The G-20:

in the Making? In autumn 2008, the world economic system stood at the edge of an abyss. The international community was confronted by the biggest financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The leading industrialised and emerging countries, within the framework of the newly formed »Group of 20 « (G-20), reacted to the first global financial and economic crisis of the twenty-first century with a series of world economic summits, at which, among other things, economic support measures on an unprecedented scale were agreed in order to rescue the global economy. What began as an ad-hoc meeting of heads of states and governments for the purpose of crisis management seems to have developed into an established leaders ‘ forum. At the same time, the G-20 seems to have to superseded the G-8 as the premier forum for global economic governance. Can the G-20 deliver what is expected of it and really become the central coordinating body for steering the world economy, an effective kind of »global economic govern-ment«? Noted political economists Andrew F. Cooper and Eric Helleiner examine thi