any effort to revise or emend the views expressed by the other over the concerns each leadership has.  Only after this singular analysis do the two authors join together to write a follow-on analysis with joint recommendations.

Writing the American view, as pointed out above, is Kenneth Lieberthal a well known American China-hand, a former professor at the University of Michgan and a special assistant to the President – Clinton in this case – for National Security Affairs.  Today Lieberthal holds the Director’s chair at the John L Thorton China Center at Brookings.

Wang Jisi is a key academic and advisor to the Party in China.  These latter appointments are often ignored in the West.  He is currently the Dean of the School of International Studies at Peiking University as well as the Director of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at the Party School of the Central Committee. He was previously the Head of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a key advisor to the Party.  Wang Jisi is central figure in the current US-China dialogue because he is able to cross the academic/party divide and his a voice is heard both in Zhongnanhai and in the West.  So he is an important transmitter of thinking to the US and Chinese political communities alike.

Both perspectives are more than interesting.  The two experts align on the key perspective – “strategic distrust”.  Both authors focus  on  the issue of mutual distrust of long-term intentions termed in this article as “strategic distrust”— and declare that strategic distrust has become a central concern in US-China relations.  As they define it:

“Strategic distrust” therefore means a perception that the other side will seek to achieve its key long term goals at concerted cost to your own side’s core prospects and interests.

And while both agree that they focus here is not on military capabilities and intentions the definition certainly resonates with the idea of the strategic dilemma – that the more secure one country purports to achieve, the more insecure others perceive their position.

Lieberthal’s US analysis is compelling including his opening line that for US leaders:

Strategic distrust of China is not the current dominant view of national decision makers in the U.S. government, who believe it is feasible and desirable to develop a basically constructive long-term relationship with a rising China. But U.S. decision makers also see China’s future as very undetermined …

While this perspective makes sense, this a classic US view that enables more conservative perspectives in Washington circles to urge a “hedging strategy” that encourages US leadership to adopt exactly the view that the hedging strategy is designed to guard against.

But I’ll stop here for the moment and turn to the Chinese leadership perspective as described by Wang Jisi.

One thing is clear in reading his views of the Chinese leadership there is in Wang’s narrative and analysis more than a hint of pessimism.  It may well be that this tone reflects an effort by Wang Jisi to fully describe what he believes is the current leadership’s distrust of US policies.  My sensitivity to this pessimism is in part a reaction to a relatively recent piece Wang Jisi wrote in Foreign Affairs (April/May 2011) – “China’s Search for a Grand Strategy”. While there is certainly some tough thinking in this piece, the grand strategy is not dramatically aggressive.  In particular his effort to conceptualize China’s core interests in non-territorial terms – with the exception of Taiwan – but to see instead China’s core interests as – sovereignty, security and development – lead Wang Jisi to declare:

If an organizing principle must be established to guide China’s grand strategy, it should be an improvement of the Chinese people’s living standards, welfare, and happiness through social justice.

Such a grand strategy, were it to be adopted, would cause China’s leadership to focus heavily on global stability and contributing to a “peaceful international environment”.

This more benign perspective is largely missing in this recent piece.  Wang Jisi in fact pulls no punches.  As he suggests:

Meanwhile, in Beijing’s view, it is U.S. policies, attitude, and misperceptions that cause the lack of mutual trust between the two countries.

Yet it is also clear that the Chinese leadership has altered its view of global circumstances arising out of the 2008 global financial crisis.  This global economic crisis and its aftermath has led China’s leaders to conclude that China has ascend to the status of a “first-class global power,” and that the US is “heading for decline.”  Moreover the leadership apparently believes that the BRICS are “increasingly challenging Western dominance” and that China’s “development model” offers an alternative to Western democracy.  Finally, and more ominously, Chinese leadership believes that the US will seek to maintain its global hegemony  and as a result “America will seek to constrain or upset China’s rise.”

