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Davos Diary, Day 1: The Agenda, and the Real Agenda

The theme for this year’s Annual Meeting is “Shaping the Global Agenda, the Shifting Power Equation.” According to the Forum: Over the course of the five-day Meeting, 2,400 participants from 90 countries will convene in Davos, including 24 heads of state or government, 85 cabinet ministers, along with religious leaders, media leaders and heads of ...

By David Rothkopf

January 23, 2007, 5:42 PM

The theme for this year's Annual Meeting is "Shaping the Global Agenda, the Shifting Power Equation." According to the Forum: Over the course of the five-day Meeting, 2,400 participants from 90 countries will convene in Davos, including 24 heads of state or government, 85 cabinet ministers, along with religious leaders, media leaders and heads of non-governmental organizations. Around 50% of the participants are business leaders drawn principally from the Forum's members [....] The programme will follow four main themes that are high on the global agenda in 2007. These range from "Economics: New Drivers" and "Geopolitics: The Need for Fresh Mandates" to "Business: Leading in a Connected World", and "Technology and Society: Identity, Community and Networks".

The theme for this year’s Annual Meeting is “Shaping the Global Agenda, the Shifting Power Equation.” According to the Forum:

Over the course of the five-day Meeting, 2,400 participants from 90 countries will convene in Davos, including 24 heads of state or government, 85 cabinet ministers, along with religious leaders, media leaders and heads of non-governmental organizations. Around 50% of the participants are business leaders drawn principally from the Forum’s members [….] The programme will follow four main themes that are high on the global agenda in 2007. These range from “Economics: New Drivers” and “Geopolitics: The Need for Fresh Mandates” to “Business: Leading in a Connected World”, and “Technology and Society: Identity, Community and Networks”.

ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP

Of course, the real meat of each Annual Meeting typically lies outside the official program, which sounds roughly the same every year given the obligation to cover hundreds of issues in a way that is offensive to none of over 80 organizations cited as sponsors or supporters of the event. Rather, the substance comes less from the big speeches than it does from the buzz in the corridors of the main Congress Hall and the scores of receptions that take place each night in the character-less hotels of Davos.

Inevitably, a considerable component of this year’s side meetings will focus on the following issues: the situation in Iraq, the fate of a unipolar world when the one superpower seems to be bent on self-destruction, the absence of Bill Clinton and Angelina Jolie (two of last year’s stars), the absence of a big contingent from China and what that may portend about the future of Davos, the presence of a large delegation from India, what to wear to the Malaysian-themed black-tie gala, what top speakers like Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, Mahmoud Abbas, Bill Gates, Lakshmi Mittal, and others might say or not say, and—above all—on the deals large and small that will be cut in silence. Davos is mostly about what is not on the official program, not covered in the papers. It’s not a breeding ground for conspiracies per se, but rather a place where self-interests come to mate in their native habitat of low lighting and high cholesterol. As FP‘s anthroblogologist for this expedition, I’ll try to get up close and recount some of their mating behaviors without scaring off any of the subjects.

David Rothkopf is visiting professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His latest book is The Great Questions of Tomorrow. He has been a longtime contributor to Foreign Policy and was CEO and editor of the FP Group from 2012 to May 2017. Twitter: @djrothkopf