New Perspectives on Global Governance

Why America Needs the G8

On its 30th anniversary in 2004 responsibility for hosting the G8 Summit fell into the hands of an allegedly unilateralist America. An America still reeling from the shock of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the resulting economic recession, bitter divisions with its NATO allies and disappointment with the United Nations Institutions over the 2003 Iraq war. So why does America still need the G8? New Perspectives on Global Governance offers new insight into the role of the Group of Eight's major market democracies and challenges the assumption that the G8 is simply a forum for binding a unilateralist hegemonic America. In contrast to seeing the G8 as a means of imposing an American world order this unique collection of new writings suggests that a now vulnerable America must rely on the G8 as a central instrument of foreign policy. America needs the G8 to achieve its security, economic and political interests in the world and to shape the twenty-first central global order it so desperately wants.