The Summit of the Central Powers.

The Impact on the Convergence of Interests CONTENT

INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 THE SUMMIT OF THE CENTRAL POWERS / POWER CENTERS. THE PROCESS OF BECOMING. CHAPTER 2 THE SUMMIT OF THE CENTRAL POWERS / POWER CENTERS AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE ECONOMY. CHAPTER 3 INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, CREATION OF A NEW GLOBAL INSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM, REQUIREMENTS OF A NEW SET OF SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS OF GLOBAL IMPORTANCE. CAPITOLUL 4 MASS-MEDIA AND THE CONVERGENCE / DIVERGENCE OF INTERESTS BETWEEN CENTRAL POWERS / POWER CENTERS. CONCLUSIONS ANNEXES / ADDENDUMS BIBLIOGRAPHY

*** SUMMARY ***

The development of the society has become more and more complex and to be able to exist in the economical, social and political environment characteristic for the period after the Second World War up to the present moment, the society had to search and find formulas for non-conflictual solutions concerning the issues that have occurred. Otherwise, a generated confrontation would have been much too complex, much too menacing and much too destructive for the future of human kind. Of course, during this period of time, humanity evolved under the conditions of political systems' existence, appropriate to each country and to similar such systems but more or less appropriate for large or limited groups of countries. These facts have generated quests that would allow both the fulfillment of each political country system's interests but also the fulfillment of these interests at country groups level. This made inevitable not only the necessity of communication between these systems but also the maintenance of economical and other kind of connections / relations. The differences between coexistent political systems have formed the ground of some restrictions in the communication and in the relationship between them but the differences have also proven the need for communication and for the existence of the relationship between them was growing at an exponential rate / pace. The co-existence within this imposed interactive complex cannot make abstraction of 2 (two) particular aspects concerning systems: a. The historical, political, geographical and resource inheritance to which ideologies and the systems of values are added. This component is considered by many analysts as the foundation of a political system;

b. The system of parties, interests and the structure of the leadership existing in a certain historical stage and considered as being the dynamic part of a political system. The interaction between these 2 (two) components forms the core of the systems political dynamics. The efficiency of a political system is given by its capacity to maintain the balance between stability and change in the sense of an ongoing adjustment (structural and behavioral) to the existing realities, a mandatory fact in the context of unity regarding the above mentioned complex. The ongoing change process is especially the direct result of the political ratios evolution in the context and under direct influence of political, social, economical and technical development, ratios which are mainly generated by certain groups/countries that, based on the actual recorded progress, use all the means to occupy positions which would confer them maximum power and influence. Power represents actually someone's capacity to impose on someone else its own interests. Influence represents an action an entity (person, group of persons, political organization, country) exerts deliberately on another entity in order to have the latter change its character, conceptions or non-deliberately through prestige and authority that it enjoys. No matter how powerful a group or a country may be, the efficiency of the political system correspondent to that entity cannot be materialized outside of a stable international institutional and generally accepted system. The main feature of an alliance is the commitment for mutual support in order to reach a common purpose or against some external factors that can affect the vital interests of the entities/central powers which compose the alliance in a certain context. In case the interests of the central power come to a point when they collide, the desire for collaboration of the involved parties appears and not a wish for combating in the sense of a mutual annihilation because each involved party avoids to consume its resources in a confrontation that inevitably will weaken all the involved entities without any of these entities to reach its interests. This idea is actually "the real substance" where the notion of summit as composite effect has its genesis. INTEGRATION is a process of deepening the economical and political collaboration between countries based on the labor division between national economies, on the interacting relationship(s) at different levels of production structures and under different forms. The economic is expressively mentioned as the first aspect because, as James Rosenau stated in Turbulence In World Politics A Theory Of Change And Continuity , the economical-financial logic has priority towards the geopolitical logic (national security protection) and this leads to globalization.

