BRICS countries’ annual intergovernmental declaration: why does it matter for world politics?

ABSTRACT

At their yearly summit, the bloc of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) countries issues an annual intergovernmental declaration. While these declarations are scrutinised for challenges they allegedly represent for global affairs, how they self-construct a positive representation about their global purpose is little studied. Notably, there is insufficient examination of the political deliberations behind the statements among the five different countries. By conducting a thematic content analysis based on coding content of the first ten intergovernmental declarations from 2009 to 2018, it is found that BRICS countries speak positively of their cooperative role to solve world problems without mentioning any internal disagreement. In parallel, they present Western institutions negatively in their communication strategy. An absence of deliberations does not imply an apolitical discourse. On the contrary, it can be a deliberate political communication strategy especially among the five different countries aiming to showcase alignment about their purpose in world politics.

KEYWORDS:

• BRICS declarations
• thematic content analysis
• world politics
• positive self-presentation
• intergovernmental communication strategy
• political discourse

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 BRICS cooperation range from academia, agriculture, biodiversity, banking systems, climate change, culture, currency, diseases’ management, disaster management, education, energy, environment, foreign affairs, finance, health, industry, internet governance, intellectual property, labour and employment, local government, macroeconomic policies, migration, outer space, science, technology and innovation, sustainable development, taxation, trade, to tourism amongst other areas in a growing list of developmental fields.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adeelah Kodabux

Dr. Adeelah Kodabux is a Lecturer in International Relations at Middlesex University Mauritius.