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International Affairs – May issue
22 May 2008
This special issue of International Affairs looks at the changing dynamics in the international economic system from an interdisciplinary standpoint, unpacking some of the emerging processes of globalization and investigating the relationship between power and rule-setting.
The framing question behind the special issue is how the global order has to change in order to accommodate the enlargement of the playing field and in particular the emergence of fast-growing developing economies.
How is this shift going to affect the distribution of power, both among nations and between state and non-state actors? Is this shift going to drive a fundamental rethinking of the rules governing relations between countries - and regions - and institutions? These pertinent questions are explored in this special issue.
In his article, Anthony Payne charts the history of the G8, arguing that it came to demonstrate and symbolize the triumph of western capitalist liberal democracy over its rival Soviet system. In that sense the G8 constituted the club of the winners of late twentieth century history. But it has long been beset by problems of legitimacy and efficiency.
To achieve its ambitions and meet new challenges the G8 must face up to the new realities of the global political system. It has recognised that it needs to incorporate new powers such as Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa into its affairs. But these countries will have to show that they are willing to work within the framework of western leadership. Only then will the formation of a relevant G13 become a politically realistic possibility.
Full list of contents:
Introduction: Power and Rules in a Changing Economic Order
Paola Subacchi
Globalization, empire and natural law
Harold James
The case of the World Trade Organization
John H. Jackson
The international monetary system: Diffusion and ambiguity
Benjamin J. Cohen
Europe as a global actor: Empire by example?
Jan Zielonka
New power centres and new power brokers: Are they shaping a new economic order?
Paola Subacchi
Beyond the Washington Consensus? Asia and Latin America in search of more autonomous development
Jean Grugel, Pia Riggirozzi and Ben Thirkell-White
The G8 in a changing global economic order
Anthony Payne
Setting the rules: Private power, political underpinnings, and legitimacy in global monetary and financial governance
Geoffrey R D Underhill and Xiaoke Zhang
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