A major consequence of the already carried out and the ongoing integration processes (regionalization / Europeanization / globalization) represents the diminishing of the role the state-nation has held and the weakening of the authority the national governments have held simultaneously with the accentuation of the authority the supranational structures do hold. The state-nation must review / restructure both its attributions and its capacity to insure its security at 3 (three) levels: national, international and global. The major corporations, multinational or transnational companies, international institutions can exert today an influence much larger on some governments, states, regions determining the adoption of some major decisions with implications that do not take into consideration the traditional attributes of the correspondent state/states. Some of these roles are given to the correspondent entities by the international community. Others are assumed by these entities without expecting an explicit agreement from the other participants. Therefore assist at the transformation of the international system from a unipolar / monocentric to a multipolar / polycentric one.

THE SUMMIT OF THE CENTRAL POWERS. THE PROCESS OF BECOMING a. The Foundation (G6 G7 G8)

The necessity of constituting a stable system accepted by a larger majority as presented in the introduction of the paper, was materialized through numerous attempts under the shape of meetings, consulting, more or less mutual reporting, analyses, at first at bilateral level and then having explicit dispositions towards multilateral. The most significant summit attempt which is actually worth being categorized under this concept is marked by the birth of the Group of 6 (G6) in Rambouillet / France in November 1975. A general agreement at that moment would have been ideal but it was clear from the beginning that in any case, no matter how well things evolved, this agreement was not actually achievable. The reasons were different and contradictory and referred both to the participants (how many and who) and to the issues of discussion. The founders of G6 were: USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. The power ratio inside G6 did not stay the same with the one existing at the moment of its foundation. The specific weight of the European countries within the group had started to grow in the detriment of the Americans. Canada, an economy very dependent on the American one and implicitly much manipulative by the USA, was propelled by Washington inside G6 precisely for balancing the force ratio inside the group. Therefore, by accepting Canada as rightful member of the group with the occasion of the conference in San Juan - Porto Rico from 1976, G7 was born. The imperative necessity for generating and maintaining a state of non-conflict doubled by the major change occurred in the political-economical structure inside URSS (starting with 1985) and later inside Russia (starting with 1991) led finally to the

acceptance of Russia as a member of the group with the occasion of the G7 conference in Birmingham in 1998. Therefore G7 became G8. Russias entrance created a state of agitation inside the group and substantially diminished the groups capacity to reach consensus. The reasons behind these reactions actually consisted in the fact the major positive and indubitable changes inside URSS and later inside Russia did not mean by far the disappearance of certain differences in mentality / ideology and implicitly in approaching some major issues between the Western world and Russia. An actual very important characteristic of G6 G7 G8 is that the group exerted and exerts its entire activity, capacity of influence and decision without having or without having ever held a mandate from one of the legitimate international institutions or from other countries. The group does not impose itself directly. It imposes its policies mainly through the 3 (three) major international financial institutions: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.

b. Initial concerns and objectives. Their evolution in time The summit was initially created as an instrument with many personal meanings, an informal manner of reuniting some heads of states and governments with the purpose of debating some issues of major significance, especially of economical nature. The appearance in time of some phenomena (among which globalization) imposed an extension of the reunions agenda with the purpose of including some aspects connected to the social life, environmental and development issues. From the foundation to the present, the summits of the Group can be distributed in 7 (seven) stages, each stage corresponding to its concentration on a certain set of concerns that have evolved from stimulating the economical development till the end of the Cold War and the issues connected to the democratization of the former communist states, to globalization and the reformation of the correspondent international institutions, to the fight against terrorism and its causes. The sphere of the objectives has suffered a series of essential changes in time, both as typology and as expression intensity based on the political, economical, military, social, cultural, and environmental or security conjuncture existing at a certain historical moment / period of time at global or national level. Once the Cold War started, a series of groups have appeared with the purpose of promoting the economical interests of the main capitalist powers (for ex. the Brussels Group 1970, The Library Group 1973, the Bilderberg Group 1954). Russias adhesion to the group G7 G8, adhesion produced under the above described circumstances, generated, besides a new structure of the group, a redistribution of the objectives and of its acting manner.

