Drezner concedes his argument isn’t predictive of future resilience

This does not mean that global economic governance will continue to function effectively going forward. It is worth remembering that there were genuine efforts to provide global public goods in 1929 as well, but they eventually fizzled out. The failure of the major economies to assist Austria after the CreditAnstalt bank failed in 1931 led to a cascade of bank failures across Europe and the United States. The collapse of the 1933 London conference guaranteed an ongoing absence of policy coordination for the next several years.

The start of the Great Depression was bad. International policy coordination failures made it worse. Such a scenario could play out again. There is no shortage of latent or ongoing crises that could lead to a serious breakdown in global economic governance. The IMF’s reluctance to take more critical actions to address the eurozone crisis have already prompted one angry resignation letter from an IMF staffer. The summer 2012 drought in the midwestern United States could trigger another spike in food prices. The heated protectionist rhetoric of the 2012 presidential campaign in the United States, or the nationalist rhetoric accompanying China’s 2012 leadership transition, could spark a Sino-American trade war. If global economic growth continues to be mediocre, the surprising effectiveness of global economic governance could peter out. Incipient signs of backsliding in the WTO and G-20 might mushroom into a true “GZero” world.