Ian Bremmer

Bremmer founded the political risk research and consulting firm Eurasia Group in 1998, starting with a staff of one based out of a cubicle in the World Policy Institute in New York City[9]

The firm opened a London office in 2000, a Washington, DC office in 2005, a Tokyo office in 2015, San Francisco and São Paulo offices in 2016, and Brasilia and Singapore offices in 2017.

In 2001, Bremmer and Eurasia created Wall Street's first global political risk index, now the GPRI (Global Political Risk Index), and in 2004, expanded the coverage to include frontier markets. Bremmer launched Eurasia Group’s annual Top Risks report in 2006, and also created a Global Energy and Natural Resources Strategy group.

In 2017, Bremmer founded GZERO Media, a media company. It is a subsidiary of Eurasia Group. Its name refers to the term “G-Zero”, which was coined by Bremmer to describe a world where no country or group of countries has the political and economic leverage to drive an international agenda or provide global public goods.

Bremmer hosts the weekly digital and US national public television show, GZERO World with Ian Bremmer. Bremmer also hosts a weekly digital video series called The World in 60 Seconds.

Bremmer has published ten books, including the national bestsellers Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World (Portfolio, May 2012), which details risks and opportunities in a world without global leadership, and The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations (Portfolio, May 2010), which describes the global phenomenon of state capitalism and its implications for economics and politics. He also wrote The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall (Simon & Schuster, 2006), selected by The Economist as one of the best books of 2006.[10] His latest book is the New York Times bestseller Us vs Them: The Failure of Globalism (Portfolio, April 2018), which provides an analysis of the global implications of rising populist nationalism and government responses.

In addition to his books, Bremmer is the foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large for Time, a contributor for the Financial Times A-List,[11] and has published articles in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Foreign Affairs, and other publications.

Bremmer appears on CNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, Bloomberg Television, National Public Radio, the BBC, and other networks. He was a regular guest and occasional host of the Charlie Rose Show and has appeared frequently on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Bremmer has held research and faculty positions at New York University, Columbia University, the EastWest Institute, the World Policy Institute, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Asia Society Policy Institute, where he has served as the first Harold J. Newman Distinguished Fellow in Geopolitics since 2015.

In 2013, he was named Global Research Professor at New York University,[12] and in 2019, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs announced that Bremmer would teach an Applied Geopolitics course at the school.[13]

Bremmer serves on the President's Council of the Near East Foundation, the Leadership Council for the Concordia Summit, and the board of trustees of Intelligence Squared. In 2007, he was named as a "Young Global Leader" of the World Economic Forum, and in 2010, founded and was appointed Chair of the Forum's Global Agenda Council for Geopolitical Risk. In December 2015, Bremmer was knighted by the government of Italy. In 2017, he was listed as one of LinkedIn's ten most influential global voices.[14]

Bremmer's J curve[15] outlines the link between a country's openness and its stability. While many countries are stable because they are open (the United States, France, Japan), others are stable because they are closed (North Korea, Cuba, Iraq under Saddam Hussein). States can travel both forward (right) and backward (left) along this J curve, so stability and openness are never secure. The J is steeper on the left-hand side, as it is easier for a leader in a failed state to create stability by closing the country than to build a civil society and establish accountable institutions; the curve is higher on the far right because states that prevail in opening their societies (Eastern Europe, for example) ultimately become more stable than authoritarian regimes.

Ian Bremmer describes state capitalism as a system in which the state dominates markets primarily for political gain. In his 2010 book The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations ), Bremmer describes China as the primary driver for the rise of state capitalism as a challenge to the free market economies of the developed world, particularly in the aftermath of the financial crisis.[16]

The term G-Zero world refers to a breakdown in global leadership brought about by a decline of Western influence and the inability of other nations to fill the void.[17][18] It is a reference to a perceived shift away from the pre-eminence of the ["G7"] ("Group of Seven") industrialized countries and the expanded Group of Twenty, which includes major emerging powers like China, India, Brazil, Turkey, and others. In his book, Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World (New York: Portfolio, 2012), Bremmer explains that, in the G-Zero, no country or group of countries has the political and economic leverage to drive an international agenda or provide global public goods.[19][20]

The term weaponization of finance refers to the foreign policy strategy of using incentives (access to capital markets) and penalties (varied types of sanctions) as tools of coercive diplomacy. In his Eurasia Group Top Risks 2015 report,[21] Bremmer coins the term weaponization of finance to describe the ways in which the United States is using its influence to affect global outcomes. Rather than rely on traditional elements of America's security advantage – including US-led alliances such as NATO and multi-lateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – Bremmer argues that the US is now 'weaponizing finance' by limiting access to the American marketplace and to US banks as an instrument of its foreign and security policy.

Bremmer uses pivot state to describe a nation that is able to build profitable relationships with multiple other major powers without becoming overly reliant on any one of them.[22] This ability to hedge allows a pivot state to avoid capture—in terms of security or economy—at the hands of a single country. In his book, Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World (New York: Portfolio, 2012),[23] Bremmer explains how, in a volatile G-Zero world, the ability to pivot will take on increased importance. At the opposite end of the spectrum are shadow states frozen within the influence of a single power. For example, with significant trade ties with both the United States and Asia and formal security ties with NATO, Canada is an example of a pivot state hedged against a slowdown in or conflict with any single major power. Mexico, on the other hand, is a shadow state due to its overwhelming reliance on the US economy.

Bremmer has coined the term “geopolitical recession” to describe the current geopolitical environment, one defined by an unwind of the former US-led global order. Unlike economic recessions, linked to frequent boom and bust cycles, Bremmer see geopolitical recessions as much longer cycles, and accordingly are less likely to be recognized.[24] He see the present geopolitical recession as defined by deteriorating relations between the US and its traditional allies—particularly the Europeans—as China is rising but creating alternative international political and economic architecture. Bremmer argues that the overall result is a more fragmented approach to global governance, an increase in geopolitical tail risks, and a reduced ability to respond effectively to major international crises when they do hit.

In his keynote address[25] at Eurasia Group’s 2019 GZERO Summit[26] in Tokyo, Bremmer proposed creating a “World Data Organization” to counter the threat of a “Splinternet”—a division in technology ecosystems due to conflict between the United States and China. Describing a World Data Organization as a digital version of the World Trade Organization, he argued that the United States, Europe, Japan, and other “governments that believe in online openness and transparency” should collaborate to set standards for artificial intelligence, data, privacy, citizens’ rights, and intellectual property, while establishing a permanent secretariat and judiciary mechanism for enforcement. In an ideal world, the organization’s economic and security benefits would then incentivize China to join.[27]

After appearing on an episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer,[28] 2020 US presidential candidate and entrepreneur Andrew Yang credited Bremmer with devising the concept of a World Data Organization,[29] which he endorsed at a Democratic presidential debate in November 2019.[30] Bremmer’s proposal received coverage in a number of media outlets, including Forbes[31] and Bloomberg.[32]