Review: Emerging Powers in Global Governance

Abstract

EMERGING POWERS IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE Lessons from the Heiligendamm Process Andrew F. Cooper and Agata Antkiewicz, editors Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008. 392pp, $39.95 paper (ISBN 978-1-55458-057-6)Ever since the prime ministers, chancellors, and presidents ofthe six leading global economies originally met in the Parisian château of Rambouillet in November 1975, expansion of this select group - known today as the group of 8, or the G8 - has been a topic of discussion for the leaders themselves in addition to policymakers and committed summit- watchers. These summits, it has been argued, are more productive when the membership is limited; however, this raises questions surrounding the credibility of a self-appointed and select grouping like the G8 to decide responses to global issues. Attempts to chart a path between the Scylla of legitimacy and the Charybdis of effectiveness through reform of its membership have included bringing Canada into its embrace as a G7 the second time it met in 1976, in addition to the European Union in 1977 and Russia, in a drawn-out fashion, during the 1990s to create the G8 we know today. As a result, it could be argued that this modem-day recasting ofthe Concert of Europe has demonstrated greater flexibility than the United Nations security council in pursuing reform. However, in the first decade ofthe new millennium, the question of how to accommodate emerging powers at the top table of summitry has become the central issue that defines the future ofthe summit process.The traditional solution to this double crisis of legitimacy and efficiency has been to simply add new members on an ad hoc basis and the creation of a G9 has been posited as one solution to engage with the hard case of China (2). However, other emerging powers - Brazil, India, Mexico, and South Africa - have equally valid claims to a seat at the summit table and alongside China form a G5. The Heiligendamm process, launched at the German-hosted G8 summit of 2007, is an attempt to create an informal dialogue between the G8 and this G5 on the core issues of global governance with the ever-present possibility of reforming the G8 through the creation of a G13. The story does not end there. A group of 16 countries known as the major economies adds Australia, Indonesia, and South Korea to the 13 to form a G16 to address the specific issues of energy security and climate change. And since 2008 the G20 has metamorphosed from a regular meeting of finance ministers and bank governors to a biannual meeting of leaders charged with forging a common response to the global economic crisis. The result is what has Roy Culpeper, president of the North-South Institute, has dubbed a gaggle of Gs.This timely and welcome edited volume is an attempt to explore the second of these possible configurations: the Heiligendamm process. It achieves this task in 14 detailed yet easily digestible chapters that set the scene initially by focusing on the conceptual and historical background to the restructuring of the G8 and the development of the Heiligendamm process. …