Rising powers, people rising: neo-liberalization and its discontents in the BRICS countries

ABSTRACT

The rise of the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, China, India, and South Africa – has called into question the future of Western dominance in world markets and geopolitics. However, the developmental trajectories of the BRICS countries are shot through with socio-economic fault lines that relegate large numbers of people to the margins of current growth processes, where life is characterized by multiple and overlapping vulnerabilities. These socio-economic fault lines have, in turn, given rise to political convulsions across the BRICS countries, ranging from single-issue protests to sustained social movements oriented towards structural transformation. This article presents an innovative theoretical framework for theorizing the emerging political economy of development in the BRICS countries centred on neo-liberalization, precarity, and popular struggles. It discusses the contributions to this special issue in terms of how they illuminate the intersection between neo-liberalization, precarity, and popular struggle in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• BRICS
• inequality
• neo-liberalization
• precarity
• protest
• social movements

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The authors whose contributions are featured in this special issue met for the first time in Bergen in 2016 and collectively developed the orientation outlined in this introduction.

2 Examples of such accounts would arguably be Gill (2003), Harvey (2005), McNally (2010), and Panitch and Gindin (2012).

3 We use the term ‘global South’ loosely so as to include Russia. Clearly reconfigurations of the world-system render the homogeneity of the ‘global South’ moot.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alf Gunvald Nilsen

Alf Gunvald Nilsen is an associate professor at the Department of Global Development and Planning at the University of Agder and a Research Associate at the Society, Work and Development Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Karl von Holdt

Karl von Holdt is the Director of the Society, Work and Development Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand.