Nicholas Bayne

Following on from Hanging In There, this comprehensive volume empirically covers the summits from the UK meeting in Birmingham in 1998 to the UK meeting in 2005. In essence, this study reviews a full G8 cycle. The analytical framework rests on three general summit objectives: political leadership, reconciling international/domestic and collective management, and six subject-specific performance indicators: leadership, effectiveness, solidarity, durability, acceptability, consistency. Including a detailed look at summits pre-Birmingham, it reviews developments from 1998 by examining each summit from the subsequent summit performances, such as financial issues and debt, trade issues and development, to the most recent discussion on Africa, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, it covers the development of the G8 apparatus, the impact of Russia's membership and links with non-G8 governments and non-state actors. It concludes with an assessment as to whether the G8 achieves its three general summit objectives.

This title was first published in 2000: This inside look at the G7/G8 summits is from an author who combines personal experience of the summit process with academic analysis. It weaves together a critical narrative of the annual summits with essays on their interaction with contemporary trends - interdependence, globalization and the end of the Cold War - and with key international institutions. the summits are judged against their original objectives: reconciling domestic and external pressures, mobilizing collective management and providing political leadership. Readers should take away an understanding of how the leaders of the major industrial democracies have responded to the transformation of the world economy during the late 20th century and how far they have succeeded in reforming the international economic system to meet the next millennium.

This title was first published in 2000: This inside look at the G7/G8 summits is from an author who combines personal experience of the summit process with academic analysis. It weaves together a critical narrative of the annual summits with essays on their interaction with contemporary trends - interdependence, globalization and the end of the Cold War - and with key international institutions. the summits are judged against their original objectives: reconciling domestic and external pressures, mobilizing collective management and providing political leadership. Readers should take away an understanding of how the leaders of the major industrial democracies have responded to the transformation of the world economy during the late 20th century and how far they have succeeded in reforming the international economic system to meet the next millennium.

Following on from Hanging In There, this comprehensive volume empirically covers the summits from the UK meeting in Birmingham in 1998 to the UK meeting in 2005. In essence, this study reviews a full G8 cycle. The analytical framework rests on three general summit objectives: political leadership, reconciling international/domestic and collective management, and six subject-specific performance indicators: leadership, effectiveness, solidarity, durability, acceptability, consistency. Including a detailed look at summits pre-Birmingham, it reviews developments from 1998 by examining each summit from the subsequent summit performances, such as financial issues and debt, trade issues and development, to the most recent discussion on Africa, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, it covers the development of the G8 apparatus, the impact of Russia's membership and links with non-G8 governments and non-state actors. It concludes with an assessment as to whether the G8 achieves its three general summit objectives.

For nearly a decade the leaders of the seven major industrial countries--the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, and Canada--have met annually to discuss international economic and political issues. Regular summitry of this sort is virtually unprecedented in modern diplomacy. Proponents see the Western summits as providing collective leadership that is vital in a turbulent world, while critics dismiss summitry as distracting and even damaging to political and economic stability.Hanging Together charts the modern dilemma between economic interdependence and national sovereignty. It assesses the history, decisions, successes, and failures of the seven-power summits from Rambouillet in 1975 to the 1983 meeting at Williamsburg, and looks forward to the 1984 summit in London. The authors show how the growing importance of international commerce and finance has caused national and international politics to become entangled, and how national borders have become more permeable. Born in an era of waning American hegemony, the summits reveal the tension between American leadership and collective Western management of the world economy. The authors also trace the struggles of heads of state to balance the conflicting imperatives of personal authority and bureaucratic expertise. Because summits involve the power and prestige of each country's highest authorities, summitry reveals in concentrated form how these conflicts are expressed and managed.As a blend of contemporary history and political economy, Hanging Together demonstrates that summits are not isolated annual encounters, but part of a continuous process of international and domestic negotiation about the most important and controversial issues facing all governments today.