The Significance of the Seven-Power Summit
by John Kirton

Notes:

4. The one possible exception is the twice-yearly European Community summit which emerged at the same time as the seven-power summit in response to very similar forces. However, with its much more limited major-power membership and impact on global affairs, the European Summit is more comparable to such other regular regional summits as the annual Canada-United States summit that began in 1985 or the annual summit of eight Latin American countries that commenced in 1988. Evidence for the centrality of the seven-power summit, in the admittedly easy case of Canada, can be found in John J. Kirton, Managing Global Conflict: Canada and International Summitry, in Canada Among Nations 1987: A World of Conflict, ed. Maureen A. Molot and Brian W. Tomlin (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1988), 22-40. The only overriding claim to seven-power summit attendance on a leader's time appears to be an imminent national election, as evidenced by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's early departure from the Venice summit of 1987.

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