ABSTRACT
The analyses in this collection do not provide a single, simple set of answers to the central questions of global political governance. Rather, they offer a rich array and vibrant debate that will enrich more detailed analysis and dialogue in the future. Yet within this current debate there is an underlying consensus on three critical features that will serve as a foundation as this intellectual and policy effort moves forward. The first is that at present there are several critical, often unprecedented, and potentially transformational new directions underway in the global political security system, even if their precise content, strength, staying power, and ultimate results remain in doubt. The second is that they generate a need for new, stronger, and more global approaches to global governance. Here the G8 has an important and perhaps central role to play. The third is that to meet this need, and to realise its potential in generating genuine security in the post-cold war world of rampant globalisation, there is a pressing need for the G8 to reform itself, in both its agenda and its institutional features, as it has only just begun to do. Indeed, the old debate on reform of the summit process requires a new incarnation as the twenty-first century unfolds.
