Study Guide 2 - Exam 2: 04/09
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outright."
Exam Materials
1. Your class preparation & research
note
2. Class lecture note
3. Study guide
***all materials are equally
important***
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Geo-Poli-Econ-Cultural Classification of the World
the world, IR and its implications
Definitions of nation, state, nation-state
Various compositions of nation-states in the world
world map and nation-states of the world
the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th world, GDP, GNP, GDP PC, GNP PC
world politics and B5
world hard currencies and G7, G7+1, & G20
the UN, the WB, the IMF – world governing organizations
The nature and implications of the Cold War
Realpolitik, Bi-polar system, Proxy wars
The thesis of "The Clash of Civilizations"
Geo-Cultural Classification of the World
Poli-Military Classification of the World
Economic Classification of the World
Nation-States and the World
In studying world politics we typically use the term actor to refer to entities that are its primary performers. These entities include
countries (the US, Japan), international organizations (the UN), multinational corporations (MNC: General Motors, Sony),
nongovernmental organizations (NGO: Green Peace), non-state nations (the Kurds), and militant groups (the Irish Republican Army,
Al Qaeda). International law is various forms of international arrangements among nation-states. International law provides channels
for diplomatic contract among nation-states and standards for settling routine disputes.
Nations, Nationalism, and Nation-States
State
A political organization that exercises sovereignty – supreme legal authority within a given territory, having a monopoly on the
legitimate means of violence. Sovereignty is the actual ability of states to act as ultimate rule-making and rule-enforcing organization.
Nation
A large society whose sense of common identity and destiny inclines them toward sovereign statehood: a group with sense of unity,
and the unity is generally related to the fact that members of the group share a common language, culture, history, ethnicity and /or
religion.
Nation-state
The ideal combination of top-down authority and bottom-up identity. In practice, many states are multinational, and many nations are
divided among multiple states. In theory, the combination of state and nation, reflecting a nation’s desire to have its own state and to
govern itself independently
- Yugoslavia – A multi-national state breading apart
- Israel-Palestine – Two nations claiming the same state territory
- Kurdistan – A nation without a state (occupied by Turkey, Iraq, Iran & Syria)
Nationalism
a. A sense of essential political identity
b. Connects individuals and gives them a sense of community
(1) Sentimental attachment to homeland
(2) Sense of identity and self-esteem through national identification
(3) motivation to help their country
Government
The people who currently rule (e.g., the Blair government; in the U.S., we usually say, the XX administration).
Regime
The set of norms and constitutional rules that legitimize the exercise of state authority.
Some cases provide similar nationalist examples.
Kurds in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey: An expression of Kurdish nationalism is to establish a nation-state.
The activities of the Basques in Spain and France.
Three Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) from the USSR.
Chechen nationalism against Russia
Tibetan nationalism against Communist China.
Statehood: as outlined in the Montevideo Convention of 1933, a state must possess a permanent population, a well-defined territory,
and a government capable of ruling its citizens and managing diplomatic relations with other states.
Sovereignty
In addition to nationalism, sovereignty also developed with the rise of the nation-state. Although sovereignty can be described as
essentially a legal fiction, it has the concept that the nation-state is authoritatively supreme. This means that domestically, the
government is the highest legal authority in the state; internationally, all nation-states are equal to all others (sovereign equality).
Three basic assumptions of international law: (1) actors: nation-states; (2) sovereign status; (3) sovereign equality. Because
international law is based on the nation-state arrangement for organizing the international system, international law encourages that
system. There are two different levels of arrangement between nation-states: de facto recognition and de jure recognition.
de facto recognition is provisional and capable of being withdrawn. It does not carry with it the exchange of diplomatic representatives
or other legal benefits and responsibilities.
de jure recognition obtains full legal and diplomatic privileges from the granting state. Since 1972 the status of Taiwan has posed
interesting questions.
