The list of pragmatic managerial political world leaders in their 50s who govern from the centre is quite striking, writes Tony Kinsella
Within a month of Nicolas Sarkozy's victory in France, Bertie Ahern has won an historic third term in Ireland. Both elections, and both men, have much - and little - in common. Yet they, and many of their fellow leaders, resemble each other in terms of age and approaches - as our global balance of power shifts immutably into utterly new.
David Smith, economic editor of the Sunday Times, in his book The Dragon and the Elephant, spells out part of this global shift. US economic growth is around two per cent, but the global economy continues to expand at five. China, India, the euro zone, and to a lesser extent Latin America, now power global economic performance.
The French economist Philippe Chalmin, who specialises in raw materials markets, is ironically grateful that coffee and chocolate are not yet popular in China since world potato prices soared when Chinese consumers discovered the joys of frozen chips!
Almost 50 per cent of the world's income is now generated by emerging and developing economies. That figure tells one part of the story, the other being how you manage it. This management of our new world falls to a generation of pragmatic 50-somethings, of whom Bertie is a prime example.
On the afternoon of his pomp and ceremony bedecked inauguration, 52-year-old President Sarkozy's first political act was to fly to Berlin to be embraced by 53-year-old chancellor Merkel. The son of a Hungarian émigré and the former member of the GDR's Young Communists working to sort out the EU's institutional mess says much about our new world. Not least in their non-distinction between "foreign" and "domestic" politics.
A similar pattern can be seen in the 55-year-old Ahern seamlessly transiting from his triumph of the historic first address by a Taoiseach to the British Houses of Parliament on the achievements of the Northern Ireland peace process to canvass the streets of Dublin Central that same evening.
The list of pragmatic managerial political leaders in their 50s who govern from the centre, promote a mixed economy, accept concepts of social justice, recognise the threat of climate change, and view their mandates as involving, in at least equal parts, domestic and international action is quite striking.
Spain's José Luis Zapatero is 47, Portugal's José Sócrates 50, Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker 53, Belgium's Guy Verhofstadt 54, and Gordon Brown is 53.
At 75 India's Manmohan Singh is almost an exception, with Romano Prodi at 68 following not far behind. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brasilia is a sprightly 62, while China's Hu Jintao at 65 is almost a teenager in that country's political culture.
None of them are easily described as towering intellectuals. They are not authors of academic political tomes. They are neither apostles, nor acolytes, of dogmatic political ideologies. The fact that some are more courageous, or more inspiring, merely serves to underline their normality.
Hu Jintao jogged through a Tokyo park with a minimum security detail on his recent visit to Japan, stopping to chat and be photographed with passers-by. I watched Gordon Brown chatting with Big Issue sellers (and buying two copies) as he strolled through Covent Garden one evening. Although I have never supped a pint with Bertie while analysing Manchester United's recent performances, I know I could. It is quite impossible to imagine their predecessors, Mao Zedong, Winston Churchill or Éamon de Valera in any of these situations.
The contrast with the US is stark, with ideological postures, and the old-fashioned separation between "foreign" and "domestic" sharply etched on to the political landscape.
Whoever takes office in January 2009 as the 44th US president will have been elected on a mandate to bring their country's bruised and broken army home from Iraq. Iraq aside, their agenda will be dominated by what are seen to be domestic issues from energy policy, to health insurance, the challenges of crumbling infrastructure, and serious economic difficulties - with the US share of global income now under 20 per cent and falling.
As the US looks inwards, the rest of the planet gazes outwards to form a new world order. It will be formed by practical decisions rather than formal declarations. Treaties and institutions are more likely to adapt to proven practices as opposed to being preconditions for them.
Expect a steady move away from oil and fossil fuels, greater interaction with developing countries, and significant doses of quiet realism. Watch for steady pressure for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine and follow the quiet shifting of Chinese positions over Sudan and the slaughter in Darfur.
Quiet chats about practically bridging gaps between desired and possible solutions as part of everyday global management is becoming our system of global governance. This does not involve abandoning principles, merely digesting how progress towards them might be achieved.
Leaders whose actions are determined by frozen ideological or historical stances resemble dinosaurs. They share the same slow metabolic transition between ingestion and thought, and look increasingly likely to share the fate of their prehistoric ancestors.
Bertie has said he will not lead Fianna Fáil into the 2012 elections, but as a master of the art of the possible he may well have new roles to play elsewhere.