Introduction

This chapter examines the fundamental changes in the world system in the twenty-first century: shifting relative capabilities among rising and retreating powers, globalized connectivity, complexity and uncertainty, and equal vulnerability for all too new non-state threats. It explores the governance of those challenges by the G8 since 1998, through its outreach to rising powers from 2003 to 2009 to its work alongside the G20 since 2008 and the BRICS since 2009. The chapter analyses the G20 at its first eight summits, from Washington in November 2008 to St Petersburg in September 2013. It considers the BRICS through its five summits from 2009 to 2013. This trilogy of the G8, G20 and BRICS has much in common in the basic design of these twenty-first century global governance institutions. On trade, the summit endorsed the Doha Development Agenda of the World Trade Organization, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and other inclusive initiatives.