Group of Five

This article is about the Group of Five (G5) since 2005. For the group of five English-speaking nations sharing intelligence, see Five Eyes. For other G5 groups, see G5 (disambiguation).
Group of Five
  • Groep van Vyf  (Afrikaans)
  • 五国集团 (Chinese)
  • समूह-5 (Hindi)
  • Grupo dos Cinco  (Portuguese)
  • Grupo de los Cinco  (Spanish)

Nations of the G5
Formation 2005
Membership

The Group of Five (G5) encompasses five nations which have joined together for an active role in the rapidly evolving international order. Individually and as a group, the G5 nations work to promote dialogue and understanding between developing and developed countries. The G5 seek to find common solutions to global challenges.[1] In the 21st century, the G5 were understood to be the five largest emerging economies, and these are:[2]

The G8 plus the five largest emerging economies has come to be known as G8+5.[3]

History

The Group of Five is a context-dependant shorthand term for a group of five nations. The composition of the five and what is encompassed by the term is construed differently in different time frames. Initially, the term "Group of Five" or "G5" encompassed the five leading economies of the world, but the use of the term changed over time. It came to be used to identify the next tier of nations whose economies had expanded so substantially as to be construed in the same category as the world's eight

20th century

The concept of a forum for the world's major industrialized democracies emerged following the 1973 oil crisis and subsequent global recession. In 1974 the United States created the informal Library Group, an unofficial gathering of senior financial officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Japan and France. These men were called the "Library group" because they met informally in the library of the White House in Washington, DC.[4]

During the 1970s, the term "Group of Five" came to be identified the top five of the world's the leading economies as ranked by per capita GDP. Without the informal meetings of the G5 finance ministers, there would have been no subsequent meetings of G-5 leaders.[5] In 1975, French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing invited six heads of government from West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States to an economic summit in Château de Rambouillet. At the time, it was impossible to predict whether this informal gathering would be meaningful or only a public relations event.[6]

In subsequent years, the group of world leaders expanded to reflect changed economic and political developments:

21st century

An innovation at the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005 was an "outreach dialogue." The United Kingdom was host for the annual summit of G8 leaders; and the UK invited the leaders of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa to participate. The invitation caused the five countries to negotiate amongst themselves about presenting common positions.[9]

The success of this collaboration led to the growth of the G5 as an independent voice. The G5 expresses common interests and viewpoints in the search of solutions to major global issues.[9]

A number of cohesive elements bind the G5 together in promoting a constructive dialogue between developed and developing countries.[9]

Structure and activities

The G5 is an informal group for discussions involving an intentional community or an epistemic community.[10] The G5 membership is marked by a range of attributes and factors, including

(a) a shared set of normative and principled beliefs, which provide a value-based rationale for the social action of community members;

(b) shared causal beliefs, which are derived from their analysis of practices leading or contributing to a central set of problems in their domain and which then serve as the basis for elucidating the multiple linkages between possible policy actions and desired outcomes;

(c) shared notions of validity — that is, intersubjective, internally defined criteria for weighing and validating knowledge in the domain of their expertise; and

(d) a common policy enterprise -- that is, a set of common practices associated with a set of problems to which their group competence is directed.[10]

By design, the G5 has avoided establishing an administrative structure like those of other international organizations, but a coordinator has been designated to help improve the G5's effectiveness.[9]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Group of Five website
  2. ↑ Diego Cevallos, Diego. "Despite Differences, Mexico Comfortable as G5 Emerging Power," Inter Press Service (IPS). May 27, 2007.
  3. ↑ University of Toronto, G8 Information Centre: Group of Five.
  4. ↑ Bayne, Nicholas et al. (2000). Hanging in There, p. 34.
  5. ↑ Farnsworth, Clyde H. "A Secret Society of Finance Ministers," New York Times. May 8, 1977.
  6. ↑ Mullaney, Thomas E. "The Economic Scene: The View From Europe," New York Times. November 23, 1975.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan): Summit Meetings in the Past; "EU and the G8"
  8. ↑ Saunders, Doug. "Weight of the world too heavy for G8 shoulders," Globe and Mail (Toronto). July 5, 2008; Reuters: "Factbox: The Group of Eight: what is it?", July 3, 2008.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 G5 Overview; Evolución del Grupo de los Cinco
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Reinalda, Bob et al. (1998). Autonomous Policy Making by International Organizations, p. 184, p. 184, at Google Books

References