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The past decades have seen an international power shift away from a unipolar Western world system towards a multi-polar world led by rising global economies. Driving this change is the BRICS group of countries—formalized as a bloc composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—who now welcome new states including Iran, Egypt, the UAE, and Argentina. This change speaks to the increased assertiveness of the Global South, seeking an alternative to western hegemony based governance and a reshaping of global governance.
With a backdrop of post Cold War, and following the heritage of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), BRICS emphasizes sovereignty, non-interference, and regional leadership. While NAM was fragmented and did not have a global footprint, BRICS has gone out of its way to create institutions like the New Development Bank and Contingent Reserve Arrangement that seek to provide some financial economic alternatives to the IMF and the World Bank, both Western dominated institutions.
BRICS has also taken clear positions on international crises. As in the case of Ukraine, BRICS did not join the Western camp of sanctions against Russia and focused on diplomacy rather than exclusion. In the case of the Middle East, BRICS has condemned interventionist foreign policy, advocated for regional solutions, and has had balanced statements on conflict in Syria, Libya, and Gaza. With the inclusion of regional players such as Iran and the UAE, BRICS is attempting to gain influence through multipolar diplomacy which emphasizes cooperation rather than fragmentation.
While BRICS is taking on a growing role, it also is dealing with domestic issues. Different national interests—such as competing interests between China and India or Moscow increasingly identifying with Beijing—will test the coherence of the bloc. Still BRICS is proving to be resilient, and popular, especially among nations dissatisfied with the current manner in which the West controls the world. Even if the future of BRICS is cloudy, its growing significance in the current age represents a historical turning point. Whether it truly emerges as a powerful geopolitical bloc, or if it remains a loose, informal structure—a coalition of states so to speak—BRICS is redrawing the map of the vocabulary of world power, and the Western era is in unequivocal decline.
Courtesy: BRICS.