Informal elite network changed international politics in the 1970s

international politics

In the 1970s, a network of businessmen, politicians, and academics from the US, Europe, and Japan, also known as the Trilateral Commission, changed the way international politics was conducted. Informal links between Commission members, governments, and organisations paved the way for recognition of the new economic superpower Japan as an equal partner in international politics, concludes University of Copenhagen historian Dino Knudsen, who is the first researcher to get access to the Commission's own archives.

In 1973, American financier David Rockefeller formed the Trilateral Commission out of fear that the world's three industrial centres – the US, Europe, and Japan – were drifting apart. The aim of the Commission was to ensure that particularly the American government understood that it had to collaborate and negotiate with Europe and new economic superpower Japan. The Trilateral Commission is still active and has headquarters in Washington, Tokyo, and Paris.