So it would appear that the Chinese leadership has  – to some degree – bought the revivified “declinist thesis”.  It is hard to grasp fully what the Chinese leadership understand to be a fist-class  global power.  If they mean in other words – and I doubt it – a superpower in some manner on par with the United States, it makes little sense but then I am at a loss as to the Chinese leadership’s  perspective on the architecture of the global powers and what the consequences of that status might be for the US and China.  It might of course explain the period of “assertiveness” that appeared in 2010 and centered on Chinese push back in East Asia and the South China Seas.  As for the economic place of the US, while the political dysfunction are all too apparent, one would be foolhardy to ignore US economic resilience.  But it leaves one rather unsettled.  And maybe that’s the point.

As for ameliorative steps the experts call for enhanced dialogue and economic integration.  While simply illustrative the experts call for greater Chinese foreign direct investment in the US and the improvement Chinese transparency with respect to political decision-making.  The experts call for improved trilateral dialogues where China and the US engage with both Japan and India and work to prepare standards and rules for cyber operations for each government.  Finally, and probably most importantly, the experts call for “deep dialogue to discuss” how each should operate in the key Asia-Pacific  region.  This dialogue of necessity should involve the militaries of both sides.  Of course this crucial dialogue has been on the US agenda for some time but it has always been sacrificed to the tactical needs of China to signal its opposition especially to Taiwan and the US continuation of arms provision to the Taiwanese military.  Still in the context of enhanced dialogue there can be no greater effort by both sides.

But the two experts also worry “that at a time of far reaching change, each side is increasingly uncertain about the other side’s real perceptions and long-term intentions in this relationship.”  It is a troubling narrative to those who look to long term collaboration between the US and China. But it is hard to discount and the two experts have provided a bilateral future that we’d do well to take heed of  if only to avoid.

Image Credit:  John L. Thorton China Center at Brookings

Is it a Caucus; Or a Bloc?

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There has been a fair degree of speculation – and comment – going on around the global media and in the blogosphere whether the fourth Summit of the BRICS in New Delhi represents a new global leadership group – read that as an alternative to the the traditional powers – whether G7 or G8 or even the G20 or a setting for collective thinking from these countries?

My colleague Stewart Patrick – at the Internationalist blog  at the Council on Foreign Relations captured what he sees as the common characteristics of this gathering:

But if the members lacked a common history or vision, they had at least two things in common: their status as emerging economic powerhouses and their resentment of a global economy they saw stacked in favor of the West.

By now it is rather common knowledge that the group – BRICS – was born from the fertile mind of Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs and was identified initially as an investment focus for clients of the investment bank for the 21st century.

This Indian gathering – the 4th and the first to formally include South Africa – has been watched with some fascination by the media and the global punditry.  Now many commentators have pointed out the rather obvious – that these large emerging market powers have little in common.  In the BRICS there are both democratic states – Brazil, India and South Africa, and two notable authoritarian states – Russia and China.  But so what.  If we are searching for the “like minded – we are now talking about a “concert of powers” where the common characteristics might well be essential.  In fact the capacity to join states together with a variety of characteristics and views may be crucial in contemporary global summitry.  Indeed as is often pointed out the G20 is important precisely because it bridges across traditional states – the G7 – and gathers these states together with the new large emerging market states.  It is not a gathering of the like-minded – but it is a gathering of the key contemporary powers.  It doesn’t make reaching coordinated decisions easy but it brings to the High Table of Global Summitry the major actors in the global economy.

But what then is the point of the BRICS and their annual leaders gathering – and more? For some the point of this exercise is – not much.  As Parag Khanna of the New America Foundation wrote in the FT:

Being in the Brics ultimately may not mean much more than being in the UN Security Council or any other high-status grouping (despite the obvious difference that the UN is  legal body).  One can be in the group, but that doesn’t guarantee that one will be influential or even that the group as a whole will be effective.

The Leaders closed their Summit with the Delhi Declaration.  It is possible to gather a number of clues about the existence and the self-identified mission of the BRICS from examining the most recent declaration. In their own words the Declaration argued that the BRICS:

BRICS is a platform for dialogue and cooperation amongst countries that represent 43% of the world’s population, for the promotion of peace , security and development in a multi-polar, inter-dependent and increasingly complex, globalizing world.  Coming, as we do, from Asia, Europe and Latin America, the transcontinental dimension of our interaction adds to its value and significance.

