A History of G20 Summits: The Evolving Dynamic of Global Leadership

Abstract

This paper presents the emergence of G20 summits from their roots in the G8 summit and G20 ministerial forum, along with the sequence of G20 summits through the Cannes Summit of November 2011. It explores the trajectory of these three key global forums, and the dynamics carrying forward the G20 summit as a major new mechanism of global governance. This history is in a continuing process of evolution, and is itself defining the issues and challenges facing the global economy and political leaders of G20 countries.Author Notes: The authors are grateful to the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, for financial support for the Brookings-CIGI Seminar Series on international and global governance reforms, an annual series under their direction since 2006. Colin Bradford wants to express his gratitude to CIGI for direct financial support for his work and involvement in G20 issues over these years.

The G20, climate change and COVID-19: critical juncture or critical wound?

“…The now high-level G20 did indeed pursue a collective response to the GFC. It issued an unprecedented $US5 trillion of concerted expansionary fiscal measures (Bradford & Linn, 2012). Importantly, this action was taken in tandem with longer-term policy cooperation to address the underlying causes of the GFC, including imbalances in G20 members' trade balances, current accounts, private and public debt and savings (Triggs, 2018).…”

Ruling capital: emerging markets and the reregulation of cross-border finance

“…Later, Italy, Canada, and Russia were invited in, and by the end of the 1990s, heads of state became regulars and the group became known as the G8. There had long been critiques of the lack of inclusiveness of these bodies, and in response to the Asian financial crisis and other crises in the late 1990s, the G20 was born as a ministerial-level grouping (Bradford and Linn 2011).…”

“…According to Colin Bradford and Johannes Linn (2011), it just so happened that a G20 meeting was scheduled for November 8-9 in São Paolo, Brazil, in 2008. On the advice of Gordon Brown, then UK prime minister, it was decided to elevate the G20 to a leaders' forum and hold the meeting a week later in Washington, DC. The meeting was hastily assembled after the Lehman collapse and then the election of Barack Obama.…”

“…The IMF was also given new funds, and new special drawing rights were issued; $250 billion in trade finance was pledged to EMDs, and the Financial Stability Forum was elevated to a new global institution called the Financial Stability Board (FSB) (Woods 2010). Moreover, the G20 developed a core agenda to work on in years going forward that focused on macroeconomic coordination for recovery, strengthening national and global regulations on financial markets, and reforming the international financial institutions (Bradford and Linn 2011).…”

Competing Sociological Diagnoses of Contemporary Times: Potentials of the RISU Conceptual Framework

“…Later it became known that at the time of Steinbrück"s speech the governments of the most powerful economies, the German government including, were already positioning themselves for the immediately forthcoming first G20 summit. The clearly formulated task of the summit was to handle the looming global financial and economic crisis (Bradford & Linn, 2011).…”