Fact Sheet: Summit Achievement Grades, 1975-2002

Summit Achievement Grades, by Cycle, 1975-2002

John Kirton, G8 Research Group, 2003

The success of each annual Summit can be measured by the overall achievement grade awarded by the master grader of the G7/8 Summits, Sir Nicholas Bayne, following a formula first developed by Robert Putnam in Robert Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits, (Harvard University Press: Cambridge Mass:, revised edition 1987). The Following Table lists Nicholas Bayne's revised and updated scores, as averaged by each seven year Summit hosting cycle, and for each country's record as host.

	Cycle 1 75-81	Cycle 2 82-88	Cycle 3 89-95	Cycle 4 96-02	Average
France	A-	C	B+	B	B
United States	D	B	D	C-	C-
United Kingdom	B-	C-	B-	B+	B-
Germany	A	E	D	B+	C
Japan	B+	B+	C+	B	B
Italy	C+	D	C	B+	C
Canada	C	C-	B+	B+	B-
Average	B-	C-	C+	B	C+

Sources: Bayne, Nicholas (2000), Hanging In There: The G7 and G8 Summit in Maturity and Renewal, (Ashgate: Aldershot), p. 195, and (for 2000) Nicholas Bayne, "Impressions of the Genoa Summit, 20-22 July, 2001," in Michele Fratianni, Paolo Savona and John Kirton, eds., Governing Global Finance: New Challenges, G7 and IMF Contributions (Ashgate, Aldershot), p. 207

Note: These grades are awarded for the overall importance of the co-operative agreements reached at the annual Summit, including both policy co-ordination and institutional development.

Bayne has specified and applied to the individual issue areas of finance and trade the criteria for judging Summit success, identifying and defining the five criteria of leadership, effectiveness, durability, acceptability and consistency. See Nicholas Bayne (2000), "The G7 Summit's Contribution: Past, present and Prospective," in Karl Kaiser, John Kirton and Joseph Daniels, eds., Shaping a New International Financial System: Challenges of Governance in a Globalizing World (Ashgate, Aldershot), pp. 19-36 and Nicholas Bayne (2001), "The G7 and Multilateral Trade Liberalisation: Past performance, Future Challenges," in John Kirton and George von Furstenberg, eds., New Directions in Global Economic Governance: Managing Globalisation in the Twenty-First Century (Ashgate, Aldershot), pp. 171-187.

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