The global meltdown has politicised the governance of finance to an unprecedented yet healthy degree. At the very least, it has painfully resurrected the need for coordinated action to mitigate its impact and address the danger of multiplying pro-cyclical measures. Most significantly, the underpinnings of global financial governance have come into question, particularly the hold of leading developed countries as gatekeepers of the global supply of credit and, consequently, their far from amicable relations with borrowing countries.
The current global financial architecture rests on a number of (semi) institutionalised settings in which policy priorities have so far been decided by G7 countries. It is in these narrow venues that discussions over global financial governance traditionally took place.
The eruption of the G20 onto the global scene shows a shift away from the
closed club model of regulation. Although this shift is a step in the right direction, the depth, coverage and urgency of the crisis will demand further efforts. So far, such an intensification of deliberations is a de facto extension of the kind of informal collegial deliberations prevalent since the breakdown of Bretton Woods in the mid-70s.