Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Canada
Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance:
Canada’s G20 Summit from Toronto to Turkey
Saturday, June 26
G20 leaders arrive at the Toronto Airport Infield Terminal at the
Lester B. Pearson Airport in Toronto
18:30 Official welcome and reception of G20 leaders and spouses by
Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada, and Laureen Harper, at the
Royal York Hotel
Sunday, June 27
09:00 Opening plenary session
12:30 Family photograph
17:00 Chair’s press conference
Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance:
Canada’s G20 Summit from Toronto to Turkey
John Kirton
Co-director, G20 Research Group
Paper prepared for a presentation at TEPAV, Ankara, and DEIK,
Istanbul, Turkey, June
7-8, 2010. Version of June 13, 2010.
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http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/biblio/kirton-turkey-2010.pdf
Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance:
Canada’s G20 Summit from Toronto to Turkey
John Kirton
Co-director, G20 Research Group
Paper prepared for a presentation at TEPAV, Ankara, and DEIK, Istanbul, Turkey, June
7-8, 2010. Version of June 13, 2010.
Introduction
The Challenge
In less than two weeks the most powerful leaders of the world’s 20 most systemically
significant countries arrive in Toronto, Canada for their fourth summit of the Group of
Twenty (G20). It will be their first meeting of the newly proclaimed permanent priority
centre of international economic co-operation, the first co-chaired by an established and
emerging economy, and the first held in tight tandem with the older, smaller Group of
Eight (G8) major power democracies.
In Toronto the G20 leaders will confront several critical global challenges. The first is the
European-turned-global financial crisis, erupting in May even before the previous
American-turned-global financial crisis of 2007-9 had been solved. The second is the
devastation to trade, investment and development that these financial-turned-economic
crises cause. The third is the environmental and social problems they exacerbate, from
climate change and energy to food and health. And the fourth is strengthening the G20
itself and the international financial institutions and other global bodies more generally,
to govern more effectively, equitably and accountably today’s complex, uncertain,
intensely interconnected world.
Can Canada and Turkey work together at Toronto to cope with these and other challenges
that the world confronts? At first glance, Canada and Turkey would appear to be
distinctly different countries, within the global community and as members of the G20,
the institutionalized club of systemically significant countries that was created in 1999 in
response to the Asian-turned-global financial crisis then and that leapt to the leaders’
level in response to the American-turned-global financial crisis continuing today. Yet in
many important ways, Canada and Turkey have much in common in their position and
potential performance in the G20.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 2
First, as forthcoming hosts of the G20 summit, with Canada serving in 2010 and Turkey
as early as 2013, they confirm the G20’s institutional position and potential operation
performance as a genuine club of equals, in which one of the least powerful members of
the established G8 and then one that was not a G8 member have been quickly asked to
host and chair the new summit club. Second, they share a geographic position as great
global connectors in a systemically dedicated club. A trans-continental Canada stands as
a country of the Americas, Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific, and Turkey as one of Europe,
Central Asia and the Middle East.
Third, they share an international institutional position as great global connectors through
their leading position in other institutionalized summit clubs that embrace the richest and
poorest countries, and communities of great diversity, from around the world. Canada is
the second most powerful country in the Commonwealth and in the Francophonie that
together embrace half the countries in the world, and Turkey is a consequential member
and currently the chair of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Fourth, they have long assumed their global responsibilities, notably as members of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that won the Cold War, liberated Kosovo
from an erupting genocide in 1999, and fought with many other of today’s G20 hosts and
members to defend the Republic of Korea from 1950 to 1953. The sixtieth anniversary of
the outbreak of that war will be commemorated the day before the Toronto summit starts.
In addition both are longstanding allies of the United States and are currently seeking to
enhance their association significantly with the European Union.1 Sixth, they contain a
rich multidimensional cultural and linguistic diversity within their domestic polities as
well.
The Debate
With this configuration of characteristics and capabilities, how have Canada and Turkey
connected within the G20, and how can they in the future, to serve their own interests and
build a better world? In the limited English-language literature on Turkey’s role in the
G20 and its connection with Canada in this regard, different answers to these questions
arise.
The first school sees Turkey as an active participant in an inclusive club that combines
developed and developing countries and the west and the rest. This is due to the priority
Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan’s places on the G20, and Turkey’s crisis-bred concerns
about the end of capitalism (Şekercioğlu 2009). The most recent expression of this school
portrays Turkey as an active G20 participant, teacher, co-operator and complier, due to
the shock of its 2001 financial crisis and restructuring in its wake, and the confidence
arising from its stability in the 2007-9 crisis, and its rising capabilities and status in the
world (Aysan 2010).
1 It is worth noting that the Toronto Summit will open the day after the 60th anniversary of the start of the
Korean War on June 25, 1950.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 3
A second school sees Turkey as a status-seeking development advocate through G20
membership, inclusion in an expanded Financial Stability Board (FSB) and Turkey’s
offer to host the G20 summit soon. This is due to the threat from a Group of
Thirteen/Fourteen (G13/14) competitor that would exclude Turkey from top-tier
membership, Turkey’s rising relative capabilities as the 6th largest economy in Europe
and the 17th largest in the world, and its financial stability amidst the crisis of 2007-2009
(Today’s Zaman undated).
A third school portrays Turkey both as a status-seeking assertive advocate of
conservative economic ideas, but more importantly as a mediating leader of a new middle
power coalition. This is due to Turkey’s financial stability, frustration with its bid for
membership in the European Union (EU), its temporary membership on the United
Nations Security Council (UNSC), and the choice of Istanbul as the capital of European
culture in 2010 (Saunders 2010).
A fourth school sees a stronger, skillful, undistracted Turkey acting at the G20’s third
summit in Pittsburgh to secure several tangible benefits: domestic political attention and
acclaim; greater voice and vote in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World
Bank; greater resources for those international institutions; support for Turkish exports;
an equal place in the new permanent priority centre of international economic cooperation
that the G20 proclaimed itself to be; and an opportunity to meet more with
United States president Barack Obama (Şekercioğlu 2009b).