The comment from the BRICS Leaders on the G20 suggests a rather positive note from these large emerging market Leaders with respect to this new global summit instrument:

In this context, we believe that the primary role of the G20 as premier forum for international economic cooperation at this juncture is to facilitate enhanced macroeconomic policy coordination, to enable global economic recovery and secure financial stability, including through an improved international monetary and financial architecture.  We approach the next G20 Summit in Mexico with commitment to work with the Presidency, all members and the international community to achieve positive results, consistent with national policy frameworks, to ensure strong, sustainable ans balanced growth.

But there are more than a few paragraphs that constitute  – well carping by the BRICS Leaders of the influence and direction promoted by the traditional states.  There is frustration at the “loose” monetary policy of more than a few traditional power central banks.  There is almost exasperation at the slow pace of quota and governance reform at the IMF and the World Bank.  There is annoyance at the effort by the US to appoint yet again the new head of the World Bank rather than opening up the choice to a wider range of applicants including those from the BRICS countries.  In these sections there is more than a hint of oppositional leadership to the influence and leadership of the global economy by the traditional G7 countries.

When one looks to collective outputs one is not particularly “bowled over” by collective actions. There is discussion of intra-bloc trade using local currencies –  which may only impede fully currency convertibility for a number of these states including China – and investigation of  a new development bank facility.  Other than that there is a significant listing of ministerial gathers, finance, trade, science and technology and health ministers, etc. – see in particular the Delhi Action Plan – but it is rather obscure as to what the goals for such meetings are.  While such gatherings might be helpful, one assumes that G20 ministerial meetings might be even more useful for such ministers and the need to hold both might well run these ministers ragged.

The dilemma at first blush is whether the BRICS see themselves as a a “bloc” – potentially an oppositional bloc – that stands apart from the G7 and criticizes their efforts to bring reform – and potentially blocking coordination and reform. Such a creation could well be harmful in an already challenged global governance regime.  On the other hand a caucus where ideas can be vetted but where coordination and decision making occurs at other leadership settings with traditional players, newly energized middle powers and developing countries – well that might prove a useful coalition.

Meanwhile the challenges posed  by global governance continue – BRICS or no BRICS.

 

 

Image Credit: AFP

 

Taking the Good and the Bad with Global Summitry

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For the second time in as many years global leaders are gathering to discuss nuclear issues.  Once again, over 40 leaders are sitting down – on this occasion in Seoul – to discuss nuclear security.  From the outside, however, it certainly seems as though the global public would not be blamed for wondering what this summit is in fact all about.

The early images being transmitted from Seoul largely cover the visit of a forceful US President Obama – I mean this is a US election year – in his first foray to the Demilitarized Zone  (DMZ).  This demarcation between the Republic of Korea – South Korea to most of us – and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK)  – North Korea was established with the truce that ended the Korean conflict – though failed to reach a permanent peace agreement.

In addition the President has signaled that China needs to examine what it has said or is about to say to the DPRK leadership over the recent announcement from North Korea that it intends to launch a ballistic missile carrying a satellite into orbit in just a few weeks. The announcement has caused consternation and significantly raised tensions in East Asia.   It has put the recent US-DPRK agreement on  nuclear restraint in return for food shipments in question.   According to news reports Obama has publicly urged China to use its influence to rein in North Korea instead of “turning a blind eye” to the DPRKs nuclear program.

Is this summit then about the question of nuclear nonproliferation and the threat that North Korea – and yes Iran – pose to the spread of nuclear weapons and the increase in the number of Nuclear Weapons States (NWS).  Well – no!

Is it then about the consequences of the peaceful uses of nuclear power?  Since the last Summit – Washington 2010 – the global public was witness to the devastating triple disaster  at Fukushima Japan – first an earthquake, then a tsunami and then a nuclear meltdown at the nuclear power plant.  This meltdown – the worst since Chernobyl – has contaminated – for years into the future – a wide swath of northeastern Japan.  It appears that Japan’s Prime Minister Noda is likely to speak to the gathered leaders on lessons learned from the disaster and possible changes to emergency preparedness.

