Here is an excerpt from their conversation:

Roseanne Gerin:	Russia's entry into what became the G8 in 1998 and its removal in 2014 shaped the group's identity. How did those decisions alter the G7’s sense of purpose?
Peter Draper:	If anything, I think it reinforced to G7 leaders that their longstanding cooperation had been successful. The moment Russia joined the G7 was actually a moment of triumph for the G7. If you go back to the initial motivations behind the establishment of the G7, this was a grouping of like-minded Western leaders, all liberal Western democracies, coming together to buttress the liberal international economic order, the creation of which the United States had sponsored in the aftermath of the Second World War, but other allies had supported as well. And so for the 20-odd years prior to Russia acceding to the G7, the contest had been between this Western liberal international economic order and the Soviet bloc — the primary contest. And now, with Russia joining the G7, that contest was over, the West had won, Western liberal economic arrangements were the way of the future, and Russia and the communist bloc would be incorporated into those. And that was the G7's primary task in those first 10 years or so of Russia's membership was to incorporate the Soviet bloc — or the former Soviet bloc — into Western economic institutions. And then, of course, things got somewhere as President [Vladimir] Putin came to power in Russia and started to change the geopolitical calculus. And there's a very interesting chapter on Russia's participation in what became known briefly as the G8 and the kinds of Russian resentments that built up. So, for example, President Putin and his cabinet long felt that they were just appendages to a G7 conversation, that it didn't have any real influence on the G7's deliberations, and that contributed to broader Russian resentment, according to Natalya Volchkova, the author of that paper.
Roseanne Gerin:	One contributor to the volume describes the G7 as being in a permanent state of structural transformation. Do you agree? What forces have driven that evolution?
Peter Draper:	Yes, I think that is largely true, but within broad bands of historical times. So the period between 1975 to 1989 was largely a period of post-Bretton Woods, post-global oil crisis stagflation episode adjustment and management. And within that, managing the final phases of the competition with the Soviet bloc, I think the period roughly from 1990 up until Russia joins the G7 is one of consolidation and then ultimately expansion of Western liberal arrangements. And then with the Russia phase along comes the rise of China as well, the creation of the BRICS. Also, by the way, in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, the creation of initially the G20 [Group of 20] finance ministers. And then the next big punctuation mark is the 2007–2008 global financial crisis when the G20 heads-of-state process was initiated. So, yes, constant evolution in response to geopolitical developments, obviously the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of China, but also the rise of the rest, hence the creation of the G20, and punctuated by a series of different financial crises that had to be managed along the way. So constant flux almost, but within broad chunks of historical time that had some coherence, I would say.

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