A fifth school urges a middle power Turkey to be the leading advocate of a non-western
approach and thus to move from member to leader to realize its own interests. These
interests consist of advancing its international standing, energy security, Middle East
peace, global financial stability, reform of international financial institutions (IFI), its
influence in the western-dominated EU, International Monetary Fund (IMF), NATO and
United Nations (UN), and rendering effective and even permanent the G20 summit by
expanding its agenda and adding a secretariat (Bradford and Linn 2009). This Turkish
role arises because the G20 “mirrors the emerging global cultural matrix” and Turkey’s
own dualistic identity and because Turkey stands at ‘the crossroads of a multitude of
critical geographies.”
Puzzles
While each of these schools has much to contribute, none are based on a detailed
examination of what Turkey has actually done and why it has done it in the G20 thus far.
None offers a robust recognition of Turkey’s vision of using the G20 to shape global
order for the benefit of others, rather than just itself, as it did at the first G20 summit in
November 2008. Nor is there any hint of Turkey’s essential character as a Western
democracy in actively animating Turkey’s place in, approach to and accomplishments in
the club. Also absent is any explicit awareness of Turkey’s longstanding position as an
American ally and its importance in shaping Turkey’s membership and participation in
the club. And none provide an explicit place for any form of a Canadian-Turkish
relationship, partnership or co-leadership. as dedicated, multicultural democracies, in
using and shaping the G20 to create a global order on these ideals.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 4
The Thesis of Canada and Turkey as Critical Connectors
This study argues that Canada and Turkey have served and can serve as critical
connectors and democratizing co-leaders to make the G20 the intended genuine club of
equals providing the effective global governance based on democratic openness and
respect for diversity. This is due to their similar shift from consumers to producers of
global financial and economic security, their global geographic, status and international
institutional position as great connectors, and their devotion to open democracy and
diversity as polities today.
But to transform their past accomplishments and potential assets into actual performance,
they must meet several challenges that await. First, Canada, as host and co-chair of the
G20 Toronto Summit on June 26-27, 2010, must advance the G20’s broad but bounded
built-in agenda, respond effectively to the new European-turned-global crisis and make
the G20 function as a genuine institutionalized, systemic summit club where the
diplomacy of equals, the diplomacy of leaders and the diplomacy of the future can
flourish to produce effective results (Kirton 2010). Second, Turkey must build on this
foundation to design and implement a G20 strategy that goes beyond using its
membership and potential hosting to enhance its status and advance immediate interests
to meet the core challenges that the full G20 and global community commonly confront.
And third, Canada and Turkey must find a way to work together more closely to have the
G20 realize its full potential from Toronto in 2010 to Turkey in the years ahead.
Canada’s G20
Canada and the G8
Canada has long known what it is like to be excluded from the inner circles of global
governance, despite its striking systemically significant capabilities and the world’s clear
need for them (Kirton 2007). Canada was excluded from the Permanent Five (P5)
members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 1945, from Berlin Dinner-4
of NATO since 1948, and from the Group of Five (G5) finance ministers who first started
meeting in the Library of the White House in 1973 and continued without Canada and
Italy until 1986.
Canada was also physically absent from the first G8 summit of six leaders, held at
Rambouillet, France, in November 1975. But even before it opened, its architect Henry
Kissinger had promised the Canadians that there would be a second summit, which the
U.S. would host and invite Canada to.
Kissinger knew that he needed Canada inside his new concert. He needed it not as
another loyal North American ally to support whatever the American president proposed,
or to balance Europe’s Italy that the French had allowed in at Rambouillet. Rather
Kissinger, the ultimate realist, coldly calculated Canada’s relative capabilities in their
global context and quickly concluded that Canada’s first tier capabilities in oil, minerals,
food and soft commodities were needed inside the concert to stop the copycat cartels
sprouting everywhere in the wake of the oil embargo of the Organization of Petroleum
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 5
Exporting Countries (OPEC) in October 1973 and the uranium fuelled Indian nuclear
explosion in May 1974. Such capabilities have continued to give Canada great relevance
in the 21st century, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper has accurately called Canada
an emerging energy superpower and an emerging clean energy superpower in the world.
Power was backed by principle. In Kissinger’s conception and construction, the G8 was a
modern democratic concert, designed and devoted, as its first communiqué proclaimed, to
protect within its members and to promote globally, the values of “open democracy,
individual liberty and social advance.” Canada was then a durable democracy, indeed a
charter member and great European-American connector of the North Atlantic political
community, with a democratic tradition dating back on its British side and through its
own sovereign to the Magna Carta of 1215. As Prime Minister Harper put it, in his news
conference at the conclusion of the 2009 Pittsburgh G20 summit, Canada stood out as a
democratic country, unbroken by foreign occupation, civil war or civil strife for
centuries.
In the initial Group of seven (G7), Canada supported its American ally when convenient,
and its French and British mother countries too. It also allied with the rapidly rising
global powers of Japan, German and Italy, as the other powers still excluded from the
UNSC-P5 and, along with Italy and Japan, from the Berlin Dinner 4 too. Liberal Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau’s close relationship with Social Democratic Chancellor Helmut
Schmidt of Germany helped contain a France that a few years before had actively tried to
destroy Canadian unity and thus the survival of Canada itself. The two also led the G7 is
north-south dialogue and development and in instituting the world’s first effective regime
against terrorist attacks in the air.
In 1979 Canada’s Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Joe Clark in 1979 supported
Schmidt in having the G7 produce the first, most ambitious and most effective climate
change control regime the world has ever seen. Schmidt’s impressive leadership arose in
part because he knew the world had to go off coal, in part to save the lives of the many
Turks who were dying of accidents while working in Germany’s many coal mines.2
Canada as the world’s leading power in uranium and a top tier power in nuclear
technology induced the G7 to deal not only with conventional energy, but also nuclear
energy and then nuclear proliferation as well, in a crusade where its closest soul mate was
antinuclear Japan.
By the time it hosted its first G7 summit at Montebello in 1981, Canada, focused the
summit for the first time on north-south development. As host, Canadian prime minister
Pierre Trudeau talked the new U.S. president Ronald Regan into attending a North-South
summit in Cancun to prepare for global negotiations for a new world order between the
rich North and the poor South. Backed by Japan, Germany and Italy, Canada also made
the G7 explicitly a new, effective centre of global security governance in the world.
2 On May 21, 2010 it was reported that rescuers in Turkey found the bodies of 28 miners in a damaged coal
mine, making the methane-gas explosion three days earlier one of the deadliest mine accidents in Turkey
in recent years.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 6
Canada thus had a vision of world order, on both the defining North-South economic and
East-West security dimensions that it successfully advanced through its place in the G7.
