Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

For new members of the elite circle, such as Australia, Brazil, Korea and Indonesia, the G20 was an exciting departure. For the United States it promised at least minimal coordination across the major economies. For China it was a convenient mechanism for gaining global influence without having to accept an excessive burden of responsibility. But the G20 was far from meeting with universal approval. As The Sunday Morning Herald reported, for Norway’s foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre, the formation of an oligarchy of globally significant states was one of the greatest setbacks to international organization since World War II.25 In his words, “The spirit of the Congress of Vienna [1814–1815], where great powers assembled to effectively govern the world, has no place in the contemporary international community. The G20 is sorely lacking in legitimacy and must change.” They were strong words, but to a degree beside the point. The Congress of Vienna was a reactionary convention reinstating the ancien régime in the wake of the French Revolution and Napoleon. The G20 was an exclusive club, for sure, but it was a new club, with new members, whose promotion to global prominence a small European state like Norway might well resent.