Tarun Kumar Rathee [1]
Emílio Mendonça Dias da Silva [2]
The emergence of BRICS marks a qualitative shift in the global power dynamics. The expanded BRICS has the potential not only to challenge the financial and political supremacy of the US-led West, but also the strength for greater and more meaningful collective bargaining and agenda setting. The rise of BRICS, its growing clout and gradual institutionalization can pave the way for a new world order where many worlds can co-exist. The Global South has rejected a world order where the present is ‘an always postponed future´.
BRICS is no ordinary constellation of powers. It consists of multiple great powers that are bound together by complex forms of restraint and inter-dependence. Neo-conservative scholar Robert Kagan’s binary thesis (black/white, with nothing in between) which was a reprise of Bush’s “You’re with us, or you’re with terrorists” stands rejected. The multipolar alliances that the West has created are dominated by the US and its hegemonic position, BRICS is not dominated by a single power or a combination of powers.
While genuine multilateralism remains a distant goal, there is an emergence of “mini-lateralism.” BRICS member countries themselves are part of multiple groupings. All the five original BRICS countries are members of G20 and India, China and Russia are members of SCO. India is perhaps in more groupings than China and Russia—G20, SCO, Quad, I2U2 and Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and NAM. Brazil is also a member of G-20 and it is the host country of 2024’s Summit, role that India has exercised in 2023.
G20 is itself and important initiative for pluralization. It comes as a response to the need of having an expanded forum for global decisions, opposite to the model of having just great powers to decide upon global matters as it is the project underlying G7.
As External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar has put it succinctly, “somewhere Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.” He has further said that “India is not pro-West”, it is also not “anti-West.” The vision expresses a common reality for BRICS countries. Their grouping is not aimed to completely subvert the established order, but to defend pluralization and democratization of global governance, which is itself a challenging element for western hegemony.
The code of the west by the west and for the west stands exposed. The current crisis in the world order is global, ideological and economic. Pilot-fish behaviour is no more an option.
The expanded BRICS now consists of four of the world’s largest individual oil producers (Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, the UAE); three members of OPEC (Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE), which as a bloc is itself the world’s biggest oil exporter; and two of the world’s top oil importers (China and India).
BRICS expansion is a measure of its confidence in its own power and in the stability and effectiveness of its institutions.
BRICS needs new paradigms, tools, strategies and agendas to become a credible voice of the Global South. Multipolarity envisions a world where multiple centres of powers coexist, each possessing the capacity to influence global affairs. However, that goal still remains very distant. But we are transitioning towards a multipolar system. Of course, the Global South is not seeking to become another pole.
BRICS must discuss the major challenges of development and propose possible solutions. It must also aim to become one of the core regulatory institutions of the multipolar world order. A genuine multipolar system must be based on mutual recognition of each member’s core interests.
With the rise of the Global South, new geographies of development have acquired salience. When we analyse global development along various dimensions like income, wealth, poverty, inequality and development cooperation, various new geographies of development can be easily identified.
Given the planetary challenges and the need for sustainable development, one can easily discern the blurring of boundaries between developed and developing countries. Global development requires a new approach to handling the challenges of global public goods and sustainable growth. As Kate Raworth, who has proposed a Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries, puts it, all countries are now sites of development challenge. “We are all developing countries now.”
A global development paradigm encompasses collective challenges of global public goods, and shared (sustainable) development. “We are all developing countries” doesn’t mean abandoning development cooperation. New paradigm of development requires all countries to set economies and societies on a sustainable footing.
Development and security are inseparable. With security being viewed as ensuring protection from physical and mental harm, freedom from want and fear, human security has moved to the centre stage of the global development agenda. Even with low income, one can achieve higher human development like higher life expectancy, lower fertility and high literacy.
Lack of substantive freedom is inexorably linked to economic poverty and backwardness. A large number of countries of the Global South have succeeded in reducing poverty, but those countries with better human development have fared better. The trickle-down alone will not spread the benefits of reform. Measured State intervention and adequate provision of safety nets for the vulnerable sections of people are needed to make development more sustainable. Democracy and development go hand in hand. The democratic, accountable and transparent governance is the best insurance against poverty and marginalisation. The test of good governance must be premised on how the State and civil society negotiate differences via constitutional processes.
Given the critical importance of geopolitics and geoeconomics, BRICS would need to have clear position on climate crisis, disaster management, strategic technologies, supply chain resilience, health security and counter-terrorism. People’s Forum for Multipolar World moving ahead to put People’s voice on Economy, Agriculture, climate crisis, disaster management etc. We firmly believe that multipolarity is the possible way to deal with hegemonic regulations due to which, not only developing countries, but also the large section of developed countries becomes economically marginalise group. People’s Forum for Multipolar World is a People’s led initiative to raise voice in a comprehensive manner on multipolarity so that we can resolute the issues related to economic disparity, agrarian crisis, climate crisis, sustainable development etc.
For G20’s Summit, it is expected that BRICS countries demonstrate their aligned position in continuing support of pluralism, in the preference for a multilateral process for decision-making in regulatory matters and in the emphasis to be given in development.
[1] Master in law by Kuruksheta University
National coordinator of People’s Forum for Multipolar World
[2] PHd candidate and master in international law by the Faculty of Law of University of Sao Paulo
Member of the Centre for BRICS Studies of University of Sao Paulo