Canada’s Conception, Creation and Chairing of the G20 Finance, 1999-2008
This Canadian tradition or reaching out across existing divides to embrace rising powers
from a more diverse world dated back to Canada’s role in creating the modern,
multiracial Commonwealth in 1947 and 1960, and the Francophonie in 1986.3 It
continued in 1988 when G7 leaders, meeting in Toronto, identified the emerging process
of “globalization,” recognized the relevance of the rapidly rising Asian economies and
called for “the development of informal processes which would facilitate multilateral
discussions of mutual concern and foster the necessary co-operation.”
In 999 Canada’s finance minister, Paul Martin, conceived and co-created with American
treasury secretary Larry Summers the G20 forum of finance ministers and central
bankers. They induced the G7 finance ministers and G8 summit formally to create the
G20 along with the new Financial Stability Forum (FSF) in 1999. Canada chaired the
first three annual autumn meetings, and expanded the club’s mission from financial
stability and sustainable growth to globalization that works for the benefit of all. When it
hosted the second meeting in Montreal it also vastly expanded the agenda and secured a
new “Montreal Consensus” to replace the discredited Washington one. When New York
and Washington were devastated by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the
multilateral organizations headquartered there could not meet, Martin stepped up to host
the third G20 meeting in nearby Ottawa. Here he successfully focused on terrorist
finance, the American’s core security rather than financial pre-occupation at the time. He
thus helped the brand new Bush administration in the United States bond to a body
created only two years earlier by the domestic political rivals it had just defeated at home.
Canada’s Crusade for an L20, 2004-05
When Paul Martin became Canada’s Liberal Party leader and prime minister at the end of
2003, he saw the demands for more inclusive, effective global governance growing, in
finance, economics, development and fields such as health and infectious disease too
(Martin 2005). He knew the G20 finance forum he had co-founded was working well. He
judged the alternative, of ad hoc, constricted, or variable subject specific inclusion, which
the G8 had been started experimenting with in 2003, to be an inferior approach. He
concluded the time had come to elevate the G20 finance to the leaders’ level, to meet as
the demand required on any burning issue of the day. He suggested that the first such
meeting be held on the margins of the UN summit in September 2005, focused on avian
influenza and infectious disease. He secured the agreement, with various degrees of
enthusiasm and acquiescence, from virtually all G20 members save one, George Bush.
Even he may have come if the topic had been terrorism. But if it had been, other leaders
might not. Thus, no G20 summit was held.
3 It was also apparent in 1955 when Paul Martin senior brokered.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 7
G20 Summitry, 2008-09
When Lehman Brothers collapsed on September 15, 2008, both U.S. president George
Bush and Canada’s Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper came to the conclusion
that a summit was needed in response. Among the many alternatives on offer in those
crisis ridden times, notably a G8 plus summit preferred by Sarkozy, Bush decided that he
would host a summit, in Washington and that it must be the G20 one (Price 2009). With
only 24 days to prepare the summit he needed an existing institution, of proven
performance, dedicated to the solving the particular crisis of the moment by restoring
financial stability and sustained growth. Thus the first G20 summit was held on
November 15, with no members of the G20 finance forum removed, and only Spain and
the Netherlands added as temporary guests.
At Washington Harper, as one of the few leaders with economics expertise or experience,
stood out in calling for exit strategies along with stimulus and joining in the leaderscreated
consensus on open markets and freer trade. Back home Harper reversed his firm
policy of running fiscal surpluses, to engage in deficit spending to deliver his fair share of
the stimulus the Washington summit had agreed. He stood first among G20 members in
complying with the anti-protectionist promise made there. Indeed, he unilaterally made
three moves to remove tariffs on imports of capital equipment, making Canada the first
G8 member to have its manufacturing sector become tariff free.
At the second G20 summit in London on April 1-2, 2009, Harper focused on reforming
domestic financial regulation and freer trade, while contributing US$10 billion as
Canada’s fair share of the overall package of US$1.1 trillion for development (including
trade finance) that the summit raised. Canada subsequently stood fourth among the 20
members in complying with the commitments made by the leaders at London.
At the third G20 summit in Pittsburgh on September 24-25, 2009, Harper called for
staying the course on stimulus until a private sector led recovery was assured, while
simultaneously designing the smart exit strategies to be started when it was, prospectively
within a year. On the eve of the Pittsburgh Summit Harper unilaterally gave the African
Development Bank CA$2.6 billion in additional callable capital so it could meets its
members’ development needs in the poorest region, composed of a quarter of the
countries, in the world. And Harper agreed that he would accept the responsibility of
hosting and co-chairing with the successfully developed, democratic Republic of Korea
the subsequent, fourth G20 summit. It will take place in Toronto, Canada’s largest city
and financial capital, on June 26-27, 2010.
Turkey’s Position, Performance and Perspective in the G20
Turkey’s Global Position and Interests
Turkey will come to the Toronto Summit as an open, diverse, democratic society and
polity situated at a critical geographic crossroads of a globalizing community, Turkey,
like Canada confronts growing global vulnerabilities that even its rising capabilities
cannot cope with on their own. It has thus long looked to international institutions of
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 8
broadly multilateral and globally plurilateral kinds, including those delivered at the
summit level, to solve at their global source the challenges that its citizens confront at
home. Turkey thus has an essential interest in making global institutions adequate,
appropriate and effective in meeting its and the world’s need, and in enhancing its
position, responsibilities and resulting influence in them to this end. Thus Turkey’s core
interests have been getting into the G20 finance from the start as an equal, having the
same G20, among the many alternatives on offer, elevated to the leaders-level to cope
with the American/Atlantic-turned-global financial crisis erupting in 2007, and having
the G20 summit transformed into the permanent, priority forum for international
economic governance in the world. It has been strikingly successful on all three. Its one
remaining challenge and ultimate interest is to shape the same G20 as an effective global
governor guided by Turkey’s distinctive vision of global order needed by today’s and
tomorrow’s world.
Turkey’s Treatment and Transformation in the G8
To comprehend the scale of the accomplishment of Turkey getting in as an equal from
the start of a G20 that Canada conceived and co-created, it is necessary to examine
briefly the cadence of Turkey’s place in the earlier and continuing comparable club —
the democratically devoted G8.