Is this a summit then called to deal with “nuclear safety”  issues – the term experts use to describe the area focused on the peaceful uses of nuclear power?  ‘Fraid not.  This is not a Summit dedicated to the issues of nuclear safety!

No, in fact this Summit of world leaders is tackling once again nuclear security – an experts’ term which in this case means reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism, and preventing terrorists, criminals, or other unauthorized actors from acquiring nuclear materials. Nuclear terrorism continues to be a significant and most security experts would suggest a real threat to the security of states in the global arena.  The President called together leaders in 2010 to work towards locking down loose nuclear materials – a challenging threat to international security. As the US President saw it, reining in this threat required strong national measures and significant international collaboration.  Any successful use of nuclear material by terrorists or criminals or others could have a devastating  impact on publics around the globe – politically, economically, socially, and psychologically.

As suggested by two nuclear security experts, Kenneth Brill and Kenneth Luongo in a recent opinion piece in the New York Times:

Obama’s initiative in launching the nuclear summit process in Washington  in 2010 helped focus high-level attention on nuclear security issues.  Unfortunately, the actions produced by the 2010 Washington Summit and that are planned for the upcoming Seoul Summit are voluntary actions that are useful, but not sufficient to create an effective  global nuclear security regime.

There it is – nuclear security – ending the threat of terrorists or others obtaining nuclear materials and threatening and then possibly using a nuclear device against innocent populations.  An important and critical issue that President Obama has taken the lead in organizing and then working with many other leaders developing a program to secure nuclear materials by the global community.  It sounds fantastic.  Then why the hint of dismay from the nuclear experts.  Indeed the article by Brill and Luongo suggest less than universal support for the outcomes of the summit.

The article in fact points to growing concern from experts on the efforts at this global summit – indeed there are many experts that don’t want the summits to continue after 2014 for fear that leaders will “kick the can” of nuclear down the road yet again.

On the face of it the chorus of concern from advocates and experts seems somewhat strange given that that the leaders have come together twice in two years to address loose nuclear materials.  And indeed experts suggest that over 80 percent of the commitments identified in Washington have been accomplished.  But the concern is the summits have committed states to far too limited  a program – and worse.  Once again Brill and Luongo:

The world cannot afford to wait for the patchwork of nuclear security arrangements to fail before they are strengthened. Instead, we need a system based on a global framework convention on nuclear security that would fill the gaps in existing voluntary arrangements.  This framework convention would commit states to an effective standard of nuclear security practices, incorporate relevant existing international agreements, and give the IAEA the mandate to support nuclear security by evaluating whether states are meeting their nuclear security obligations and providing assistance to those states that need help in doing so.

And there is no question that in the arena of nuclear security there is plethora of conventions, mandates, organizations and institutions that festoon the nuclear security landscape.  It is like an enormous alphabet soup.  And maybe a singular universal and “hard law” treaty might be the solution as the experts suggest.  But then again too many place too much weight in international relations on international law and obligations. And while voluntary standards may be less than ideal, experts could certainly provide a list of priority risks and priority countries that the summit could focus on for the next two year cycle.  That would at least help to focus global attention.

And as for a summit going  “off agenda” – there will never be a means to hold leaders to a defined agenda.  But this summit seems to me to be more – significantly more – than a photo-op – which is generally the knock on global summits.  And if Obama uses this to press forward on the DPRK – and possibly Iran – because he is able to sit down with President Hu Jintao – then we can take the advance in this area and redouble our efforts toward 2014 and the next Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands. Half a cake – is – as they say – far better than no cake at all.  So with summits.

Image Credit:  Official logo of the 2012 Korean Nuclear Security Summit

An Encounter in South Africa

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I had the privilege these last few days to join a conversation between US and South African experts, here in Pretoria.  Hosted by Pretoria University and the US Stanley Foundation, the discussion focused on how, and in what ways, the United States and South Africa might better collaborate on the challenges facing states – in the global economy and in international politics.  With South Africa a member of the G20 there was a particular interest in understanding how South Africa might play a role in the new informal club of established powers and newly rising states.

