Foreign Policy Strategies of Emerging Powers in a Multipolar World: an introductory review

Abstract

This Introductory Review examines the major debates concerning the rise of emerging powers in the global system. It points to the fundamental difference between the contours of ascendancy in the first quarter of the twenty-first century from previous historical eras with reference to the number of countries placed in this category, the privileging of economic dimensions of power, and the much more elaborate and open levels with regard to institutionalization. Ample attention is paid to the BRICS, but consistent with the image of multipolarity, it also gives some emphasis to the question of whether the changing global system provides enhanced space for middle powers. After highlighting these highly relevant contextual considerations, the core of the Review moves to an analysis centred on more specific puzzles about the foreign policy strategies of emerging powers. One major puzzle is whether the preference of rising states is to work through established institutions or to utilize parallel and/or competitive mechanisms. Another concerns the balance between material interests, status-enhancement, and identity issues as motivators for policy preferences. Still another focuses on the degree to which China should be differentiated from the other BRICS, or indeed whether the BRICS share values such as a common politics of resentment or want to differentiate themselves on a normative-oriented basis in alterative groupings such as IBSA. A more sophisticated awareness of the limitations as well as of the capacities of the BRICS - with an appreciation of the intricate mix of concerns about solidarity and sovereignty, as well as conceptual tensions between realism and complex interdependence – is not only important for assessing the future trajectory of the BRICS role in the world, but in locating space for categories of countries such as middle powers. The major puzzle for middle powers is whether or not they will be able to mobilize attributes, notably the leveraging of ‘network power’, that provide them with comparative advantage. Although in overall terms the global system has not progressed towards multipolarity in a linear fashion underwritten by alternative actors, it is precisely due to this imprecision – and level of academic and operational contestation – that the articles assembled in this Special Issue have such salience.

Notes

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3 P Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000, New York: Random House, 1987.

4 For one illustration about how seriously US society took this threat, especially in the Sputnik era, see ‘We must win the cold war’, Life, 2 June 1961.

5 See, most recently, PJ Hugill, ‘The American challenge to British hegemony, 1861–1947’, Geographical Review, 99(3), 2010, pp 403–425. The classic account is C Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929–1939, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986.

6 E Vogel, Japan as Number One: Lessons for America, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.

7 GR Packard, ‘The coming US–Japan crisis’, Foreign Affairs, 66(2), 1987, pp 348–367.

8 D Flemes & A Habib, ‘Regional powers in contest and engagement: making sense of international relations in a globalised world’, South African Journal of International Affairs, 16(2), 2009, pp 137–142.

9 A Hurrell, ‘Regional powers and the global system from a historical perspective’, in D Flemes (ed), Regional Leadership in the Global System: Ideas, Interests and Strategies of Regional Powers, Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.

10 A Goldstein, ‘An emerging China’s emerging grand strategy’, in GJ Ikenberry & M Mastanduno (eds), International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific, New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

11 Alexandroff & Cooper, Rising States, Rising Institutions.

12 Goldman Sachs, Dreaming with bric s: the path to 2050, Global Economics Paper 99, New York: Goldman Sachs Global Research Center, 2003. See also LE Armijo, ‘The brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) as analytical category: mirage or insight?’, Asian Perspective, 31(4), 2007, pp 7–42.

13 Yekaterinburg Joint Communiqué, Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the Republic of India and the Federative Republic of Brazil, 16 May 2008.

14 P5 permanent members of the UN Security Council.

15 A Hurrell, ‘Hegemony, liberalism and global order: what space for would-be great powers?’, International Affairs, 82(1), 2006, pp 1–19.

16 AF Cooper, TM Shaw & A Antkiewicz, Economic Size Trumps All Else? Lessons from bricsam , Working Paper 12, Waterloo: cigi, December 2006.

17 AF Cooper & A Antkiewicz (eds), Emerging Powers in Global Governance: Lessons from the Heiligen-damm Process, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2008.

18 R Kaplinsky & D Messner (eds), ‘Special issue: the impact of Asian drivers on the developing world’, World Development, 36(2), February 2008.

19 S Brooks & W Wohlforth, World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008; and C Layne, ‘The waning of US hegemony: myth or reality?’, International Security, 34, 2009, pp 147–172.

20 AF Cooper & R Thakur, The Group of Twenty (G20), New York: Routledge, 2013.

21 N Barma, E Ratner & Steven Weber, ‘A world without the West’, The National Interest, 90, 2007, pp 23–30.

22 N Woods, ‘Global governance after the financial crisis: a new multilateralism or the last gasp of the great powers?’, Global Policy, 1(1), 2010, pp 51–63.

23 G Chin, ‘The emerging countries and China in the G20: reshaping global economic governance’, Studia Diplomatica, 63(2), 2010, pp 105–123.

24 BK Gills, ‘Going South: capitalist crisis, systemic crisis, civilizational crisis’, Third World Quarterly, 31(2), 2010, pp 169–184; and G Grevi, The Interpolar World: A New Scenario, Occasional Paper 79, Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, 2009.

25 On the differences in these eras, see AF Cooper, ‘The G20 as an improvised crisis committee and/or a contested “steering committee” for the world’, International Affairs, 86(3), 2010, pp 741–757.

26 R Haass, The Reluctant Sheriff: The United States after the Cold War, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997.

27 AF Cooper, ‘Stretching the model of “coalitions of the willing”’, in AF Cooper, B Hocking & W Maley (eds), Global Governance and Diplomacy: Worlds Apart? Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008.