8 Cultural Classifications of the World – cultural / religious / civilizational significances
The West (North America, West Europe, Oceania) Latin America (Central America, South America, Caribbean States)
East Asia
Southeast Asia
The Middle East and North Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
East Europe
Central Asia
Nation-States frequently referred to class discussions – source: The World Factbook on the CIA webpage
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ & the Library of Congress http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/
The Historical Category since the WWI
1910s-1945 = the Era of Great Wars
1945-1990s = the Cold War
1990s-present = the Ear of “Clash of Civilizations”
= Consequences of the WWI 1913-1918 = the creation of the League of Nations based upon W. Wilson’s ideas of 14 pts and the
recommendations of 1918 Armistice Agreement and 1919 Paris Peace Conferences (including the Treaty of Versailles)
= Consequences of the WWII 1939-1945 = the creation of the UN (San Francisco Conference) and the WB and the IMF (Bretton
Woods)
“The Clash of Civilizations” by S. Huntington - Conflicts among civilizations
After the sudden collapse of communism, the next pattern of conflict world politics is entering a new phase, and intellectuals have not
hesitated to proliferate visions of what it will be -- the end of history, the return of traditional rivalries between nation states, and the
decline of the nation state from the conflicting pulls of tribalism and globalism, among others. Each of these visions catches aspects of
the emerging reality. Yet they all miss a crucial, indeed a central, aspect of what global politics is likely to be in the coming years.
Huntington’s hypothesis argues that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily
economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural, religious and civilizational.
Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between
nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. Conflict between
civilizations will be the latest phase of the evolution of conflict in the modern world. For a century and a half after the emergence of
the modern international system of the Peace of Westphalia, the conflicts of the Western world were largely among princes -emperors, absolute monarchs and constitutional monarchs attempting to expand their bureaucracies, their armies, their mercantilist
economic strength and, most important, the territory they ruled. In the process they created nation states, and beginning with the
French Revolution the principal lines of conflict were between nations rather than princes. The wars of kings were over; the ward of
peoples had begun. This nineteenth-century pattern lasted until the end of World War I. Then, as a result of the Russian Revolution
and the reaction against it, the conflict of nations yielded to the conflict of ideologies, first among communism, fascism-Nazism and
liberal democracy, and then between communism and liberal democracy. During the Cold War, this latter conflict became embodied
in the struggle between the two superpowers, neither of which was a nation state in the classical European sense and each of which
defined its identity in terms of ideology. These conflicts between princes, nation states and ideologies were primarily conflicts within
Western civilization, or "Western civil wars." This was as true of the Cold War as it was of the world wars and the earlier wars of the
seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With the end of the Cold War, world politics moves out of its Western phase, and its
center-piece becomes the interaction between the West and non-Western civilizations and among non-Western civilizations. In the
politics of civilizations, the people and governments of non-Western civilizations no longer remain the objects of history as targets of
Western colonialism but join the West as movers and shapers of history.
The nature of civilizations during the Cold War: During the Cold War, the world was divided into the First, Second and Third Worlds.
Those divisions are no longer relevant. It is far more meaningful now to group countries not in terms of their political or economic
systems or in terms of their level of economic development but rather in terms of their culture and civilization. What do we mean
when we talk of a civilization? A civilization is a cultural entity. Villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups, all
have distinct cultures at different levels of cultural heterogeneity. The culture of a village in southern Italy may be different from that
of a village in northern Italy, but both will share in a common Italian culture that distinguishes them from German villages. European
communities, in turn, will share cultural features that distinguish them from Arab or Chinese communities. Arabs, Chinese and
Westerners, however, are not part of any broader cultural entity. They constitute civilizations. A civilization is thus the highest cultural
grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species.
It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective selfidentification of people. People have levels of identity: a resident of Rome may define himself with varying degrees of intensity as a
Roman, an Italian, a Catholic, a Christian, a European, a Westerner. The civilization to which he belongs is the broadest level of
identification with which he intensely identifies. People can and do redefine their identities and, as a result, the composition and
boundaries of civilizations change. Civilizations may involve a large number of people, as with China ("a civilization pretending to be
a state,"), or a very small number of people, such as the Anglophone Caribbean. A civilization may include several nation states, as is
the case with Western, Latin American and Arab civilizations, or only one, as is the case with Japanese civilization. Civilizations
obviously blend and overlap, and may include sub-civilizations. Western civilization has two major variants, European and North
American, and Islam has its Arab, Turkic and various subdivisions in Southeast Asia. Civilizations are nonetheless meaningful
entities, and while the lines between them are seldom sharp, they are real. Civilizations are dynamic; they rise and fall; they divide and
merge. And, as any student of history knows, civilizations disappear and are buried in the sands of time. Westerners tend to think of
nation states as the principal actors in global affairs. They have been that, however, for only a few centuries. The broader reaches of
human history have been the history of civilizations. In A Study of History, Arnold Toynbee identified 21 major civilizations; only six
of them exist in the contemporary world. Civilization identity will be increasingly important in the future, and the world will be
shaped in large measure by the interactions among seven or eight major civilizations. These include Western, Confucian, Japanese,
Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilization. The most important conflicts of the future will
occur along the cultural fault lines separating these civilizations from one another.