This two-day dialogue was however off-the record so I will not comment on specific conversations.  You can have a look at Stewart Patrick’s blog at CFR, The Internationalist (South Africa: Just Another BRIC in the Wall?)  for his examination of the South African foreign policy trajectory.  Stewart was one of about 6 of us from North America that found ourselves exploring with our South African colleagues from the University of Pretoria, a variety of think tanks and NGOs this most interesting bilateral relationship.

One aspect that emerged early in the conversation and remained a theme throughout was the limited understanding for the views and policies of the other side.  Clearly more dialogue and discussion is necessary and should be encouraged – and for the record I will happy to volunteer for the task.

I must say at the outset that I gained little insight in how South Africa sees the G20.  In fact there was rather limited discussion of this new global summitry institution.  On the other hand there was much discussion of the importance of South Africa being admitted to the BRICS – though it was never expressed forthrightly what the BRICS were likely to achieve – and why therefore South Africa regarded joining as so important to it. It was evident, however, that the BRICS, according to the South African’s – was a caucus where the members were proponents for non-intervention – and that was likely to prove troublesome to the United States.

There were evident divergences in the foreign policy perspectives and priorities of the two countries. And there was also – and I would say more troubling – evident suspicions over the behaviors of each.  Thus South Africans were quick to see US heavy-handedness and an eagerness to resort to force in most crises situations. There was great back and forth over whether the US and other allied actions in Libya had exceeded the UN resolution 1973 – and US quick dismissal of African Union efforts to mediate between the Libyan factions.  Many of the South Africans thought so.  South Africans expressed strong disapproval for the humanitarian intervention in Libya – some even suggesting that South Africans and other African states would be unlikely to resort again to the policy of humanitarian intervention – given the way that the Libyan mandate had been abused according to a number of South African participants.

There was a measure of dismay from the US experts at the reliance on non-intervention by South Africans in a variety of crises settings including Myanmar and more recently in Syria.  US experts additionally expressed discontent over the South African approach to the crisis in Zimbabwe and the efforts to tamp down the crisis without stronger efforts to remove the authoritarian leader Mugabe.

So what lessons did I come away with in this encounter?  Experts from both countries emphasized the heterogeneity of their societies, their pride in their democracies and their commitment to a rules-based international order.  But there was a significant divergence in the way in which they approached achieving that order and a hesitancy in the character and actions of the other country.

South Africa continues to regard UN Security Council (UNSC) reform as vital; they continue to press for a permanent seat there. There was a growing sense from the South Africans that they could no longer count solidly on African support.  And both group of experts remained pessimistic that any reform in the near term was at all likely – though South Africans urged greater efforts by the United States to secure reform.  Both groups also acknowledged that continuing deadlock would erode the legitimacy and salience of the Council.

The South Africans underscored their country’s concern and actions in promoting peace in security on the African continent – in Libya, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, etc.  They expressed annoyance at the failure of the US to acknowledge and support the efforts, especially of the African Union (AU), on the continent.

The conversation was a helpful effort in filling in some of the blanks in the relationship.  But there is much to do to reduce the gap in understanding and modify the suspicions that each has for the efforts of the other in global governance.

 

Distractions, Distractions Distractions … Can Mexico Get the G20 Agenda Back on Track

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Mexico faces a very large task. Actually Mexican officials face two rather daunting tasks. The first is to persuade G20 officials and indeed G2o Leaders that notwithstanding  the crisis of the day, they must keep “front-and-center” the longer term tasks and objectives that put the G20 Leaders at the ‘high table’ in the first place.  Through the immediate crises – most evidently the sovereign debt crisis in Europe –  and the constant “pulling and hauling” to widen the agenda this way and that, the G20 Leaders Summit needs to construct an agenda and implement policy that secures measurable economic and financial reform.

The second, and even harder, task is to bring Leaders face-to-face with their own unwillingness to grasp the domestic political nettle. As an aside, officials need to alert media and experts to real failure of the G20 – political failure not at the international level but at the national level.   The current failure is not a product so much of weak international institutions, a favorite subject of media and experts, but failing national leadership.

