The Apex of Influence: How Summit Meetings Build Multilateral Cooperation

On May 10-11, 2012, experts on international politics and policy gathered at the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago for a conference on “The Apex of Influence—How Summit Meetings Build Multilateral Cooperation.” With the G-8 Summit at Camp David and Chicago serving as the host of the NATO Summit, it was an ideal setting for a broader and deeper consideration of the role of summit diplomacy. The meeting was organized jointly by the Stanley Center, the Global Summitry Project of University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, and the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern University.

Since summit diplomacy is widely used to leverage top-level political leadership to achieve progress, the conference offered insight into the contribution of summitry. Those items are captured in this policy memo.