INTERNATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS The G-20: A»Global Economic Government« in the Making? CHRISTOPH POHLMANN, STEPHAN REICHERT, HUBERT RENÉ SCHILLINGER(eds) June 2010 n 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 At the same time, the G-20 seems to have to superseded the G-8 as the premier forum for global economic governance. n 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 govern­ment«? Noted political economists Andrew F. Cooper and Eric Helleiner examine this issue in their policy paper in the first part of this publication and develop specific recommendations on the further development of the G-20. The second part of the publication consists of brief fact sheets on individual G-20 member states, assessing the importance and the role of the G-20 from the point of view of each member state. n The main thesis of this publication is that the G-20 must extend its mandate beyond economic crisis management if it wishes to establish itself permanently as a key global governance body. With this publication, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung would like to contribute to the debate on the further development of the G-20 in the run­up to the G-20 summit at the end of June in Toronto, Canada.