Now it may be unfair to call the European debt crisis – a distraction – for the contagion from an unstructured Greek default, or worse a number of Eurozone countries and the likely liquidity crisis that would spread quickly through global economy – is not an event happy to contemplate.  But G20 Leaders need to resist “my crisis is your crisis” mentality that markets and Europe promote.  In part this is “passing the buck” and at the recent Finance Ministers meeting it was clear that many countries – including, the US, UK, Canada and others were saying – you have to save yourself first – notably Germany – then we can consider wider support.  It is a tug-of-war but meanwhile the G20 is “stuck” with this crisis that continues to crowd out needed longer term discussions of Strong Sustainable and Balanced Growth (SSBG) in all its myriad policy direction.

And then there is the need to address the host’s agenda.  Stewart Patrick at the Council on Foreign Relations, freshly returned from Mexico’s gathering – the Think-20 – has sketched in his blog, The Internationalist,  many of the interests Mexico brings to the G20 Table.  Now this in the end may not be the agenda when the G20 Leaders meet in Los Cabos but much of this is promoted by Mexico.  Mexico has pressed to promote “green growth” but it is not clear what that is and whether Leaders have a clear roadmap for incremental policy action.  And food security has appeared as well.  Like green growth food security is a worthy subject but it was there with the French leadership.  Now Stewart notes that vice-ministers of agriculture plan to meet in April and May but he suggests that food security needs to be “bounced up” to Leaders.  I think there is more than enough that needs to be addressed in the already created Action Plan.   Governments need to take action to implement. Ministers get it done!

Now with respect to the SSBG framework and Leaders actions. Recently Uri Dadush of te Carnegie Endowment for International Peace  and Kati Suominen of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (in fact the article can be found at the GMF website) wrote an article called “Is There Life for the G20 beyond the Global FInancial Crisis?”  The authors tackle both the G20 agenda and where is the failure.  Dadush and Suominen examining the volatile G20 agenda

Instead, the G20 countries, which together account for the vast majority of the ownership and voting power in the major global institutions, should focus only on the big picture and look to those institutions to translate the G20-designed strategy into explicit decisions – in other words, to find a technically and politically palatable way to execute and enforce the G20’s vision.  This is the role – the role of the steering committee – that the G20 needs to continue carving out.

Now my colleague Dan Drezner (you can always catch him at Foreign Policy) has on a number of occasions – including with colleagues from SIIS, the Munk School, the Stanley Foundation, KDI and others at a conference in Shanghai – characterized the effort to “coordinate” global imbalances as “Mission Impossible”.  But the economic framework of the G20  – the SSBG framework – requires the amelioration of global imbalances among the G20.  That is the task.  And as Dadush and Suominen recognize

Unsurprisingly, the G20 has thus far had little success in agreeing on a roadmap to effectively deal with global imbalances, and has also failed to set a clear goal for its efforts.

Moreover they point out that such coordination can only occur with the concurrence of domestic interests and then policy reform at the national level – but it would appear that Leaders are unwilling – or unable – to alter what these two authors describe as the “drivers of the imbalances”.  Thus, China has yet to alter its export-driven domestic economy, notwithstanding the repeated rhetoric of China shifting to domestic consumption.  Nor has the United States found a policy path to reduce its near “out-of-control” deficit and growing debt.  And these are but two of a number of countries in the G20.

Global imbalances policy is a classic instance of all politics being local – but in this instance we are not describing purely domestic policy but the interaction of national policy with international coordination.  But let’s be clear: this unwillingness to alter the domestic political equation and revise national economic policy is not a failure, on its face, of the G20 Leaders Summit – the informal ‘high table’ of global governance – but the failure of leadership to undertake the tough political decisions at home.  The weakness is political leadership at home not at summit structures.  Again as Dadush and Suominen point out:

While coordination failures are ancillary to the main problem – that resolution to issues facing the G20 often requires painful domestic reforms – they risk becoming means to deflect attention from the domestic reforms that are so badly needed.

So keeping the agenda on SSBG target, and cajoling G20 Leaders to take action at home – that is the real Mexican agenda

Image Credit:  Government of Mexico