Huntington's eight major civilizations.
Western (European, North American)
Confucian (China, Korea and some of Southeast Asia)
Japanese (Shinto, Buddhist, Confucian)
Islamic (Arab, Turkic, Malay)
Hindu
Slavic-Orthodox
Latin American
Tribalism: Sub-Saharan African
Huntington's concept of a torn country: Huntington labels countries in which two or more of the above civilizations exist within the
country's borders torn countries.
For example:
a) Mexico (Latin American and Western)
b) Former Yugoslavia (Western, Islamic, and Slavic-Orthodox)
c) South Africa (Western and African)
d) Kashmir (Islamic and Hindu)
e) Turkey (Islamic and Western)
f) Russia (Slavic-Orthodox and Western)
Critiques to Huntington’s thesis
Huntington defined culture as the "overall way of life of a people," and civilization as the "broadest cultural entity." With respect to
both culture and civilization, there are as many divergent definitions as there are cultural anthropologists and cultural sociologists, and
Huntington's own definition is nothing out of what is accepted as common sense by the academic community, staying largely within
the limits of what are generally considered acceptable. The concept of Huntington's six (and two potential) major civilizations is based
upon the definition of the Classic Imperial Civilizations built on the major world religions with the only exception of Japan. After the
passage of a considerable time since the revolutionary change brought about by the introduction of agriculture, in several parts of the
Eurasian Continent where especially intense contacts took place among diverse cultures, great religions emerged like Buddhism,
Christianity, Islam, and Confucianism, all of which have differentiated themselves from the tribal religions of the past by their vastly
superior universality and transcendency, and came to integrate the peoples living in vast geographical regions by common values and
social orders. The Classic Empires arose from nothing but the combination of these great religions and specific political authorities of
the times. And, it was through becoming entwined with secular political authorities that the great religions' capacity to survive came to
be greatly enhanced.
The pre-modern empires which were not closely combined with great religions collapsed relatively easily as it was the case with the
Yuan dynasty of China and the West Roman Empire, while major religions which had lost the protection of secular authorities also
tended to suffer the fate of waning influence as Persia's Zoroastrianism did. Also, this is the reason why Buddhism, which has the
longest history among the great religions and once established overwhelming positions in India and China, lost ground in both
countries, only surviving until today in the regions such as Korea, Japan, the Indochinese peninsula, Tibet, Mongol, Bhutan, Thailand,
and Sri Lanka, all in the peripheries of the Chinese and Indian civilizations. In China and India, Confucianism and Hinduism
developed intimate ties with the respective countries' ruling authorities, and Buddhism had lost the needed political protection in the
central parts of this civilizational sphere. Hinduism, while not quite as thorough either in transcendency or universality when
compared with other great religions, nevertheless had a vast capacity to tolerate alien elements, and thus proved capable of integrating
different cultures and producing a unified life-style and social order. Outside the Eurasian Continent, there were signs of germinating
civilizations in South America and the sub-Sahara Africa, but these incipient civilizations were too isolated from the rest of the world
and fell into a sterile stagnation of self-contained perfection before attaining a sufficient degree of universality.
The serious fault with Huntington's analysis lies, first of all, in his neglect of the fact that different civilizations can not only come in
contact and clash against each other, but also do learn from each other thereby succeeding in revitalizing themselves. Even in the case
of the encounters between the pre-modern Classic Civilizations, there have been divergent forms and consequences in history
depending on the levels of maturity of civilizations in question as well as the intensity of encounters. Generally speaking, of what
happens at such a historic event the first type is the case of incipient cultures. What happens when they come in contact with a
matured Classic Civilization is that they will either be fully absorbed, or be wiped out, by the civilization with an overwhelming
superiority. In either case, a rapid process of extinction is the rule. In contrast to this, the second type is the encounters between
matured Classic Civilization and other cultures which had already reached a considerable level of development of its own. While the
former remain unchanged, the latter not infrequently get stimuli from the former and launch a spectacular process of change.
Especially when such encounters are not accompanied by military conquest, that is, when the intensity of the encounter remains
relatively low, it is quite likely to spur the advent of a new civilization quite different from the former. The rise of the Japanese
civilization, known for its salient characteristics, is a typical case in point. The insular Japan, severed from the Eurasian Continent by
sea water, was able to nurture and develop its own unique culture absorbing the Chinese civilization over an extended period of time.
