by Anthony Payne,  Chatham House

This summary was prepared by the Atlantic Community editorial team from "The G8 in a changing economic order" published here in Chatham House's International Affairs of May 2008.

Over the last few years, the annual G8 summits have attracted more attention than ever before in the history of this group of states originally known as the "Library Group." The rise in power of Brazil, China or India sparks heated debates regarding the duties of the G8, whether it is equipped to accomplish them, and if not, which reforms are now necessary. Today's global economic order confronts the G8 with existential questions: what is the role of a group made up of the eight leading industrial nations and Russia in a world where states are only one of many actors contributing to the concert of international politics and economics, and where new emerging economic nations considerably limit the influence of the traditional G7 states? 

The G8 arose out of an informal meeting between statesmen when, in 1973, the former US Secretary of the Treasury George Schultz gathered his French, British and West German colleagues in the library of the White House and asked them to discuss the instability of the international financial system. In the same year, the Japanese minister of finance organized a follow up meeting and thereby opened the door for Japan to the elite club, which was henceforth called the "Library Group." Italy and Canada joined in 1975 and 1976 respectively; Russia was also taken on board in 2003. After this addition it was finally clear that these meetings were more than regular fireside chats of (democratically elected) heads of state of the leading industrial nations. Russia neither conformed to the democratic requirements nor did it belong to the most important post-industrial economic powers. The enlargement of the G7 to G8 was a purely tactical decision. Symbolically, it sealed the victory of Western liberal capitalism over communism. In this sense, the G8 became a kind of winners' club of the end of the twentieth century. In reality, however, the G8 has become one of the most important actors within the complex dynamic of what has commonly come to be called Global Governance.

In the meantime, the international power structure has been dislocated once again by new emerging economic nations and a different global threat situation due to natural disasters, terrorism, and the scarcity of resources. While it has not yet been possible to assess the long term consequences of these structural changes, the dynamic of these developments has increased rather than reduced the extent of the ancient problem of the G8's legitimacy as well as the doubts regarding its efficiency and its ability to take action. In order to protect its influence within this new international order, the G8 has come up with a variety of initiatives for reform. Initiatives have ranged from the formation of a G20 following the financial crisis in Asia to proposals which have yet to be realised, such as the institutionalisation of the G20 as a "Leadersgroup" named L20. In the end, what has remained is the so called "G8 + 5-process" which is meant to include Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa and should integrate these countries into the structures and norms of the still largely G8-led "Governance of Globalization." The "G8+5 process" was considered a test to see whether the winners of the early twenty first century would be willing to comply with the rules of the game of Western leadership. Only if this test is passed will the creation of a capable G13 become a realistic option for the future of the G8.

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