Before the advent of G20 summitry, Turkey had only a fragile, if strengthening place in
the predecessor centre of global governance, the G8. During the 35 years of G8
governance since its start in 1975, Turkey’s relevance was directly recognized only four
times: at the US hosted first genuine G8 summit (with Russia added) in 1997, the Italianhosted
2001 summit, the US-hosted 2004 summit and the Italian-hosted summit in 2009.
But during this period, Turkey’s treatment steadily progress on several dimensions, from
being a problem producing old security threats in the region through to a partner in
solving general global problems by pioneering a new global order around the world, to a
participant with a seat at the table in the G8 itself.
In 1997, the G8 noted Turkey in paragraph 88 in the context of Cyprus, calling on Turkey
and Greece to do everything possible to contribute to a solution of the Cyprus problem
and to work toward solving their bilateral disputes with regard to the Aegean through
early meetings of the “Wise Men.” Thus Turkey was portrayed, along with NATO
member Greece, as a source of the old Westphalian security threats of boundary disputes,
territorial control and sovereign statehood for the Aegean and Mediterranean region.
Turkey and Greece were admonished and appealed to for action to solve these problems
by itself.
By 2001, the G7 only Statement, while welcomes progress in emerging market
economies in strengthening their domestic financial systems and underlying fiscal
positions, added: “Recent measures taken in Argentina and Turkey represent positive
steps in this direction. We commend these efforts and encourage the continued
implementation of their reform programs in close collaboration with the IMF and other
relevant international institutions.” Turkey had now become an emerging market
economy, along with a fellow G20 member, in regard to a global economic problem that
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 9
the newer non-state created and controlled vulnerability brought. It was one whose
domestically intrusive and internationally institutionalized actions were applauded, not
admonished.
In 2004, Turkey was invited by host George Bush to participate in the G8 summit for the
first time. This was due to Turkey’s position as a democratic leader in the Broader
Middle East and North Africa and the Muslim world. The White House announcement
released on May 26, 2004, titled “President Bush Invites Turkey to G8 Summit as
Democratic Partner,” read: “President Bush has invited Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan
to meet with leaders of G8 countries and regional partners from the broader Middle East
on June 9, 2004, in Sea Island, Georgia. He looks forward to a discussion of how the G-8
can support political, economic, and social freedom in the broader Middle East and North
Africa, and to Turkey’s contribution to this effort. Turkey’s participation in specific
programs to advance key reforms in this region, especially on democracy, will foster
collaboration among G8 and EU countries, Turkey, and regional partners.”
Turkey chose to come. At the summit Bush held a lunch with Turkey and other countries
from the Middle East, which national security advisor Condoleezza Rice (2004) reported
on as follows: “On Wednesday, June 9th … During lunch, the G8 leaders will be joined
by the leaders of Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Turkey and Yemen. This is an
opportunity for the G8 to discuss how it can support freedom and political, economic and
social progress in the Middle East, and to hear from these leaders about their efforts to
pursue democracy and reform in their countries, as well as to hear about Turkey’s success
in developing secular democracy in a country with a mainly Muslim population.”
The Chair’s Summary of the 2004 G8 summit began: “We met at Sea Island for our
annual summit to advance freedom by strengthening international cooperation to make
the world both safer and better. Leaders from Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan,
Yemen and Turkey joined us at Sea Island.” In the G8 communiqué, Turkey now stood
front and centre at the very start. Turkey had been transformed into a G8 participant with
a seat at the table of this leaders-level, top tier club. It was the only G20 member in this
invited group, and the largest, leading country from a region that had expanded to
embrace the Middle East and Asia as a central global concern. Turkey thus acquired a
front-line role in general global governance, from winning the war against he new
security threat of terrorism to creating a new global order based on democratic values as a
whole. It had gone from being the source of a small problem to a key part of the solution
of the greatest global threat of the time.
The 2004 summit’s outside participation represented an alternative to the expanded
participation formula that the G8 had pioneered in France in 2003 and that it returned to
in Britain in 2005, Russia in 2006, Germany in 2007, and Japan in 2008. It was centred
on a growing partnership with the Group of Five (G5) of Brazil, China, India, Mexico
and South Africa (with no Middle East state at all) and then the broader Major
Economies Forum (formerly the Major Economies Meeting of 16) with G20 members
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Argentina left out. A third threat to Turkey’s inclusion in the
centre of global governance came in the vision of Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and France’s
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 10
Nicolas Sarkozy of having non-democratic Egypt represent the Middle East, perhaps
even for the latter in the form of an institutionalized G14.
However, Turkey defeated the threat, in part because of its membership in the new G20
summit. On November 12, 2008, Berlusconi, the incoming host of the G8 summit in
2009, held the first ever Italian-Turkish summit in Turkey’s western province of Izmir. It
took place immediately before the first G20 summit in Washington DC on November 15,
which both leaders would attend. The Izmir meeting was to discuss the participation of
Turkey and some other countries in the G8 (November 10, 2008, Anadolu Agency). Due
to the G20, Turkey was moving more into the more exclusive, more multi-subject, more
democratic G8 club
Turkey thus arrived again at the G8 summit in 2009, after an absence of five years. It
came along with almost 40 leaders for the discussion of food security on the final day.
While Turkey’s status was diluted by the large numbers, the food security initiative
endorsed that day, backed by US$20-22 billion in new money, was the signature
achievement of the summit overall. In this way Turkey helped make the G8 that year a
success. It also used its G8 participation for a high-profile achievement that responded
directly to the top international issue on the minds on the minds of Turks at home (see
below).
Turkey as a Founding Democratically Diverse Member of the G20, 1999
Long before Turkey started partially participating in the G8 club, it had become a full
equal founding member of the G20 in 1999. It did so because Turkey was a democratic
part of the west and a proven democratic pillar in the Middle East region and Muslin
world beyond.
Turkey had not been on everybody’s list as a candidate for inclusion in the G20 when the
club was being designed. Its financial and economic weight and systemic significance
was in doubt back then. It was ultimately accepted due to the American-Canadian-led
overall strategy of linking Turkey more firmly to the West. As one important component
of that strategy, the case for G20 membership proved persuasive. The calculation was
that such a move was needed, given the precarious probability of EU membership for
Turkey. G20 association would help further solidify the relationship between Turkey and
the West and deepen the democratic tradition in the country. As a soon-to-be consumer
rather than a producer of financial security when its financial crisis struck in 2001,
Turkey was admitted to the G20 (but not the EU it desired), in order to sustain Turkey’s
character as a stable, Muslim democratic polity in a Muslim-dominated Middle East.