Even in the case of the Chinese civilization, neither the resurgence of Confucianism as the Orthodox Learning, nor the literary
exaltations of the Tang and Sung cultural renaissance would not have been possible without the external influence of the Indian and
Hellenistic civilizations. The very Renaissance which built the initial stage of the modern Western civilization would not have been
born if it were not for the West's contact with the Islamic civilization. The third type is the contact between matured Classic
Civilizations themselves, which ordinarily resulted either in a deadly confrontation, or a mutual repulse. The most typical example of
the former is found in the encounter between the Islamic civilization during the era of the Ottoman Empire and the Western Christian
civilization rallying around Catholicism, while that of the latter in the relationships between the post-Sung Chinese civilization and the
Indian civilization, and the encounters between the Western civilization and China during the Ming and Qing dynasties, Korea during
the Yi dynasty, and Japan during the Tokugawa period. Thus, it cannot be said that the encounters between different civilizations
inevitably result in a head-on clash.
Classic Civilization and Modern Industrial Civilization
Another of Huntington's failures is that his definition of civilization totally neglects the differences that exist between the pre-modern
Classic Civilization and the modern industrial civilization. Further, Huntington has contradicted himself by interpreting the industrial
civilization by the framework of the Classic Civilization by means of equating the modern industrial civilization with the Western
civilization as a Classic Civilization through, while he has in fact limited the concept of civilizational encounter only to the kinds
between modern industrial civilizations and pre-modern Classic Civilizations. This confusion is closely related to that fact that he has
grossly overestimated the meaning of the end of the Cold War, and in so doing, lost sight of the more fundamental change that had
taken place behind this historic event. Huntington has asserted that such things as democratic political system, check and balance of
power, and rule of law, are all the products as well as the components of the Western civilization. Indeed, it is true that these things
were first born in Western Europe, but on the other hand, many of these values and institutions have taken roots in a number of nonWestern regions of the world today, while many of the Western countries have not until recently incorporated these "fruits of the
Western civilization" into their societies. This is to say that these things are rather the products of the modern industrial civilization
rather than those of the Western civilization as a Classic Civilization. It might also be footnoted here that, if the birth origin is the issue
to be resolved, one ought to remember that Christianity was not born in the West, nor can the Classic Greek civilization be said to be
purely of the Western origin.
Ever since the era of the Classic Civilization, human beings (at least those inhabiting the Eurasian Continent) have lived inside, or in
the peripheries of the Imperial Order. But in the West, an entirely new political system composed of sovereign states emerged by the
17th century. And, as the popular sense of identity with the sovereign state increased, sovereign states have transformed themselves
into nation states. The ideology of a nation state (or, as it is called nationalism) found the most eloquent expression in the French
Revolution, and, as is well known, the ideology was spread across entire Europe by the Napoleonic Wars. The emergence of the
sovereign states-nation states in turn prompted the global expansion of the Western world. The West's expansion became explosive
greatly aided by the Industrial Revolution, which was brought about for the first time in history during the second half of the 18th
century in England roughly paralleling the times of the French Revolution. As a result, industrialization markedly extended man's
capacity to systematically control his environment including the ability to move himself and his supplies, not only making the world
smaller than ever, but also giving rise to a rapidly growing gap in national strength between the countries which had succeeded in
industrialization and those others which failed. The modern industrial civilization surpasses the Classic Civilization in universality,
and is in a dire contrast to the latter in basic thinking and behavior patterns. The fundamental role of the mature Classic Civilization
was to maintain and preserve the established forms of life from thinking pattern to social order. The caste system erected by the Hindu
civilization has survived for the last several thousand years and the Chinese family system has persisted from the days of the Tang
dynasty to the era of the building of the communist China. These are two outstanding examples of the form-sustaining capability of
the Classic Civilization. In contrast to this, the fundamental characteristic of the modern industrial civilization is its ability to make
progress, i.e., a process of constant changes, in terms of man's ability to control his environment. Thus, when it comes to the clash of
civilizations, the encounter between the modern industrial civilization and the Classic Civilization takes on the most violent form, as it
was the case with the Opium War. In this sense, it was during that period in history called the Era of Imperialism, that is, from the
time Europe's conquest of the world was completed in the 19th century through the beginning of the 20th century, contrary to
Huntington's assertion, that the clash of civilizations did reach the highest peak. Whatever the level of violence, the outcome was
obvious from the beginning when the modern industrial civilization clashed with the Classic Civilization. As a result, most of the
regions belonging to the spheres of the Classic Civilizations, which could not launch the process of industrialization soon enough, fell
victim to the colonization drive of the Western powers as well as those late-coming industrial states like Russia and Japan.