28 EM Hafner-Burton, M Kahler & AH Montgomery, ‘Network analysis for international relations’, International Organization, 63, 2009, pp 559–592.

29 KA Badannath, ‘Lack of consensus, size and reach stalls bric expansion’, Financial Chronicle, 27 September 2010.

30 US Department of State, Global Economic Indicators, 6 January 2010, at www.state.gov/documents/organization/135723.xls, accessed 27 March 2013.

31 JJ Mearsheimer, ‘China’s unpeaceful rise’, Current History, April 2006, pp 160–162.

32 H Ebert, D Flemes & G Strüver, The Politics of Contestation in Asia: How Japan and Pakistan Deal with their Rising Neighbors, giga Working Paper 206, Hamburg: German Institute of Global and Area Studies (giga), September 2012.

33 D Flemes & AC Vaz, Security Policies of India, Brazil and South Africa: Regional Security Contexts as Constraints for a Common Agenda, giga Working Paper 160, Hamburg: giga, February 2011.

34 D Flemes, ‘ibsa countries take tentative steps toward defense cooperation’, World Politics Review, December 2012, at http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/12567/global-insider-ibsa-countries-take-tentative-steps-toward-defense-cooperation, accessed February 2013.

35 CF Bergsten, B Gill, NR Lardy & D Mitchell, China: The Balance Sheet—What the World Needs to Know Now about the Emerging Superpower, New York: Public Affairs, 2006; CF Bergsten, ‘A partnership of equals: how Washington should respond to China’s economic challenge’, Foreign Affairs, 87(4), 2008, pp 57–69.

36 G Garrett, ‘G2 in G20: China, the United States and the world after the global financial crisis’, Global Policy, 1, 2010, pp 29–39.

37 ‘Nation should play greater role in G20, says expert’, China Daily, 1 March 2009.

38 N Ferguson, ‘Not two countries, but one: Chimerica’, Daliy Telegraph , 4 March 2007.

39 L da Silva, ‘At Yekaterinburg, the brics come of age’, The Hindu, 16 June 2009. See also I Iosebashvili, ‘bric leaders search for greater influence’, St Petersburg Times, 19 June 2009.

40 Y Zhang, ‘Powering the world’, Indian Express (Delhi), 28 March 2012.

41 D Rousseff, ‘We’re all in it together’, Times of India, 29 March 2012.

42 US National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, November 2008.

43 Quoted in P Escobar, ‘The bric post-Washington consensus’, Asia Times, 17 April 2010. See also AF Cooper, ‘Consolidated institutional cooperation and/or competitive fragmentation in the aftermath of the financial crisis’, Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, XIII(2), 2011, pp 19–31.

44 See G Chin & R Thakur, ‘Will China change the rules of global order?’, Washington Quarterly, 33(4), 2010, pp 119–138; and AF Cooper, TM Shaw & G Chin, ‘Emerging powers and Africa: implications for/from global governance?’, Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, 36(1), 2008, pp 27–44.

45 See I Taylor, The Forum on China–Africa Cooperation ( focac ), London: Routledge, 2012.

46 D Smith, ‘China offers $20bn of loans to African nations’, Guardian, 19 July 2012.

47 The claims to developing-country representation are widely contested within their own respective regions. MA Vieira & C Alden, ‘India, Brazil and South Africa (ibsa): South–South cooperation and the paradox of regional leadership’, Global Governance, 17(4), 2011, pp 507–528.

48 Government of India, Ministry of External Relations, brics Summit: Delhi Declaration, New Delhi, 29 March 2012, para 5.

49 Ibid, para 6.

50 Hurrell, ‘Hegemony, liberalism and global order’.

51 P Gillespie, ‘brics highlight skewed nature of global power’, Irish Times, 21 February 2013, at http://www.irishtimes.com/debate/brics-highlight-skewed-nature-of-global-power-1.492814?mode=print&ot=example.AjaxPageLayout.ot

52 D Flemes, ‘India, Brazil and South Africa (ibsa) in the new global order: interests, strategies and values of the emerging coalition’, International Studies, 46(4), 2011, pp 401–421.

53 G Faulconbridge, ‘bric calls off meeting at G20 as Lula stays home’, Reuters, 26 June 2010, at http://in.reuters.com/article/2010/06/27/idINIndia-49680920100627.

54 See R Sharma, ‘Bearish on Brazil’, Foreign Affairs, 91(3), May/June 2012, pp 80–87.

55 R Sharma, Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles, New York: WW Norton, 2012.

56 O Stuenkel, ‘Rising powers and the future of democracy promotion’, Third World Quarterly, 34(2), 2013, pp.

57 R Cox, ‘Middlepowermanship: Japan and the future of the world order’, in R Cox & T Sinclair (eds), Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp 241–275.

58 Hurrell, ‘Hegemony, liberalism and global order’.

59 D Wilson & A Stupnytska, The N11: More than an Acronym, Global Economics Paper 153, New York: Goldman Sachs Global Research Center, 2007.D Wilson & A Stupnytska, The N11: More than an Acronym, Global Economics Paper 153, New York: Goldman Sachs Global Research Center, 2007.

60 AS Schirm, ‘Global politics are domestic politics: how societal interests and ideas shape ad hoc groupings in the G20 which supersede international alliances’, paper prepared for the International Studies Association Convention, Montreal, 16–19 March 2011.

61 CA Kupchan, No One’s World: The West, The Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp 9, 189.