Global Summitry Vs. Global Governance

 Global summitry involves the architecture, institutions and, most critically, the political and policy behavior of the actors engaged in the influence of outcomes of common concern in the international system. Global summitry includes all actors - international organizations, trans-governmental networks, states and non-state entities whether individuals, corporations or associations – that influence the agenda, the organization and the execution of global politics and policy.

Global summitry is concerned with the behavior of actors in the international system, or more precisely what the diplomatic historian Paul Schroeder (2000, 261)1 calls the “human conduct” in the system. Contrary to a popular perception, summitry is more than the leaders. Leaders form a vital element of summitry, but they do not fully describe it. The G20 summit, created in 2008 after the outbreak of the global financial crisis, provides a telling example. The G20 leaders’ summit came into play some ten years after the original G20 had been formed as a gathering of finance ministers and central bankers. These ministers and bankers continue to meet to inform their heads of government. Thus, historically, heads of government have not been the sole actors in summitry.

In today’s global politics—in a world marked by increasing connectedness—international relations are shaped to a large extent by market forces and what is often referred to as globalization. The current international political order is built on the foundation of two interlocking areas: security and economic progress. The old divisions of “high” and “low” politics, once so prominent in the Cold War era, have faded.

Global governance has become a ubiquitous term in international relations. It was not always the case. As a focus of concern, the idea of global governance emerged at the end of the Cold War. This reset in international political perspectives marked a turning point in the evolution of the geopolitical landscape. There were, and are, both analytic and practical reasons for the emergence of discourse on global governance. On the analytic side, the demise of the Soviet Union altered the shape of the international political order. As Barnet and Duvall (2005, 5) write in their volume, Power in Global Governance:

The vocabulary of “global governance” appeared at the very same moment that the Cold War receded from view. The Cold War was not only a description of a bipolar system; it also represented a mode of organizing the analysis and practice of international politics. With the end of the Cold War, the issue became what would and should take its place. For many, global governance represented a way of organizing international politics in a more inclusive and consensual manner.?…?Alongside the eclipse of the Cold War was the emergence of globalization. Although globalization had various dimensions, a unifying claim was that intensifying transnational and interstate connections requires regulatory mechanisms – governance, although not a government – at a global level.

While the context and dynamics of global governance were not then fully articulated, one structural element was evident: the international system had gone from two superpowers to one—the United States. Unipolarity and U.S. hegemony commanded attention in international relations and global governance. This structural change raised questions about the dominant realist mechanism—the contemporary balance of power. In fact, balance of power, so much a part of the Cold War attention on international governance, faded from discussion in international relations.

Global summitry is alert to the continuous rearrangement of politics and policy premised on changing actors, structures, and agendas. Besides the critical element of power with its distribution and redistribution among states, other dimensions are very much a part of global summitry and impact this redistribution as well. The international system has seen a marked shift from “hard” to “soft” law; from formal—often hierarchical—institutions to less formal, horizontal, or “flattened” ones; from national sovereignty to interdependency.

This enlargement, however, raises concern among international relations experts as for some it veers uncomfortably close to global government.

By: Abhishek Sharma