We've just seen that it's quite unlikely, at least in my view, that the 21st century will be dominated by a hegemonic global power. If that's the case, then we should be asking ourselves, what's going to happen to global governance? What are the options when it comes to making sure that we address the problems of today that affect the entire world? Well, let me just go back to where we started in this class, by saying that the world has changed very quickly. If you remember 100 years ago, just before World War I, there was one dominant technological economic, financial and even military power in the world, and that was the UK. I show this map. It's very well captured here in terms of capital flows in the world with the UK playing the preeminent role. Fast forward 50 years or so to the year 1967, and now the situation is very different. The United States is the preeminent power in the world, at least among the market economies, with Europe playing a secondary role. And as of the year 2012, the last year for which we have complete data, what we find is that the United States, Europe, China, Japan, and perhaps India and the Middle East share the global stage in terms of influence. So what are the options when we have a polycentric or multi-polar world? One option is to use international organizations for global governance. For instance, we have the United Nations, and it has played an important role in terms of analyzing and overcoming climate change. Or engaging in peacekeeping, or protecting human rights, refugees, and so on. But of course, the United Nations was an organization that was created in the wake of World War II for a very different world. And it has limitations. For the same reason, the International Monetary Fund, which is the first responder when it comes to financial crisis around the world, is also an institution that needs updating. The World Bank is another institution inherited from the post World War II settlements, and as you know, its main purpose is to help reduce poverty around the world. Now of course, it has come under heavy criticism. And we all know that the main reason why poverty has been coming down in the world, or at least in the emerging world, is because of the growth of those economies. We also have the World Health Organization, and then the various groupings of countries called the G6 or the G7 or the G20. Let me share with you a few thoughts about these mechanisms. So the G6 and the G7 were set up back in the 1970s a long time ago, and these were clubs to which only the largest market-based economies in the world could be admitted. So the original G6 included the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, and Italy, and Canada was added later to create the G7. The G6 met for the first time in 1975. And since then they have held 22 summits. In 1985 the G5, that is, the US, Japan, Germany, UK, and France, reached the famous Plaza Accord, which brought down the value of the US dollar in an orderly way. And essentially allowed economies around the world to grow quite rapidly in the next few years. So that's one instance in which these meetings of the G5 or the G6 or the G7 countries actually had some positive impact on some global governments. The next phase in this style of global governance came in 1998 with the formation of the G8, which essentially involved adding Russia to the G7. Now remember, the Soviet Union had collapsed, and Russia had become a market based economy. The G8 met 16 times, with additional countries and some multilateral organizations invited to these summits on a case-by-case basis. And the latest phase in global governance, based on the largest of the most influential economies, was the G20, which was started in the year 1999 and included the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Canada, and Russia, which was the grouping that existed prior to the G20. And then also invited the European Union as a separate member. As well as several emergent economies from Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America and the Middle East, as indicated on the screen right now. The G20 organized eight head-of-state summits since the year 2008. However, since about the year 2012 or 2013, it hasn't really met that frequently, and it has proven to be an ineffective tool when it comes to global governance. So what were the reasons why the G20 became ineffective? Well first of all, the G20 is a nice forum that helps keep channels of communication open. The problem is that it is way too small in that it doesn't represent all of the different emerging regions of the world in the way it should. But at the same time, it's too large in that it makes it very difficult to reach any kind of agreement among 20 different countries with very different interests and perspectives. So this begs the question of, what's the optimal size of the group of countries that should be meeting to analyze and propose solutions to the most important and pressing problems in the world? You can think about, from your point of view, what might be the optimal size of the group. What I can tell you is that research indicates that when a group gets bigger than four or five, it becomes very difficult to make informed decisions, especially about big problems. Given the problems that we have in the world in terms of global government, how difficult it is with so many countries vying for influence in the world to get things done, what are some of the solutions? Well, I think we need to start the analysis by assuming that we are already, and we will be for a long time, in a multi-polar world. Second, I think it's really important to avoid situations in which we end up, not in a G7 or a G20 world, but rather in a G-zero world. And here borrowing the expression from Roubini & Bremmer, an economist and a political scientist, who essentially pointed out that the G20 has become ineffective. I think it's really important to also realize that it's unlikely in the 21st century one single country in the world will be able to impose its will on everybody else. That is to say, I don't think the conditions are conducive to hegemonic powers in the world. I would like to quote somebody whom I've already referred to in this class, Joseph Nye, whom remember is a scholar. But he also has foreign policy experience at the US State Department. And he wrote a few years ago, quote, the problem of American power in the twenty-first century, then, is not one of decline but what to do in light of the realization that even the largest country cannot achieve outcomes it wants without the help of others, unquote. So I guess one way of summarizing the situation is that most likely, the United States will continue to be the most influential country in the world. However, that doesn't mean it will be able to impose its will on other countries. It will need to collaborate. It will need to set up coalitions, and to bring to the table other countries, so that the world can be governed in an effective way.
