ABSTRACT
Recent years have seen impressive growth rates in countries like Brazil, India and the People’s Republic of China, places previously regarded as being peripheral in the international order. Indeed, growth rates have been so impressive that some have argued that the so-called BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China, and as BRICS, perhaps South Africa) are transforming the international order, as new powers emerge to challenge declining US power. Moreover, it is not only the BRICs that have experienced high rates of growth, but other countries in the (former) global South, beneficiaries of a new order of trade taking place between Southern nations. Furthermore, many of these countries quickly recovered from the financial crisis of 2007–08, leading some to suggest that they have in effect ‘decoupled’ from dependence on the West. This is reinforced by China’s growing international influence, and the rise of the Beijing Consensus which challenges the US-centred, neo-liberal Washington Consensus. Even some proponents of market liberalism see this as a possible state capitalist challenge to Western hegemony ( The Economist 2012).