Turkey’s inclusion paved the way for it to receive the significant financial support it
needed from the IMF in 2001.
In the new global governance bodies born in 199, the G20 was the only one to put Turkey
in the top tier. In the new Financial Stability Forum it was left out. In the new
International Monetary and Finance Committee, embedded in the IMF, Turkey was not
one of the 24 members, but only part of a constituency for which another country – a
European middle power – spoke. Others were called upon to speak for the Middle East.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 11
Turkey has not yet hosted and chaired a G20 finance ministers meeting, even though non-
G8 members India, Mexico, China, South Africa, Australia, Brazil and Korea now have.
Turkey joined Group 2 in the chair rotation of the G20, along with India, Russia and
South Africa, when this arrangement was created a few years after the G20 finance
began. South Africa hosted the 2007 G20 meeting, and India the 2002 one. Thus either
Russia or Turkey would have been due to host the 2012 meeting, had the group follows
its rotation schedule devised some time ago. However, with France now inserted to host
the G20 summit and finance ministers meeting (along with the G8) in 2011, the new
hosting order for the G20 has been redefined.
Turkey as a G20 Finance Participant
During the first decade of G20 finance ministers’ meetings, Turkey made its mark. At the
very first meeting in Berlin in December 1999, Turkey stood out as the emerging
economy agreeing with Canada, the US and Germany, that stronger codes and standards
were needed to govern global finance, thus broadening the consensus beyond the G7 to
embrace a larger, more diverse group.
, mostly notably in its successful quest for status-enhancing and effectiveness-inducing
voice and vote reform at the IMF. At Berlin in 2004 Turkey, along with other developing
nations, wanted to know who would be behind a revision process of the IMF. At
Australia in 2006 one of the achievements was getting the IMF directors to agree to a
package of reforms including quota increases for the most significantly underrepresented
countries, a group that included Turkey, along with China, Korea and Mexico. The G20
worked out the two-stage approach to reform which would be implemented in subsequent
years. It was significant, and a vote of confidence, that the international community
looked to the G20 to help deliver on IMF reform. And the G20 thus delivered an
enhanced status and influence for Turkey where the IMF acting alone had long failed.
In 2007 Turkey began to bear of burden of making the G20 as an institution work. That
year, of the three workshops held in preparation for the ministerial meeting, the one on
Fiscal Elements of Growth and Development was hosted in Istanbul in July.
Turkey as a G20 Summit Participant
The advent of G20 summitry was a further achievement for Turley. Prime Minister
Erdoğan very much enjoyed G20 summitry for the upgrade in status it represented, for
the chance to meet G20 leaders face-to-face, and for the opportunity to have bilateral
encounters with other leaders – those of the US most of all but also France, Germany and
Russia.
Washington
In G20 summitry, Turkey has been an eager participant since the start. At the first summit
in Washington, amidst the crisis of capitalism and the call for visionary solutions,
Erdoğan’s priority was securing international regulation and supervision of domestic
financial systems. He stood with Sarkozy in this regard, in a flexible coalition across the
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 12
G8-non G8 divide, even though Turkey itself was surviving the crisis with its domestic
financial system intact. They failed to achieve their desires.
London
Turkey attended the London summit sporting one of the strongest records in finance
within the G20. It also came as a member that could maintain its general public finance,
according to an analysis prepared by G-20. This analysis showed that Turkey’s inflation
would drop in 2009 and 2010. G20 financial stimulate packages were expected to
contribute between half and quarter percent to Turkey’s and other members’
growth.4 Turkish ministers and officials worked seriously to prepare for the Summit,
based on Turkey’s important position as an emerging economy. Its experience in
containing its own crisis in 2001 had a real value for the other countries afflicted now.
At the summit, Prime Minister Erdoğan secured Turkey’s goal of becoming a full
member of an expanded, strengthened Financial Stability Board (FSB).5 Following his
conversation with President Obama, Erdoğan said that Turkey was a country that could
use its communication network successfully with both the Middle East and the West.
Obama in return underlined Turkey’s leadership in the region and the importance of
working together. At the summit’s end, Erdoğan said the decisions taken were “crucial to
minimize the effects of the global financial crisis” (Journal of Turkish Weekly Friday,
April 3, 2009). He added that the G20 countries had displayed a common will to
minimize the social impact of the crisis. “As G20 countries, we will continue to work
against the global crisis and shape a new international financial structure in the upcoming
term … Turkey has made serious contributions to relevant efforts within the G-20. An
IMF delegation will arrive in Turkey in April. We are in a position to reach a result based
on the talks between Turkey and the IMF.”
Pittsburgh
Turkey approached the Pittsburg summit saying its strong response to the economic
downturn was that those of a developed OECD, not a developing or emerging country,
and thus that it warranted membership in the EU (BBC: 19 September 2009). The week
before the summit, Turkey’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate further to 7.25%,
even as tentative signs emerged that the country’s economy was stabilizing. This showed
Turkey was contributing to the stimulus that the European and global economy still
needed. After shrinking severely in the first quarter of 2009, Turkey’s economy had
expanded bout 5% in the second quarter. However, unemployment remained above 13%.
Markets were wondering if Turkey would need a loan from the IMF, after the last one
had expired over a year before.
4 Turkish finance minister Mehmet Şimşek travelled to London on March 13 for the G20 finance ministers
and central bank governors meeting on March 14 to prepare for the London Summit in April. He also
met with executives of the IMF and World Bank before returning to Turkey on March 15.
5 Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Babacan stressed that reducing the impact of the current crisis and
preventing similar crises required a global approach. The G20 meetings play an important role. The
London Summit was important for international cooperation and coordination. Coordinated action was
vital in order to overcome the crisis with minimum damage. The world needed a new architecture in
which no country could say ‘I’m big, I’m special’.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 13
Turkey was thus in a strong position at the summit. It sought and secured its key priority
of making the G20 the permanent, priority centre of international economic co-operation.
For here Turkey was a permanent, equal member of the top tier club. In the IMF and all
other international financial institutions that mattered, such as the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Turkey was not.