The modern industrial civilization possesses irresistible attractions on several levels, and in that sense, can be very fairly called a
universal civilization. First, in the non-Western regions which faced the threat posed by the Western colonial powers, there arose an
inevitable nationalist response to the inroads of the alien intruders called the West. And, since it was obvious that the failure to
industrialize for the countries of these regions would leave them with only one option of remaining weak countries destined to become
colonies of the West, emulating the industrial civilization was an inescapable goal for all aroused nationalists. Japan which had
pursued the proclaimed national goal of "Wealthy Nation, Strong Army" since the beginning of the Meiji era became the earliest case
of successful industrialization and formation of a nation state in a Non-Western region. Thus, the fast-spreading wave of
industrialization originating in the West became the trend of the day, and the flame of nationalism flared up throughout the rest of the
world. Second, the affluent consumer life-style brought about by successful industrialization naturally became the subject to be talked
about with envy among all peoples of the poor developing countries. This is the very reason why whether a country can succeed in
launching a sustainable economic development became the common new criteria of political legitimacy among not only the developed
countries but also the developing countries. The modern industrial civilization is built upon the faith in man's rational capacity, and
aims at improving his ability to control the environment. Therefore, its character is fundamentally secular, lacking an ideology of its
own to give spiritual meaning to life. And this is the reason why the values nurtured under the Classic Civilization still live on
tenaciously, even if in fragmented forms, and continue to function as the fundamental framework of thought in today's world despite
the fact that the industrial civilization predominates everywhere and relentlessly continues to encroach upon the form-sustaining
Classic Civilization. The fact that, with the exception of the Western Europe, we are witnessing a revival of religions today in North
America, East Asia and the sphere of the Orthodox civilization can also be explained plausibly in the same context. With this in the
background, therefore, it is not difficult to understand the reason why Huntington, who lives in America where there is an especially
visible revival of the Evangelical Protestantism, chose to use a definition of civilization modeled after the Classic Civilization,
inclusive of the modern industrial civilization.
Asian Values and Islamic Civilization
The leaders of China, Malaysia and Singapore are emphasizing "Asian values" and "Asia's own way of modernization," half in protest
to the West's criticism of these countries' human rights practices and heightened demand for market opening. But, in so doing, they are
neither expressing a position against modernization per se, nor are they confidently exalting the superiority of their "Asian values" or
"Asia's own way of modernization." Rather, the real motives lie in these leaders' own awareness of their countries' weak competitive
positions vis-a-vis the developed countries and the need of providing protection for their home industries as well as their fear of the
threatening chaos following the collapse of traditional social order engulfed by the tides of modernization. Besides, the Asian
countries which are enjoying robust economic development are not only feeling confident of themselves on the strength of the actual
accomplishments, but also are especially sensitive, and often overreact, to the Western countries' demands on the issues of human
rights and economic liberalization because of their still fresh memories of living under the West's colonial, or semi-colonial, rule.
Huntington also mistakenly regarded the Islamic civilization, along with Chin’s, as two of the most fearful contenders of the Western
civilization. But, the fact stands out that there can be no radical outbursts of anti-West, or anti-modern, ideological movements in these
countries unless they themselves have admirations and desires for the modern industrial civilization in the first place. Take Malaysia
and Indonesia, both predominantly Islamic in religion but launching successful industrialization. There are no visible signs whatsoever
of the emergence of a politically radical fundamentalism in these countries, in spite of the fact that they have running political and
economic disputes with the developed countries. In Huntington’s view, the so-called "Islamic Threat" is also something that will
naturally disappear in the process of a successful industrialization of the countries of the Islamic world. There is an inevitable question
to be asked here: Whether the Islamic civilization will really be compatible with the modern industrial civilization. It should be noted
that the launching of an economic takeoff for industrialization has become easier than ever in today's world, where investment and
trading activities across national borders are reaching astounding levels, and moreover, with the Era of Colonialism finally behind us,
there is no longer any fear of possible encroachment upon state sovereignty resulting from the influx of foreign capital. Granted that
there are a few preconditions needed for industrialization such as the maintenance of domestic law and order to allow the market
mechanism to function well and the building of the basic rules needed for the economic game, but, there is no evidence to prove that
societies with the background of a particular Classic Civilization are absolutely incompatible with industrialization. At one time in the
past, Protestantism was viewed as the cultural prerequisite to industrialization. But, one should remember the fact that England which
mothered the Industrial Revolution was predominantly Episcopal, and most of the original member countries of the European Union
are predominantly Catholic.
