Article by. This article and its accompanying infographic have been jointly published by the Transnational Institute and Occupy. The Forum is host to dozens of different projects bringing together academics with corporate representatives and policy-makers to promote particular issues and positions on a wide array of subjects, from investment to the environment, employment, technology and inequality. From these projects and others, the Forum publishes dozens of reports annually, identifying key issues of importance, risks, opportunities, investments and reforms.
The WEF has survived by adapting to the times. Following the surge of so-called anti-globalization protests in , the Forum began to invite non-governmental organizations representing constituencies that were more frequently found in the streets protesting against meetings of the WTO, IMF and Group of Seven.
The participation of NGOs and non-profit organizations has increased over time, and not without reason. According to a poll conducted on behalf of the WEF just prior to the meeting, while global trust in bankers, governments and business was significantly low, NGOs had the highest rate of trust among the public. So, what exactly has the World Economic Forum been doing, and how did it emerge in the first place? Created by Klaus Schwab, a Swiss national who studied in the U.
Despite the globalizing economy, politics at the Forum have remained surprisingly national. The annual meetings are a means to promote social connections between key global power players and national leaders along with the plutocratic class of corporate and financial oligarchs. They promote common ideas, and serve common interests: their own. The World Economic Forum has been shaped by β and has in turn, shaped β the course and changes in geopolitics, or "world order," over the past several decades.
Created amidst the rise of West Germany and Japan as prominent economic powers competing with the United States, the oil shocks of the s also produced immense new powers for the Arab oil dictatorships and the large global banks that recycled that oil money, loaning it to Third World countries. New forums for "global governance" began to emerge, such as the meetings of the Group of Seven: the heads of state, finance ministers and central bank governors of the seven leading industrial powers including the U.
