ABSTRACT

Exploring to what extent the BRICS group is a significant actor challenging the global order, this book focuses on the degree and consequence of their emergence and explores how important cooperation is to individual BRICS members’ foreign policy strategies and potential relevance as leaders in regional and global governance.

The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) have come to play an important role on the global political scene. As a group, and as individual countries, they have taken initiatives to establish new institutions, and have engaged in yearly summits that coordinate their voice and focus on intra-BRICS cooperation. In this sense, the BRICS may be seen as a "balancing coalition", and often the main opposing force to Western powers. Looking at the debate around the role of the BRICS as an actor, expert contributors also explore the international political economy (IPE) of individual BRICS countries as systemically important countries with highly asymmetrical individual power capacities.

The comprehensive theoretical and empirical coverage of this timely volume will be especially useful to students, researchers and professionals interested in ongoing academic debates around the IPE of emerging powers, and those researching global governance and globalization.

chapter 1|17 pages

The international political economy of the BRICS in a changing world order

Attitudes and actualities

chapter 3|20 pages

Theorizing the BRICS

Does the BRICS challenge the current global order?

chapter 6|23 pages

China’s dual position in the capitalist world order

A dual complexity of hegemony and counter-hegemony

chapter 7|17 pages

Brazil as an emerging power

The impact of international and internal deteriorational effect on the BRICS

chapter 8|15 pages

Brazil in the BRICS after ten years

Past, present, and near future perspectives

chapter 9|15 pages

Russia and the BRICS

On the actual performance of a 21st century great power concert

chapter 11|17 pages

Geographies of hope and exploitation

South Africa, Africa rising, and the global turn to the BRICS