![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
Abstract
The five countries known as brics, while not homogeneous in interests, values, and policy preferences, do have a common interest in checking US/Western power and influence through collaboration with non-Western powers. They vary considerably but all are ahead of other developing countries on population, military power, economic weight, geopolitical clout, and global reach and engagement. They are unrepresentative of the typical developing country in terms of interest, capacity, and resources, but they can represent the interests and goals of developing countries as a group on those issues for which the North–South division is salient. The diversity within brics, their differences from other developing countries, and their potential to reflect and represent the global South are explored with respect to climate change, finance, trade, aid, human rights and intervention, and development. It remains unclear whether brics can morph from a countervailing economic grouping to a powerful political alternative.
Keywords:
Notes
1. Thakur, Towards a Less Imperfect State.
2. undp, Human Development Report Citation2013, 11.
3. Ibid., 12–13.
4. O’Neill, The World needs Better Economic brics; and Wilson and Purushothaman, Dreaming with brics.
5. Cooper and Thakur, The Group of Twenty (G20).
6. Cooper and Thakur, “The brics.”
7. Gillespie, “brics Highlight Skewed Nature.”
8. Al Doyaili et al., “ibsa.”
9. Pearson and Leahy, “Cheap Asia Imports.”
10. Pant, “The brics Fallacy,” 99.
11. “Sanusi: China is Major Contributor.”
12. Dubash, “Of Maps and Compasses,” 272.
13. Ibid., 275.
14. Grant, Russia, China and Global Governance.
15. Bremmer, Every Nation for Itself, 10.
16. Landsberg and Moore, “brics.”
17. Gray and Murphy, “Introduction.”
18. This might seem an odd statement after the Ukraine crisis. The contradiction is more apparent than real. None among brics is pacifist; all have powerful military forces that they are prepared to use for self-defence and other core security interests. brics regard Crimea as falling within Russia’s core security zone, as did Cuba ‘for the US’ in 1962; therefore the situation is qualitatively distinct from using force away from one’s own borders in others’ quarrels, as the West did in Kosovo, Iraq, and Libya. See Thakur, “Geopolitics through the Ukrainian Looking Glass.”
19. Gilboy and Heginbotham, “Double Trouble,” 131.
20. Mandel and Lin, “nato’s New Neighbors”; and Weitz, “Russia’s Asia Play Mustn’t be Ignored.”
21. “China leads, brics backs Iran.”
22. Thakur, “Rogue States Behaving Badly.”
23. Mahbubani, “Two Shades of Immunity.”
24. Sidhartha, “India hardens Trade Stance against US”; and Kumar, and Rajesh Kumar Singh, “New Delhi vs Washington: India hardens stance against US protectionism.”
25. Gilboy and Heginbotham, “Double Trouble,” 128.
26. Mahbubani, The Great Convergence.
27. Thakur, “Wealth and Power trump Good Governance.”
28. Desker, “Can Europe Prevent Asia’s Rise?”
29. Gilboy and Heginbotham, “Double Trouble,” 136.
30. Dubash, “Of Maps and Compasses,” 268.
31. “brics Summit – Delhi Declaration.” Ministry of External Relations, Government of India, New Delhi, 29 March 2012.
33. Chin and Stubbs, “China, Regional Institution-building.”
34. Pesek, “The brics expose the West’s hypocrisy.”
35. Quoted by Smith, “brics eye Infrastructure.”
36. Since this article was written, at the July 2014 summit in Brazil, all these questions were answered. The New Development Bank will be headquartered in Shanghai and the inaugural president will be Indian. The bank is to be capitalized initially at $50 billion (and subsequently at double that amount), with each country contributing $10 billion. See Thakur, ‘Not Just Another Brick in the Geopolitical Wall'.
37. Quadir, “Rising Donors.” See also Sidiropoulos et al., Development Cooperation.
38. Carmody, The Rise of the brics; and Brautigam, The Dragon’s Gift.
39. de Soysa and Midford, “Enter the Dragon!”
40. Malone, “Soft Power in Indian Foreign Policy,” 39.
41. Philp, “Sri Lanka forces West to Retreat.”
42. Sahnoun, “Africa.” For another African perspective supportive of r2p, see Atuobi, The Responsibility to Protect.
43. Thakur, “r2p after Libya and Syria.”
44. Zongze, “Responsible Protection.”
45. Acharya, “Can Asia Lead?”
46. Studwell, How Asia Works.
47. Chin, China’s Automotive Modernization, 22–47.
48. Paris, At War’s End.
49. Lee, “A Tale of Two Political Systems.”
50. The claims to developing-country representation are widely contested within their own respective regions; see Vieira and Alden, “India, Brazil and South Africa.”
51. Gvosdev, “The Realist Prism” (emphasis added).
52. Baru, “brics in Search of Cement.”
53. Amsden, The Rise of ‘The Rest’.
54. Sharma, “Broken brics.” See also van Agtmael, “Think Again.”
55. Sharma, “Broken brics,” 3.