Mean Groups

So much for the G-8.

At the Pittsburgh G-20 summit, most discussion focused on trenchant issues such as the global financial recovery, climate change, and revelations about Iran's nuclear program. But still, U.S. President Barack Obama made headlines by announcing the consortium of the world's 19 biggest trade economies plus the European Union will supplant the more selective G-8, as the global go-to group on international economic issues.

Emerging-world powerhouses China, India, and Brazil applauded the decision. But the announcement also demonstrated that chatter about which countries are and aren't included in a given summit -- which countries participate and which countries can only "observe" -- often has too prominent a role in the summit itself.

Indeed, Obama's warm, wide arms can't hide a brutal social truth. The 36-year history of the Gs -- starting with the "Library Group," and ending, for now, with the G-20 -- is the story of global economic and financial policy. But it's also the story of vicious Mean Girls-type exclusion for any country whose trade volumes, GDP growth, and politicking can't hack it.

Here is how the in-crowd has evolved.

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4:13 PM ET

September 30, 2009

Mean Groups (Annie Lowrey)

Your identification of the photograph of 1975 participants (President Ford flanked by Valery Giscard d'Estaing of France on the right and Germany's Helmut Schmidt on the left) is in error; it is England's Harold Wilson on the left, wavy hair and pipe, not at all like Helmut Schmidt.

Foreign Policy Magazine

Mean Groups

As world leaders depart Pittsburgh, Foreign Policy explains how the G-20 came about and how the G-8 became obsolete.

BY ANNIE LOWREY | SEPTEMBER 25, 2009

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