ABSTRACT
What have been the implications of the BRICS’ involvement in Africa for the multipolarization of world politics in a post-hegemonic direction? What is the geopolitical and economic importance of the BRICS’ engagement in Africa? What are the prospects and contradictions of the BRICS’ rise in the African continent? My overall argument is that the BRICS’ engagement with the African continent is a major contributor to the multipolarization of world politics in a post-hegemonic direction. Geopolitical and economic dynamics are the most pronounced aspects of the BRICS’ cooperation in Africa, the driving force of which has mainly derived from the quest for natural resources, the energy sector, and arms trade. Moreover, BRICS members provide African countries with ample development opportunities by imposing a softer and more flexible conditionality than the Global North. They have been making deliberate efforts to shift the mainstream development discourse from the verticalism of the Global North’s “development assistance” to the horizontalism of “development cooperation”, with close attention to the demands of African countries. Infrastructural and social-development cooperation is favored over structural adjustment policies and conditional loans. As such, BRICS’ increasing involvement in Africa is constraining US hegemony, while simultaneously expanding Africa’s foreign policy options and prospects for development. In practice, however, the contradictory character of post-hegemony makes itself felt in the peaceful competition of BRICS countries in the African continent and the adverse effects of their involvement, such as increased dependency on resource extractivism and arms trade.
