Global Bricolage: emerging market powers and polycentric governance

Abstract

Contemporary globalisation is characterised by an explosion of organisational pluralism. Acronyms such as brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), ibsa (India, Brazil and South Africa), and basic (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) abound. This proliferation of groupings signals a repositioning within global governance and their names serve as metaphors for adjustments among formal and informal modes of global governance. They may be understood in terms of global bricolage: a framework for analysing incipient assemblages in global governance. Rooted in cultural political economy, this notion offers a language for grasping a loose meshwork of groupings based on certain large countries in the global South. The concept of global bricolage deepens analysis of polycentric governance and enables observers to identify three major tensions that mark contemporary global order. The antinomies are between old and new narratives that represent actual or potential shifts in prevailing forms of global governance, between an emancipatory spirit and contested neoliberal norms, and between interregional coalitions and intraregional differences. Quite clearly, the manner of addressing them will bear greatly on the shape of future world order.

Notes

1. his paper is based on my keynote addresses at the Nordic Africa Institute (nai) workshop on ‘BRICS/IBSA–Africa Relations: Turning Threats into Opportunities’, Uppsala, 13–14 June 2011, and at the University of Sussex Centre for Global Economy’s conference on ‘Rising Powers and the Future of Global Governance’, Brighton, 16–17 May 2012. Special thanks to nai former director of research, Fantu Cheru; and the Centre’s Kevin Gray. In what follows I am indebted to the participants in these sessions. I am also grateful to Nicholas T Smith for his stellar assistance.In the 1990s Russia initiated a triangular framework with India and China— ric. bric dates to 2001 (then, with the addition of South Africa, enlarged to brics in 2010); ibsa was formed as a tripartite dialogue forum and fund for assisting other developing countries in 2003; and basic, a group to negotiate a global agreement on climate change, in 2009.

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