Working Together for the Toronto to Turkey Transition
Toronto 2010
From this firm foundation, both Canada and Turkey approached the fourth G20 summit
in Toronto with confidence, in common and convergent ways.6 As the first G20 summit
co-chaired by an established G8 and emerging G20 only country, the Toronto summit
was prepared on the basis of a broader and more balanced approach than the previous
ones chaired by formerly hegemonic Britain and the United States alone.
Turkey’s Standout Strengths
Among the newly empowered emerging members of the G20, Turkey stood out in several
ways. Amidst the new European-turned-global financial crisis catalyzed by the Greece’s
bailout, Turkey comes (along with Korea, Indonesia, Brazil and Russia) as a once
consumer-turned-provider of financial security – a sharp contrast to its arrival at the old
Canadian-chaired G20 in 2001. It also comes as stronger, more globally supportive
economic power than its neighbour Greece, a country that is already inside a now
beleaguered EU.
Turkey also comes as the only country that had raised its credit ratings by one or two
grades despite the economic crisis; and could catch up with its growth before the
economic crisis if it continued to grow around 5-5.5 per cent a year. Turkey had started to
recover in the last quarter of 2009, even if unemployment, at 14.5% in January 2010,
remained a key concern (Anatolia news agency, Ankara, in English 0734 GMT 15 Apr
10). Turkey also comes as a country with expertise in Islamic finance which is a rising
source of capital and investment in the world. It also comes with a leader who is a
founding G20 summit veteran, as those of the United States, Japan and the United
Kingdom are not.
The Agenda
Canada’s approach to its twin summits of the G8 in Muskoka on June 25-6 and the G20
in Toronto on June 26-7 is based on a few fundamental features. The first is a sharp
division of labour between the two summits, with the G8 doing its traditional
development and security agenda and the G20 doing its traditional finance and economics
6 The 2010 G20 preparatory meetings of sherpas were held in Mexico City in January 12, Ottawa on March
26-27, and Calgary on May 24-25. The fifth meeting will be held in Toronto on June 23-24.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 14
one. Duplication will thus be avoided, the time for global governance doubled, and a
broader range of issues covered than would otherwise be the case.7
The Toronto G20 will thus deal fully with Turkey’s key, well established priorities of IFI
reform in voice and vote and resources, trade, and development. It will add coping with
the Euro crisis catalyzed by Greece next door, a crisis that affects Turkey more directly
and severely than Canada or other more distant states. It will also add the unemployment
that afflicts Turkey, climate change, clean energy and the food security that its public
puts in first place among their concerns.
Participation
Second, each summit will have fewer participants than its predecessors, and allow the
G20 leaders to behave more as real leaders the way they do in the smaller, more
likeminded, informal G8. As a result, under Canadian hosting and chairing of the G8 and
G20, Turkey’s relative position is enhanced. At the 2010 G8 summit in Muskoka, the ten
countries invited as guests are generally so small and new that they pose no threat to
Turkey’s standing in the world.8 At Muskoka there will be no G8-G5 meeting and no
MEM-17 one. All the G5 and MEM members will be only at the G20 in Toronto, along
with Turkey as a full equal all the time. Egypt will be absent from the G20. It has been
invited to Muskoka, even though when Canada invited Egypt to the last G8 summit
Canada hosted, in 2002, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak chose not to come. To
Toronto Canada has invited as weighty guests only Spain and the Netherlands, giving
Turkey’s leader a chance to perform and lobby in ways that advance Turkey’s European
interests.
Domestic Acclaim
Third, this division of labour for the agenda and differing outside participation allows the
leaders of Turkey and Canada to respond well to the key concerns of their citizens and
voters back home. This is of particular importance to leaders who might face an election
soon, as Prime Minister Harper leading a minority government always might and Prime
Minister Erdoğan might as well.
A GlobeScan poll of 25,000 respondents across 23 countries, taken for the BBC from
June 19-October 13, 2009 showed those in Turkey rated the rising cost of food and
energy as the most serious of the ten problems offered, rather than the extreme poverty
that was in first place globally at 71% that will be dealt with at Muskoka or the
environment and pollution in second at 64% or climate change in sixth at 58%. Turks
also rated terrorism as one of their top three global problems, along with those in India,
Pakistan, Indonesia, Spain and the UK. Globally, food and energy prices stood first as the
issue that respondents had talked with friends and family about recently, while in Turkey
7 Trade may well be dealt with by the G8 as well as by the G20.
8 These are Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Malawi (as chair of the African Union), Nigeria, Senegal and South
Africa, Columbia, Haiti and Jamaica. These ten, together with the G8’s ten (including two from the EU)
make up a different “Muskoka G20,” still small enough and democratically like-minded enough (save
for Egypt) for productive discussions to be held.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 15
terrorism was in first place here. The Toronto G20 will deal with terrorist finance and
terrorism as a whole. Food is due to be dealt with at both summits.
In Canada, the state of the global economy was the issue most talked about with family
and friends. A subsequent Canadian poll, taken from April 30-May 3, 2010 showed
that—Canadians saw global warming as the most important agenda item (at 33.7%)
facing world leaders at the forthcoming Muskoka-Toronto summits, with economic
recovery in second at (27.2%) (Nanos 2010). Climate will be dealt with at both summits .
Moreover Canadians felt Canada’s place in the world was strongest in freedom,
democracy and human rights, with economic recovery second, open markets third, child
and maternal health fourth, nuclear security fifth and global warming in sixth and last
place. The first issue will feature at Muskoka and the second at Toronto, allowing Canada
to play from its domestically perceived strengths at both summits it will host.
G20 summits have dealt, along with the economy, with terrorist financing from the start
and with food and energy since Pittsburgh in a serious way. The G20 finance forum had
long had a strong track record here as well. There is thus a strong popular base for
Turkish and Canadian leaders in contributing to make the G20 a central global
governance forum.
Format
Fourth, Canada, Turkey and their colleagues have redesigned the G20 summit for
Toronto so that finance ministers will be absent and the many heads of multilateral
organizations invited will sit in the second row, as civil servants usually do, and speak
only when they are spoken to regarding their technical expertise. All leaders, including
Turkey’s will thus have more airtime to speak and be heard, especially as the heads of
these multilateral organizations overwhelmingly come not from Turkey but from other
states.
