![Sample our Global Development journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5929/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Global-Development.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the role BRICS institutions play in reforming the global financial system. The emerging economies of BRICS have long been resentful about the way in which the Bretton Woods institutions – the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – have governed the global ‘public goods’. Although hailed as the ‘fire-fighter of the world economy’, these institutions proved to be ineffective in mitigating the effects of successive regional as well as global financial crises. Further, their inability to carry out meaningful internal reform fuelled widespread discontent among BRICS countries leading them to create alternate financial entities like the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA). A closer look at the functioning of these institutions however tells a different story. Although BRICS as a grouping had initially projected a joint front on the idea of public good based on collective choices and preferences, the rising power asymmetry within their own institutions has gradually eclipsed the revisionist agenda and rendered them status-quoist in their approach to reform. Thus, these new institutions, though initially believed to work as alternatives creating new norms and rules for the global financial system, are increasingly becoming complements to the extant institutions.
Notes
1. Desai, “Public Goods.”
2. Samuelson, “The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure.”
3. Hurrell, “Hegemony, Liberalism and Global Order”; and James, “The Rise of the BRICs.”
4. Schweller, “Rising Powers”; and Pant, “The BRICS Fallacy.”
5. Ünay, “Reality or Mirage?”; and Mittelman, “Global Bricolage.”
6. Juutinen, “Leadership for a Pluralistic Order?.”
7. Narlikar, “Fairness in International Trade Negotiations.”
8. Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalised Organisations”; and Zucker, “Where Do Institutional Patterns Come From?”; and Scott, “The Organisation of Environments.”
9. North, “Institutions and a Transaction-Cost Theory of Exchange”; and North, “Institutions and the Process of Economic Change.”
10. DiMaggio and Powell, “Introduction”; and Eisenstadt, “Cultural Orientations, Institutional Entrepreneurs, and Social Change.”
11. Kellerman, “The Proliferation of Multilateral Development Banks.”
12. Grabel, “Toward a Pluripolar Global Financial Architecture?”
13. Woods, “Bretton Woods Institutions.”
14. Masters and Chatzky, “The IMF.”
15. The World Bank, “Development Projects.”
16. Haq et al., The UN and the Bretton Woods Institutions.
17. Fioretos and Heldt, “Legacies and Innovations in Global Economic Governance.”
18. Voutsa et al., “The Role of the Bretton Woods Institutions.”
19. Corsetti et al., “What Caused the Asian Currency and Financial Crisis?”
20. Kondapalli and Pandit, China and the BRICS.
21. Eurodad Report, “Harmful Conditions Increasingly Attached to IMF Loans.”
22. Bershidsky, “IMF Reform Is Too Little.”
23. Vestergaard and Wade, “Still in the Woods.”
24. Interview witheconomists from the NDB.
25. Truman, “Survival of the International Monetary Fund and Global Economic Cooperation.”
26. Interview with officials from the World Bank.
27. Lakshman, “IMF members delay quota changes.”
28. Truman, “Rearranging IMF Chairs and Shares.”
29. Wang and Qianming, “Behind the US Dollar’s Hegemony.”
30. Ibid.; and Kondapalli and Pandit, China and the BRICS.
31. Ministry of External Affairs, “Sixth BRICS Summit.”
32. BRICS Information Centre, “Treaty for the Establishment of a BRICS.”
33. PIB, “Sixth Brics Summit – Fortaleza Declaration.”
34. BRICS Information Centre, “Ufa Declaration.”
35. Desai and Vreeland, “What the New Bank of BRICS Is All About.”
36. Pandit, “The Changing Economic Order.”
37. Silk Road Briefing, “BRICS New Development Bank.”
38. Maasdorp, “BRICS’ New Development Bank Turns Four.”
39. Barone and Spratt, “Development Banks from the BRICS.”
40. Soto and Boadle, “BRICS Set Up Bank.”
41. Griffith-Jones, A BRICS Development Bank.
42. Stuenkel, ‘Towards Institutionalisation’.
43. Observer Research Foundation, “Realising the BRICS Long-Term Goals.”
44. Ibid.; and Pandit, “The Changing Economic Order.”
45. Ibid.;and Kellerman, “The Proliferation of Multilateral Development Banks.”
46. Brummer, Minilateralism.
47. Interview with officials from the IMF and the World Bank.
48. Iyer, “Why BRICS Trade in Local Currency Doesn’t Work for India.”
49. BRICS Information Centre, “Ufa Declaration.”
50. Interview with economists from the NDB.
51. Agarwal, “The Contingent Reserve Arrangement.”
52. Helleiner and Hongying, “Limits to the BRICS’ Challenge.”
53. The Joint Ministerial Statement of the ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers’ Meeting.
54. Singh, “Strengthening Financial Stability?”
55. Vazquez, “The Crucial Role of New Development Bank in the Future of BRICS.”
56. Lissovolik, “BRICS-Plus.: Alternative Globalisation in the Making?’”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Priyanka Pandit
Priyanka Pandit, Ph.D is a Research Fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi. Her research focuses on China and international economic institutions, Chinese economy and comparative politics.