Professional Documents
Culture Documents
g. John ikenbeRRy
andthomas wRight
a CentuRy Foundation RePoRt
the CentuRy Foundation
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Copyright 2008 by The Century Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. No part
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The views expressed in this paper are those of the author. Nothing written here
is to be construed as necessarily refecting the views of The Century Foundation
or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.
3
IntroductIon
F
or over half a century, the United States has dominated world politicsand
todays global institutions refect this reality. America emerged preemi-
nent after World War II and built a postwar international order around a
remarkable array of governance institutions, most notably the United Nations,
the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and regional security alliances. The end of the
cold war consolidated this American-led global institutional order. Throughout
this period, Western Europe has been Americas willing partner. Together, their
economies and military capacities overshadowed the rest of the world, even as
the West liquidated its colonial empires. The Atlantic world that they inhabit
has been the geopolitical center of gravity and the modernizing vanguard of the
global system. In a very real sense, America and the West have laid down the
rules and institutions of the postwar world. They have been its creators, owners,
managers, and chief benefciaries.
But this is changing. Today, a group of fast-growing developing
countriesled by China and Indiaare rising up and in the next several decades
will have economies that will rival the United States and Europe. For the frst
time in the modern era, economic growth is bringing non-Western developing
countries into the top ranks of the world system. This dramatic observation was
made in a 2003 Goldman Sachs study, which noted that, if present economic
trends continue, by 2050 the countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and Chinathe
BRICscould have economies that together would be larger than the old
G-6 advanced countriesthe United States, Japan, Great Britain, Germany,
France, and Italy.
1
According to these economic projections, China will pass
the Europeans and Japan by 2020 and the United States by 2045.
These fast-growing developing countries are already becoming an interna-
tional economic force. According to the Economist, developing countries now
4 G. Jchn lkenLerry cnc Ihcmc: WrighI
produce half of the global gross domestic product (GDP). They hold most of
the worlds fnancial reserves and are placing huge new demands on energy and
raw materials.
These are remarkable developments with potentially far-reaching implica-
tions for power and governance in world politics.
2
The non-Western, middle-
tier developing countries are rising up and forcing change in the global system.
Their collective size and impact on trade, fnance, energy, and the environment
will make them important players. Their economic development will create
opportunitiesbut also pressures, shortages, and other negative externalities.
They will become increasingly harder to ignore or leave outside the doors of
power. At the 2006 annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank in Singapore,
representatives from several of these rising countries noted that their economies
were stronger than several of the advanced economiesand they insisted on
gaining a greater voice over the setting of policies.
Indeed, lurking among these developments are questions about the impli-
cations for the postwar institutions of governance. How will these rising states
impact the existing system of international institutions? Will they seek to
integrate and operate within existing institutions, or seek to transform or work
around them? To what extent will these institutions need to be reformed so as
to accommodate these rising developing countries? To what extent will these
countries seek to develop their own institutions or build new alliances among
themselves in pursuit of their economic and political goals? What are the impli-
cations for the political direction and issue agendas of global institutions such as
the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions? How should the United
States and Europe respond to these new institutional challenges?
Behind these developments are deeper historical and theoretical questions
about the rise and decline of great powers and transitions in global order. The
rise of newly powerful states is one of the classic problems of international
relations, and historically it has been a source of confict and violence. Established
great powers that have organized and presided over the international systemand
put in place the prevailing rules and institutionsface rising states that have their
own interests and, increasingly, the power to assert those interests. Powerful
but declining states, struggling to stay in control of the global system, face
challenger states bent on change. It is this grand historical drama that has
Fi:ing Fcwer: cnc G|cLc| ln:IiIuIicn: 5
repeatedly played itself out through the centuriesand generated upheaval
and war.
But the current international orderthe order that the rising developing
states faceis different than past international orders. It is a much more insti-
tutionalized order than previous orderswith denser and more complex and
multilayered governance rules and institutions. The rising states themselves
are different than past challengers. With the exception of China and perhaps
Russia, none of the current rising states are potential military challengers to
Western powers. They each have specifc niches and comparative advantages
that are propelling their economic advance. But for all of them, their economic
growth is deeply dependent on trade and investment within the existing world
economy.
This report makes the following arguments:
Unlike the past, today there is a wide array of channels and mechanisms
that allow the new rising states to join and to be integrated into the gov-
ernance arrangements of the old order. The big point here is that, seen
in historical perspective, the existing U.S.-led institutionalized order is
easier to join and harder to overturn. The specifc character of todays ris-
ing states and the interests, incentives, and constraints that they manifest
and face make integration and accommodation more likely than radical
transformation.
The specifc character of existing global institutions provides oppor-
tunities for membership and voice. Three points are important. One is
that the existing institutional order provides some protections for rising
economic powers. For example, China may have a growing interest in
working within the Word Trade Organization (WTO) because that institu-
tion provides protections against the discriminatory treatment that a rising
economic power like China is likely to face. The second is that several
of these institutions are relatively easy to operate within, and it is fairly
simple to rise up through their hierarchies. The World Bank and IMF are
institutions where governance leadership is based on economic shares,
which growing countries can leverage into a greater institutional voice.