This format allows more flexibility and spontaneity for leaders, who could thus use their
summit time together to address the crises erupting at the time. In this regard, financial
sanctions are relevant not only for terrorist finance but also against the North Koreans
that have just attacked their neighbour to the south and against Iran against which a new
round of UN sanctions seems soon to come. President Obama used his Pittsburgh G20
summit to send a message to a nuclear committed Iran. Given this precedent, the leaders
of Turkey and Brazil, along with a supportive South Africa, could use their free time at
Toronto to advance their distinctive approach to this issue as well.
Shaping the G20 System for the Future
Looking ahead, Turkey sees the G20 as a central institution of global governance in
which it is eager to play a leadership role. At the start of 2010, when the question of
defining a hosting order for the now permanent G20 summit, after the French year in
2011, Turkey, along with Mexico and Russia, offered to accept this responsibility in the
near term.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 16
Turkey’s vision for the future G20 contains a desire to expand its agenda (Kim 2010). It
views the G20 as having both the power and responsibility to address issues beyond the
finance core. This is particularly the case as finance and economics affect people as a
whole and their central concerns. It is also because the G20 finance ministers and central
bank governors have shown their capacity to make concerted efforts in broader field.
Turkey’s central candidates for agenda expansion are climate change and poverty. These
are highly compatible with those of Korea as chair of the November 2010 summit and
with similarly placed members such as Mexico and South Africa.
It is far too soon to forecast what Turkey’s key priorities might be when it hosts its first
G20 summit. But several appropriate and attractive candidates arise. One is the need,
beyond the IMF’s conditionality and even flexible credit lines, for additional financial
safety nets and swaps that can be quickly deployed. A second is development that is
driven more by the private sector, a vision that recently graduated Korea will advance at
its G20 summit in Seoul in November and might at Toronto too. A third is development
amidst diversity and danger. A fourth is helping get the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) delivered by their fast approaching due date in 2015. A fifth is domestic
financial regulation that works for and with Islamic finance. A sixth is climate change
and clean energy, led by a Turkey on track to increase its share of renewables from the
existing 20% to 30% by 2020.
More broadly, as Turkey will be the first country from the Middle East to host the G20
summit, its essential character as a country that durably respects democracy and diversity
will stand out. It can thus pave the way to showing how development through democracy
and diversity can bring progress to that troubled region of the world, and to the global
Muslim community that lies beyond.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 17
References
Alexandroff, Alan S. and John Kirton (2010), “The ‘Great Recession’ and the Emergence
of the G20 Leaders’ Summit,” in Alan S. Alexandroff and Andrew Fenton Cooper,
eds., Rising States, Rising Institutions: Can the World Be Governed? (Washington
DC: Brookings Press).
Aysan, Ahmet Faruk (2010), “Country Fact Sheet – Turkey,” in Christoph Pohlmann et
al., eds. The G-20: A “Global Economic Government” in the Making? (Freidrich
Eberhart Stiftung: Berlin).
Bradford, Colin and Johannes Linn (2009), “The G20 Summit – It’s Significance for
World and for Turkey,” Turkey’s MFA Quarterly International Economic Issues,
and Brookings Paper, March.
Kim, Cynthia J. (2010), “Ambassadors divided over role of G20,” The Korea Herald 27
May
Kirton, John (2010), “Prospects Progress through Partnership: Prospects for the 2010
Muskoka-Toronto Summits,” June 4, www.g8.utoronto.ca
Kirton, John (2010c), “G8 and G20 Summitry: Prospects for 2010 and Beyond.” Paper
prepared for the Center for Dialogue and Analysis on North America (CEDAN),
Tecnologico de Monterrey (ITESM), Mexico City, March 11-12.
Kirton, John (2010d), “The G20 Summit as an International Negotiation Process:
Shaping the Systemic Summit Club for Toronto and Seoul.” Paper prepared for an
international conference on “G20 Seoul Summit: From Crisis to Co-operation,”
hosted by the Korean Association of Negotiation Studies, sponsored by the Institute
of Foreign Affairs and National Security, Seoul, Republic of Korea, May 19-20.
Kirton, John (2010b), “Assessing G8 and G20 Performance, 1975–2009.” Paper prepared
for a panel on the “Relevance and Legitimacy of the G8 and G20” at the annual
convention of the International Studies Association, New Orleans, February 17-20,
2010.
Kirton, John (2010a), “The G20 Finance’s Global Governance Network,” in Alan S.
Alexandroff and Andrew Fenton Cooper, eds., Rising States, Rising Institutions:
Can the World Be Governed? (Washington DC: Brookings Press).
Martin, Paul (2005), “A Global Answer to Global Problems,” Foreign Affairs
(May/June).
Nanos, Nick (2010), “Global Warming Top G8/G20 Priority for Canadians,” Nanos
Policy Options Poll, June 2, 2010.
Rice, Condoleezza (2004).
<www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/2004seaisland/rice040601.htm> (June 2010).
Saunders, Doug (2010), Globe and Mail May 29, 2010, video reporting. Available at:
article1585508/?cid=art-rail-g20
Şekercioğlu, Eser (2009), CIGI, July 8.
Şekercioğlu, Eser (2009b), “National Perspectives on Global leadership,” NPGL
Soundings, September 27.
Today’s Zaman (undated)
Link to the press briefing given by a Turkish official at the 2004 G8 summit
http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/2004seaisland/turkey040609.html
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 18
Appendix A: G20 Compliance, London Summit 2009
Member Sept 2008 April 2009 September 2009
N=1 N = 5 N = CCN =
Germany +1 +1
United Kingdom +1 +1
France 0 +1
Canada +1 +0.8
European Union +1 +0.8
Australia +1 +0.8
Russia 0 +0.4
United States 0 +0.4
Brazil +1 +0.2
Japan +1 +0.2
Saudi Arabia +0.2
Turkey +0.2
Italy +1 0
Mexico +1 0
South Africa +1 0
South Korea 0
China 0 –0.4
India 0 –0.4
Indonesia 0 –0.4
Argentina 0 –0.6
All Average +0.58 +0.23
G8 Average (9) +0.75 +0.62
Non-G8 Average (11) +0.50a –0.03
Note: G8 members are in bold.
a Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and South Korea were excluded from this calculation due to lack of compliance data.
