Léon Blum, chef de gouvernement, 1936-1937

KEYWORD: WORLD GOVERNANCE - INTERNATIONAL ORDER - INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

The Group of Twenty (G20) is heterogeneous assembly made in the image of a changing world. Neither a group of the global north, like the G8, nor from the south, like the G77, it reunites developing and "emerging" countries which are simultaneously rich and poor (India and Brazil), democracies and authoritarian regimes (China, Russia), and governments both secular and religious (Saudi Arabia, Indonesia). Unlike bodies reserved for individual States, it includes a regional organization, the European Union, the 20th member of the G20.

In diversifying its representatives – UN agencies, the business world, social partners – it responds to a growing demand for international participation. It has favored a redistribution of power, long called for by the FMI. Could it also help reform the UN?

Neither a global directory nor a new world order, nor a crisis team for failing economies, the G20 appears more as a venue for observation, experimentation and invention of new modes of international cooperation at the heart of a doubly "emerging" world.

The author: Karoline Postel-Vinay is a Director of Research at Sciences Po, at the Centre of International Studies and Research. She is notably the author of L'Occident et sa bonne parole. Nos représentations du monde, de l'Europe coloniale à l'Amérique hégémonique (2005).