G8s main objective is the extension of the global neo-liberalization program in favorable conditions to the member countries and in the context G8 controls an approximate 68% of the world economy having only 14% of the world population. On a larger scale: the objective of the group is the orientation of the global economy in directions that would consolidate the supremacy of certain private interests and at corporation level. Some states powerfully support the interests of some companies/corporations that do not even have the general quarter in the sphere they represent. In very specific terms this means favoring privatization, deregulation (reduction or elimination of the environmental, health and labor standards), capital mobility and erosion of the sovereign control over the national economies. When problems occur in the development of the neo-liberal program, G8 works as an ad hoc committee which formulates and implements the necessary corrective measures. In time, despite all achieved progresses in the direction of reaching an agreement / consensus, a facet of the problem remained unchanged : the convergence (or so many times divergence) of interests is determined by a factor with permanent action and primordial in the process of taking decisions at group level, namely G7/G8 is an organization formed and led by political leaders who must combine the responsibilities they have as exponents of the power center they represent at the global level with the responsibilities generated by the need to satisfy the interests of their own countries, their own electorate in the perspective of the next elections.

c. Power centers and international institutions Between G8 and the international institutions must be a relationship of mutual help within which G8 approaches issues of major interests for the international organizations and helps them finding viable solutions to global issues. On their side, the international institutions support the implementation of the engagements and the decisions adopted within G8. In reality things do not evolve so simple. The relationship between G8 and the international institutions has never been and is not always one of cooperation and mutual support. Theoretically there are 3 different visions about this relationship: *** a first vision supports the G8 government through the multilateral organizations; *** a second vision supports the idea according to which between G8 and the other international institutions there is no and cannot exist a relationship of cooperation as G8 has been created explicitly as a consequence of the failure suffered by these institutions in solving the issues and the crises humanity has been confronted with since 1970; *** a third vision supports the idea according to which between G8 and the international institutions a relationship of neutrality, coexistence and non-involvement can exist if / when their agendas are different. A more tense one can exist if / when the agendas are similar, this tension being owed to the anti-bureaucratic convictions of the G8 leaders.

THE SUMMIT OF THE POWER CENTERS AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE ECONOMY GLOBALIZATION is perhaps the most interesting, complex and comprehensive phenomenon in the last 75 years. There are many definitions of this concept. Even its denomination is not a unique one. In the English documentation the term of globalization is used while in the French documentation the term "mondialization" is used. From the economical point of view, this represents according to many authors the historical process of liberalization and integration in a single world market of goods, capital and labor, markets that have functioned separately to a certain degree in the past. According to others, the globalization is defined as a process or sum of processes that lead to the growth of global connections, to the growth of the interdependencies in all areas of social life. In shorter terms, the globalization can be defined as a set of processes generated by networks of interdependencies, interactions and trading / exchanges between communities, national states, ONGs, multinational corporations or other entities. The globalization of the economy cannot be avoided. Any country needs high technology, investment capital, management and performing marketing. Any country is interested to enter and to stay inside the process of globalization in a positive manner by attracting potential capital under the form of direct investments. The most stable element in the economy today is surely the capital which, through international investments, determines the largest commercial flows. The Positivism can be ensured only by a world / global system where the spirit of collaboration reigns. It is interesting that globalization acts in a double sense : it needs this spirit of cooperation to be at the same level with progress but at the same time it creates the existential and action environment for this kind of spirit. a. Emersion, evolution, structure/components There is a series of theories in reference to the moment the globalization phenomenon emerged On such category places the moment in a period of time that starts with the Roman Empire and goes on through the 16th Century up to the 19th Century. Another category places the moment beyond the 19th Century. *** the 19th Century marked a new golden era for globalization / mondialization and had Western Europe in its center. The continents opened for the West through the revolution in transports, the invention of the telephone and telegraph. PROTECTIONISM, defined as a multitude of systems and economical policies promoting some native activities through measures of limiting the power of external