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 19
Appendix B: Shocks 2009-2010
Subject Status Source Spread Speed Scale:
Deaths
Scale:
Destruction
Democracy
in Doubt
Political Security
Afghanistan War Old-New BMENA
(Afghanistan)
Bilateral
Border
(Pakistan)
Regional
(BMENA)
Yes
Korea –
Cheonan
War Old Asia (North
Korea)
Bilateral
Border
49
NYC Terrorism New Yemen-USA Africa-America 0 0
Detroit (Dec
12/09)
Terrorism New USA 0 0
New York City
(May 2/10)
Terrorism New USA 0 0
Moscow (Mar
29/10)
Terrorism New Russia N/A 38 Yes
Energy-Environment
Haiti Environment New
Natural
Disaster
Americas (Dominican
Republic)
30,000-
50, 000
Chilean
Earthquake
Environment New
Natural
Disaster
Americas N/A N/A 300
Icelandic
Volcano
Environment New
Natural
Disaster
Europe
(Iceland)
Europe-North
America
1 day 0
Gulf of Mexico Environment-
Energy
New –
human
accident
USA America-
Mexico
April 20-
ongoing
11
Finance-Economy
2007-9
American-
Atlantic
Banking-
Finance
New USA-Britain-
Germany
Global 18 months 0 No
Greece Debt Sovereign Debt Old Greece Europe Weeks 3 Yes
European Debt Sovereign Debt
(Bank)
Old (New) Europe Global 1 day 0 Yes
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 20
Appendix C: Leader Continuity in G8/G20 Countries
G8 # of
changes
Summit 1
(Nov 1975)
Summit 2
(Jun 1976)
Summit 3
(May 977)
Summit 4
(Jul 1978)
Summit 5
(Jun 1979)
Summit 6
(Jun 1980)
# of summits
for June 2010
Leader
France 0 d’Estaing D’Estaing d’Estaing d’Estaing d’Estaing d’Estaing Sarkozy = 4
United States 2 Ford Ford Carter Carter Carter Carter Obama = 2
Britain 2 Wilson Callaghan Callaghan Callaghan Thatcher Thatcher Cameron = 1
Germany 0 Schmidt Schmidt Schmidt Schmidt Schmidt Schmidt Merkel = 5
Japan 2 Miki Miki Fukuda Fukuda Ohira Ministersh Kan = 1
Italy 2 Moro Moro Andreotti Andreotti Andreotti Cossiga Berlusconi =
9
Canada 2 N/A Trudeau Trudeau Trudeau Clark Trudeau Harper = 5
Russia N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A Medvedev =
3
European Union 0 N/A N/A Jenkins Jenkins Jenkins Jenkins
Total: 10
G20 # of
changes
Summit 1
(Nov 2008)
Summit 2
(Apr 2009)
Summit 3
(Sep 2009)
Summit 4
(Jun 2010)
Summit 5
(Nov 2010)
Summit 6
(2011)
# of summits
for June 2010
Leader
United States 1 Bush Obama Obama Obama Obama Obamaa 3
Britain 1 Brown Brown Brown Cameron Cameron Cameronb 1
Canada 0 Harper Harper Harper Harper Harper Harperc 4
Korea 0 Lee Lee Lee Lee Lee Leed 4
France 0 Sarkozy Sarkozy Sarkozy Sarkozy Sarkozy Sarkozy 4
Argentina 0 Kirchner Kirchner Kirchner Kirchner Kirchner Kirchnere 4
Australia 0 Rudd Rudd Rudd Rudd Rudd Unknown 4
Brazil 0 da Silva da Silva da Silva da Silva Unknown Unknown 4
China 0 Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu Hu 4
Germany 0 Merkel Merkel Merkel Merkel Merkel Merkel 4
India 0 Singh Singh Singh Singh Singh Singh 4
Indonesia 0 Yudhoyono Yudhoyono Yudhoyono Yudhoyono Yudhoyono Yudhoyono 4
Italy 0 Berlusconi Berlusconi Berlusconi Berlusconi Berlusconi Berlusconif 4
Japan 2 Aso Aso Hatoyama Kan Kan Kan 1
Mexico 0 Calderón Calderón Calderón Calderón Calderón Calderón 4
Russia 0 Medvedev Medvedev Medvedev Medvedev Medvedev Medvedev 4
Saudi Arabia 0 Abdullah Abdullah Abdullah Abdullah Abdullah Abdullah 4
South Africa 1 Motlanthe Motlanthe Zuma Zuma Zuma Zuma 2
Turkey 0 Erdoğan Erdoğan Erdoğan Erdoğan Erdoğan Erdoğang 4
Total: 5
Notes:
a. Assumes Barack Obama completes his term as president.
b. Assumes the coalition holds and no election is called.
c. Assumes no Canadian election is called before 2012.
d. Assumes Lee Myung-bak completes his term as president.
e. Assumes the 2011 Argentinian elections are not scheduled before the G20 summit.
f. Assumes no change in government. Next election date is variable.
g. Next election date is variable.
h. Masayoshi Ohira died a few days before the 1980 G7 Venice Summit. Japan was represented by Saburo Okita,
minister of foreign affairs, Noboru Takeshita, minister of finance, and Kiyoaki Kikuchi, the prime minister’s personal
representative (sherpa).
Kirton: Potential Partnership in Global Economic Governance 21
Appendix D: Finance Experience of G20 Leaders in 2010
Country Head Ministerial Experience Professional Experience Education
United States Bush 0 0
United States Obama 0 Lawyer
Britain Cameron 0 0 Economics
Canada Harper 0 Accountant MA Economics
Korea Lee 0 Businessman
France Sarkozy Budget, 1992
Interior, 2002, 2005
Economy, finance, and
industry, 2004
Lawyer
Argentina Ki rchner 0 Lawyer
Australia Rudd 0 0
Brazil Da Silva 0 0
China Hu 0 0
India Singh Finance, 2008 Economist, IMF
Governor of the Reserve
Bank of India, 1982-1985
PhD Economics
Indonesia Yudhoyono 0 0 PhD Agricultural
Economics
Italy Berlusconi 0 0
Japan Kan Finance Minister, 2010
Deputy Prime Minister
Mexico Calderón 0 0 MA Economics
Russia Medvedev 0 Lawyer
Saudi Arabia Abdullah Chair of the Supreme
Economic Council
0
South Africa Zuma 0 0
Turkey Erdoğan 0 0
