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ABSTRACT
The G20 as experienced via the 2008 global financial crisis is dead. That is to say, examining the G20 as a tightly controlling concert of powers is no longer relevant. Yet, this ending does not mean that the G20 is irrelevant. The G20's increased fragmentation has cut into its substantive performance. Tensions in national policy coordination have constrained institutional effectiveness, creating a high degree of fragility in terms of delivery. This line of argument highlighting the limits and constraints of the G20, however, overlooks the success of the G20 in embedding itself as a hybrid focal point for global politics. Teasing out this dynamic, this article profiles the changes with respect to the G20's shift from both a crisis and steering committee at the apex of power to a platform that exhibits some hub characteristics but facilitates networking at both the intergovernmental and state or societal transnational levels.
Acknowledgement
This article was originally presented as The G20@10 Conference, Bonn, 23–24 October 2018, organised by the German Development Institute /Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik. The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, as well as the editorial team of the South African Journal of International Affairs for their work and support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Note on contributor
Andrew F. Cooper is Professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the Department of Political Science, University of Waterloo, Canada. From 2003 to 2010 he was the Associate Director and Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). He is the author or co-author of 11 books, including BRICS VSI (OUP, 2016); and (with Ramesh Thakur), Group of 20 (Routledge, 2012).
Notes
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4 Angeloni I & J Pisani-Ferry, ‘The G20: Characters In Search of an Author’, Bruegel Working Paper 2012/04 2012; Cooper, AF, ‘The G20 as an improvised crisis committee and/or a contested ‘steering committee’ for the world’, International Affairs, 86, 3, 2010, pp. 741–57.
5 Bremmer I, Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World. New York: Portfolio Penguin, 2012.
6 Alexandroff AS & Cooper, AF (eds), Rising States, Rising Institutions: Can the World Be Governed? Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010; Cooper, AF & R Thakur, The Group of Twenty (G20). New York: Routledge, 2012; Kirton J, G20 Governance for a Globalized World. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013; Luckhurst J, G20 since the Global Crisis. New York: Palgrave, 2016.
7 Wright T, ‘The G20 is Obsolete’, The Atlantic, 11 July 2017, <https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/g20-obsolete-trump-putin-russia-germany-france/533238/>.
8 Cooper AF, ‘The G20 as an improvised crisis committee and/or a contested ‘steering committee’ for the world’, International Affairs, 86, 3, 2010, pp. 741–57; Alexandroff A, ‘G20 global governance is hard work, world—get used to it!’, Rising BRICSAM. 7 November 2011, <http://blog.risingbricsam.com/?p=950>.
9 Bremmer I & Roubini, N, ‘A G-Zero World: the new economic club will produce conflict, not cooperation’, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2011.
10 Slaughter S, ‘Introduction: theorizing the G20’, in Slaughter S (ed) The G20 and International Theory: Perspectives on Global Summitry. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, p. 9.
11 Cooper AF, ‘Civil Society Relationships with the G20: An Extension of the G8 Template or Distinctive Pattern of Engagement?’, Global Society, 27, 2, 2013, pp. 179–200; Slaughter S, ‘Building G20 Outreach: The Role of Transnational Policy Networks in Sustaining Effective and Legitimate Summitry’, Global Summitry, 1, 2, 2015, pp. 171–86.
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13 G20 Leaders Statement: The Pittsburgh Summit, 25–25 September 2009, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/2009/2009communique0925.html>.
14 Åslund A, ‘The group of 20 must be stopped’, Financial Times, 26 November 2009; Gahr Støre J, ‘Norway takes aim at G20: ‘one of the greatest setbacks since World War II’, Der Spiegel, 22 June 2010.
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17 Alexandroff A, ‘G20 global governance is hard work, world—get used to it!’. Rising BRICSAM. 7 November 2011, <http://blog.risingbricsam.com/?p=950>. See also Cooper AF, ‘Global summitry as sites of transnational technocratic management and policy contestation’, in D Stone and K Moloney (eds), Oxford Handbook of Global Policy and Transnational Administration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019, ch 36.
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21 Lee M-b & Rudd, K, ‘The G20 can lead the way to balanced growth’, Financial Times, 2 September 2009. See also Cooper AF, ‘The G20 and contested global governance: BRICS, middle powers and small states’. Caribbean Journal of International Relations & Diplomacy, 2, 3, 2014, pp. 87–109.