competitors on the internal market and through measures of enlarging the capacity of the native producers, disappears in this period. The direct consequence is the development never seen before of the external trade at the level of the European nations. The American isolationism in the period of conflict between 19141918 determined the end of the globalization/mondialization phenomenon as it had started in the previous century. *** at the end of the Second World War, U.S.A returns to the concept of unification (of course under their command) of the two worlds, phenomenon being limited by the start of the Cold War and by the birth of the spheres of influence. *** some specialists (for ex. Jean Michel Gaillard, consultant inspector within the Court of Accounts in Paris) consider the term of mondialization as relatively recent and place its emersion at the beginning of the 1980s, being the French correspondent (mondialization) of the American term globalization. The fundamental difference between what globalization means today and what it has meant in the past is the degree of coalescence, the speed with which changes occur and the permanent growing dramatic discrepancies which the process generates between the protagonists and the spectators. Globalization, through its complexity, has implications at all levels of social life having indubitably a multidimensional character. The most important dimensions, the areas where the effects of this phenomenon can be felt most profoundly, are: the economical, social-cultural, military, ecological and political area.

b. The advantages of globalization The advantages of globalization are especially generated by the induced competition. This competition, although many were scared by it, has a generally positive effect especially concerning the growth of the production and labor efficiency with its correspondent collateral implications. The fundamental causes of the globalization phenomenon at the scale of the last decades coincide with the advantages globalization generates. Actually: ***the extraordinary technological progress which made possible the reduction of the transport costs, communication, data processing, data storage and access to information costs ; ***the trade liberalization and other forms of economical liberalization; ***the institutional changes which conferred to different organizations a larger action area ; ***the global agreement reached from the ideological point of view, from the point of view concerning the convergence of convictions in reference to the real value of the capitalist economy and to the free trade system; ***the cultural development having in the center a globalized mass media based on the use of the English language on a large scale.

c. The disadvantages of globalization. The globalization fear The globalization fear is a phenomenon widely spread and caused mainly by the globalization costs. These costs are generally more than significant and can generate economical and even military conflicts on a national, regional or international scale. The globalization fear appeared first among less developed countries but spread in time also among relatively advanced countries. Some examples / forms of costs induced by the globalization: ***the collisions / conflicts that can be generated by the way the benefits of the globalization are distributed among the different participants to the process; ***the growth of the interdependency degree of the national economies at world scale (which makes the eventual instabilities / economical problems in one country to have negative effects on other countries, regions or even different continents); ***the diminishing of the degree in which a country can maintain the control over its own national economy which creates the perception of giving up the national sovereignty; ***the problem of preserving the environment and protecting the populations health. Being part of the same world, each political system, national or common on a larger or limited scale, in order to exist, gets involved in a very comprehensive process of accessing the advantages of the globalization process and avoiding the disadvantages in terms of its own interests. History has proven accurately that in this process, all systems, no matter how they are considered, must communicate and find a satisfactory way of collaboration.

MASS MEDIA AND THE CONVERGENCE/DIVERGNCE OF INTERESTS BETWEEN POWER CENTERS Starting with the first half of the 1960s, a special importance is granted to the media notion, to its effect on the individual as well as on the society in general. One of the central ideas which lays at the basis of the media domain as science is that the long-term effect of a new media on the society is much more important than any isolated / particular message that media is sending at a given moment. The statement belongs to the Canadian academician Marshall McLuhan who considers the modern history is especially the history of the development in mass-media technology. Mass media does not differ only through the technical support on which information is sent but also through the presentation form of the information. Today the world is still dominated by two ways of transmitting information: via television and via newspapers. The internet is getting stronger and stronger every day:

