DAVOS, Switzerland—President Trump is staying in Washington to deal with the partial government shutdown. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is tied up with Brexit talks in London. French President Emmanuel Macron is responding to yellow-vest protests at home.
This week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in this Swiss mountain resort will bring together more than 60 heads of state or government. But a number of major world leaders are skipping the gathering to attend to pressing domestic business.
Countries of the North Atlantic “are preoccupied at the moment, but the world doesn’t stop,” said Adrian Monck, managing director for public engagement at the World Economic Forum.
He said the result would be more focus at the meeting on the non-Anglophone world, one of the original ideas behind the organization when it first convened in 1971. Government officials from countries representing 77% of global domestic product will be in attendance, including some from countries whose leaders are skipping the gathering.
Almost every year since the 2008 financial crisis, people have asked whether Davos—or the globalized world it is viewed as epitomizing—has peaked. Many have concluded, particularly since the U.K. voted to leave the European Union and Mr. Trump was elected in 2016, that it has.
But an opinion poll of more than 10,000 people across 29 countries, commissioned by the WEF, suggests a majority of people in every region believes it is important for countries to work together. Of the countries surveyed, only in France did less than half of the respondents call cooperation important.
Mr. Trump’s decision to skip the meeting and cancel the planned visit of the rest of the U.S. government delegation will likely mean less global attention on the gathering. It will also mean fewer helicopters hovering overhead and less snarled traffic.
In Mr. Trump’s absence, attention could switch to a new leader: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who was sworn in on Jan. 1 and is scheduled to deliver a keynote address.
A large Chinese delegation led by Vice President Wang Qishan will be there.
Three leaders from the Group of Seven will also attend, the same number as in 2017—Germany’s Angela Merkel, Italy’s Giuseppe Conte and Japan’s Shinzo Abe, who is this year’s president of the Group of 20 nations.
But Ms. Merkel’s star is beginning to fade since she stepped down as leader of her Christian Democratic Party last year, and it is Mr. Conte’s two deputies, each head of their own populist parties, Matteo Salvini of the League and Luigi di Maio of the 5 Star Movement, who are the big players in Italian politics and who won’t attend.
The Russian delegation will be led by Maxim Oreshkin, economic development minister. Moscow confirmed its participation after the WEF said three Russian businessmen who were under U.S. sanctions—Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, construction billionaire Viktor Vekselberg and banker Andrey Kostin—would be able to attend.
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Last year, Mr. Trump delivered an address at Davos, but neither of his predecessors as president, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, personally attended the gathering, sending top aides instead.
The conference has long offered government officials, business leaders, top bankers and prominent academics a platform for their views. But for many, the meeting continues to be an opportunity for world-class networking among the 3,000 delegates and the hundreds of others who journey there.
Write to Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com
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