22 Kripke G, 14 November 2008, <http://povertynewsblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/g20-meeting-begins-in-washington.html>.
23 Alexandroff A, ‘G20 global governance is hard work, world—get used to it!’. Rising BRICSAM. 7 November 2011, <http://blog.risingbricsam.com/?p=950>.
24 Finance Canada, Working Group 1: ‘Summary of Report’, 2009, <https://www.fin.gc.ca/activty/G20/g20030409_1-eng.asp>.
25 Luckhurst J, G20 since the Global Crisis. New York: Palgrave, 2016.
26 Alexandroff A & D Brean, ‘Global summitry: its meaning and scope part one’, Global Summitry: Politics, Economics and Law in International Governance, 1, 1, pp. 9–10.
27 Cooper AF & C Bradford, ‘The G20 and the post-crisis economic order’. CIGI G20 Paper No. 3, 10 June 2010.
28 Kirton J, G20 Governance for a Globalized World. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013, p. 35.
29 Cooper AF & C Bradford, ‘The G20 and the post-crisis economic order’. CIGI G20 Paper No. 3, 10 June 2010.
30 Cerny PG, ‘Plurilateralism: structural differentiation and functional conflict in the Post-Cold War world order’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 22. Spring 1993, p. 28.
31 Cooper AF, “MIKTA and the global projection of middle powers: toward a summit of their own?” Global Summitry Journal, 1, 1, 2015, pp. 95–114.
32 Cho J-s, ‘5 non-G20 nations invited to Seoul summit’, Korea Times, 24 October 2010; Cooper AF, ‘The G20 and its regional critics: the search for inclusion’, Global Policy, 2, 2, 2011, pp. 203–9.
33 Cooper AF, ‘The G20 as an improvised crisis committee and/or a contested ‘steering committee’ for the world’, International Affairs, 86, 3, 2010, p. 752; Cooper AF & C Bradford, ‘The G20 and the post-crisis economic order’, CIGI G20 Paper No. 3, 10 June 2010, p. 4. See also Garrett G & B R Weingast, ‘Ideas, interests and institutions’, in J Goldstein and R O Keohane (eds), Ideas & Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.
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35 Ibid., p. 16.
36 G20 Leaders’ Communique, Hangzhou Summit, 4–5 September 2016, <http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1395000.shtml>.
37 Ibid.
38 G20 Leaders’ Communique, Hamburg Summit, 7–8 2017, <https://www.b20germany.org/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/B20/B20_G20_Leaders__Declaration_Evaluation.pdf>.
39 G20 Leaders’ Communique, Hangzhou Summit, 4–5 September 2016, <http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1395000.shtml>.
40 Dolinskiy A, ‘What the G20 Summit Means for Russia and Ukraine’, Russia Direct, 17 November 2014, <http://www.russia-direct.org/opinion/what-g20-summit-means-russia-and-ukraine>.
41 Ilyashenko A ‘G20 summit completed ‘with success,’ says Putin before early departure’ Russia Direct, 18 November 2014 <https://www.rbth.com/international/2014/11/18/g20_summit_completed_with_success_says_putin_before_early_depar_41499.html>.
42 Indian Express, ‘Despite Sikkim standoff, PM Modi promises full cooperation to China for BRICS summit’, 10 May 2019, <https://indianexpress.com/article/india/despite-sikkim-standoff-pm-modi-promises-full-cooperation-to-china-for-upcoming-brics-summit-4740200/>.
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46 T20 Engagement Group. (2017) 20 Solution Proposals for the G20 from the T20 Engagement, 2017, <https://www.die-gdi.de/en/others-publications/article/20-solution-proposals-for-the-g20-from-the-t20-engagement-group/>.
47 G20 Argentina, ‘Engagement groups’, <https://qa-g20.argentina.gob.ar/en/g20-argentina/engagement-groups>.
48 Chodor T, ‘A nébuleuse for a new world order? The G20 from a neo-Gramscian perspective’, in Slaughter S (ed) The G20 and International Theory: Perspectives on Global Summitry. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, p. 147.
49 Ruggie JG, ‘Reconstituting the global public domain — issues, actors, and practices’, European Journal of International Relations, 10, 4, 2004, pp. 499–531.