Japan's remarkable economic growth used to be explained by the reasoning that, among the Asian countries, the Japanese culture was
exceptionally akin to that of the West, but again, as other neighbors like South Korea and Taiwan, which in the broad sense of the
word belong to the sphere of the Chinese civilization, have successively launched their programs for astounding economic growth, the
Confucian civilization has been added to the list of the Classic Civilizations compatible with industrialization. Among the East Asian
countries, the Philippines belong to the Catholic civilization while Malaysia and Indonesia are predominantly Islamic and Thailand
Hinayana Buddhist. And so, those scholars who have regarded the Confucian civilization as the only one compatible with
industrialization outside the Western civilization, have more often tried to explain the successful industrialization of these countries by
their shares of the overseas Chinese population. Indeed, one can never underestimate the overseas Chinese economic influence. But,
with the only exception of Singapore, it is plainly impossible for these Asian countries to develop their national economies relying
only on the resident Chinese who comprise just small segments of their populations. It seems quite likely that both Malaysia and
Indonesia will become, right along Turkey, the first countries under the predominant influence of the Islamic civilization to succeed in
full-fledged industrialization without depending only on oil and gas. Another example which proves the fact that a specific Classic
Civilization does not place serious constraints on industrialization will be India. With its strong remnants of the traditional cast
system, India is now turning away from its old protectionist economic policy of import substitution, and is about to embrace a new
approach to economic growth, appearing ready to implement an open-door economic policy aimed at export-driven economic growth.
It remains a fact, however, that the Islamic civilization in the Middle East has a much more constrained attitude toward the people's
life-style and the organization of social order, and for this reason, industrialization will take so much more time to be achieved. But, it
does not mean that the Islamic civilization is in fundamental conflict with industrialization per se. And further, every Classic
Civilization does have some aspects which are in conflict with the modern civilization, and remain exposed to the danger of
dismemberment through the relentless progress of industrialization.
America and the World
B-5 Nation-States: Permanent Member States of United Nations Security Council
The Security Council is the United Nations' most powerful body, with "primary responsibility for the maintenance of international
peace and security." Five powerful countries sit as "permanent members" along with ten elected members with two-year terms. Since
1990, the Council has dramatically increased its activity and it now meets in nearly continuous session. It dispatches military
operations, imposes sanctions, mandates arms inspections, deploys election monitors and more. Member states are China, France,
Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States
G-20: economically most powerful states
International Trade in General - Americans' views of international trade are complex and cannot be explained as a simple preference
for free trade or protectionism. A strong majority of Americans views trade, in principle, as something positive and as having
significant benefits for the US economy. However, the majority also has major reservations about how trade has been put into
practice: Americans show strong concern that, though trade has benefited business and the wealthy, it has not benefited American
workers and has widened the gap between rich and poor. Americans also show concern that trade has been harmful to the
environment, to international labor standards, and to poor countries.
The G-20 is made up of the finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 countries:
North America: Canada, the U.S.
Latin America: Mexico, Argentina, Brazil
Oceania: Australia
Asia: China, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia
The Middle East: Turkey, Saudi Arabia
Africa: South Africa
Western Europe: the U.K., France, Germany, Italy
Eastern Europe: Russia
The European Union, who is represented by the rotating Council presidency and the European Central Bank, is the 20th member of
the G-20. To ensure global economic agencies and institutions work together, the Managing Director of the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the President of the World Bank, plus the chairs of the International Monetary and Financial Committee and
Development Committee of the IMF and World Bank, also participate in G-20 meetings on an ex-officio basis. The G-20 thus brings
together important industrial and emerging-market countries from all regions of the world. Together, member countries represent
around 90 per cent of global gross national product, 80 per cent of world trade (including EU intra-trade) as well as two-thirds of the
world's population. The G-20's economic weight and broad membership gives it a high degree of legitimacy and influence over the
management of the global economy and financial system. Prior to the G-20 creation, similar groupings to promote dialogue and
analysis had been established at the initiative of the G-7+1 (Canada, the U.S. Japan, the U.K., France, Germany, Italy + Russia).