***Television, as any other mean of transmitting information, has its own particularities. Everything starts from the fact that a human being is made to believe what he / she sees! In this context, as images are edited before being transmitted, the (tele)viewer receives actually impressions about a certain event and not the event itself. This way it is possible the substance / ideology of the transmitted news to be "formatted" or simply hidden according to the interests of the person transmitting it / the power center(s) which control(s) the respective television company. It is demonstrated people who receive the information by television only are the most manipulative. The combination between image and comments which join the image directs the thinking and the resulted conclusions on the path desired by the news producer / the power center(s) / the entities which control it. It is clear that television imposes impression over idea. ***In the written media, unlike in television, this aspect is achieved much more difficult because newspapers use the word as main instrument. The word expresses opinions about how the presented subject should be, circulating a relative view including over the ethical values it supports. The word is accompanied by photos or a series of graphical representations with a well defined role. The images reflect how that thing / subject looks like and complete the signals / message induced by the word. Although the electronic means hold the primordial role, a principle, a very conservative one, remains valid: for a society to work in the spirit of an authentic democracy, its members must demonstrate a minimum of zest for the letter, for the written. The written support is and will remain essential when it comes to the critical analysis of the events because the word cannot dictate the volume and the type of information a human being must swallow in a certain time interval. In a concrete way, when reading a newspaper, nothing stops us from abandoning the reading of an article any moment and passing to another article on the same theme or on a different theme. The volume of information received in a certain time unit is a very important instrument to direct the man's thinking and the ideas with which he remains on a preestablished orbit. Theoretically, an independent, aggressive, critical but at the same time objective mass - media is essential in the process of correct information within a democracy. . Practically, an independent journalism in the real sense of the word is almost nonexistent. The main internal and international mass-media means have always been sparing and malleable towards the economical and political power centers under whose length of action / influence / dependence they existed although the mission was to ensure their as strict as possible supervision. The respective power centers permanently chase a very clear objective: the unlimited control of the subjects a human being is thinking about and of the way the human being thinks about those subjects. Edward Bernays, member of the Creel Commission, stated it is possible to draft the mind of the people up to the slightest detail as the army drafts their bodies. And Edward

Bernays also claims if something untrue is repeated very often on a secure and decisive tone, it becomes truth in people's minds." Also in the sense of underlining the role of the power centers in mass-media, Walter Lippmann, considered by many as the most significant figure in American journalism for more than 50 years, claims in a democracy exists a superior form of art named fabrication of consensus based on which the risks generated by the enlargement of the right to vote can be eliminated. The entire issue regarding the lack of independence in mass-media is generated by the property structure in this industry. There are 10 (ten) large multinational companies which concentrate and hold in their hands the entire mass-media at international level. These companies come from only 4 (four) countries: USA, Great Britain, France and Germany. They supply over 90% of the international news, installing a true electronic colonialism. The actual hierarchic structure in a state has as the first power the financial power and as the second power the media power. The latter has simultaneously the capacity of influence, action and represents a decision factor supplying and controlling our entire imaginary" content. Mass media intentionally sacrifices many times the role of democracy guardian / protector for its own interests, the interests of the power centers which control them and which, besides the economical interests, also present themselves as a form of maximizing the degree of social conformation within the masses, under the form of transforming the political audience into a well-behaved spectator, manipulative, intellectually challenged at maximum a mediocre level. The internet is at this point in time the communication channel presenting the events in the most objective / balanced way. This significant independence is possible because the internet is in essence a horizontal construction and not a vertical one as all other mass-media means actually are. The internet user personally holds control in selecting the materials content approached and the possibility to answer interactively. The internet is, in other words, an open forum for absolutely everyone even if, at least in this moment, most active sites are on the territory of the G8 member countries. Obviously, the political systems in each country and the more, the political systems of the same type, are interested and in reality do manage to find ways to insure their participation / involvement in mass-media, to affirm and to achieve their own interests both inside and outside, the summit(s) having, at least until now, a rich history in this direction.

CONCLUSIONS Globalization, with all its facets, both positive or negative, with attempts to adjust in a direction or another, will certainly go on to expand at least with the same speed,

generating therefore magnifying and diversifying the specific relationships of this phenomenon. The world today is a world of contrasts and in this context G8s importance is larger than ever. The mission of the summit, as defined at its foundation, is as actual as possible. The actuality and the perspective of the G8 mission cannot be treated separately because they represent the consequences of an ongoing process. Starting from the existing factors, from the fundamental issues which will have to be solved in the years to come, it is clear G8 will be confronted more likely with a divergence than with a convergence of positions of / from the power centers part of the group! .