Out of Balance: The Fragile World Economy.

The world's economic system is in transition as governments try to manage the tensions generated by the financial crisis that began in September 2008. While the crisis has had financial, economic and political consequences, a further set of effects could be termed geopolitical and geo-economic: broadly, the impact on the way that countries relate to each other politically and economically. It had been clear well before the crisis that emerging economies, and particularly China, were playing a more important role in world affairs. However, the crisis accelerated that process and helped create a more fluid situation in international affairs, in which the instincts of governments are more towards national responses, and established global institutions and regional organisations are no longer seen as the automatic port in a storm, or as the only route to international solutions. Two years after the 2008 crisis, the state of apparent flux in international economic relations could be but an interlude before harsher realities once again force further international coordination and create pressures for a new global compact to be forged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]