INFORMAL INSTITUTIONS OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE: THE REPRESENTATIVENESS AND POTENTIAL FOR IMPACT

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to compare the role of the G7, the G20 and BRICS in the global governance system on the basis of an assessment of the representativeness and potential impact of these informal associations on the rest of the world on the basis of a comparative analysis of a number of socio-economic indicators of participating countries. The relevance of the research is related to the fact that these institutions represent a certain counterbalance to the leading formal universal international organizations, functioning on a permanent basis, primarily the UN. Based on a two-tier economic consolidation assessment of considered multilateral institutions participants and their respective macro-regions, the authorы came to the following conclusions: the «Group of Seven» and «Group of Twenty» have a higher potential for implementation of joint economic projects and initiatives because of a higher level of their economic consolidation based on bilateral trade; the analysis of economic connectivity of macro-regions the countries participating at global leading informal associations belong to showed a low level of effective potential for joint projects realization for most of them. It means that the multilateral institutions of highest level are capable to provide better common coordinated solutions to the problems of insiders, and not those of outsiders; the G7 members consolidate four of the five macroregions to which they belong, while among thirteen macroregions G20 members belongs to there is only one additional consolidated entity which is Southeast Asia. Thus, a threefold increase in the number of the G20 participants does not enlarge the effective geography of the G20 impact on the rest of the world; even though the BRICS group has the reduced potential for effective implementation of joint participant initiatives because of low level of consolidation union members lesser than 10%, and only China belongs to the economically connected macro-region - East Asia; Brazil, Russia and South Africa are included in the potentially prospective regions with a level of connectivity more than 15%.

Keywords

• high-level multilateral institutions
• brics
• the group of seven
• the group of twenty
• macro-economic consolidation