ABSTRACT
How does the BRICS contribute to the multipolarization of world politics? What are the strategic implications of the BRICS for South–South cooperation and the erosion of US global hegemony? To what extent has the BRICS’ cooperation been developing, and in what direction is it evolving? What are some of the key limitations and challenges of the BRICS’ cooperation? In the first section of this chapter, I offer a geopolitical-economic assessment of the multipolarization of global politics in six key areas. US hegemony is assessed in comparison with its main contenders in the Global South, with reference to economic capacity, military power, territorial domination, population strength, institutional capacity, and cultural influence. The second and final section places this comparative picture in the historical and political context in which individual BRICS countries (i.e. the main contenders to US hegemony) have emerged as global powers to contribute to the multipolarization of global politics since the 2000s. My main argument is that global politics is undergoing a multipolarization process, the prospects of which remain uncertain due to the post-hegemonic character of the BRICS challenge to US hegemony. Besides the delayed erosion of US hegemony and strategic weaknesses of Southern contenders, I also attribute post-hegemony and the concomitant uncertainty in multipolarization to the fact that BRICS countries are pursuing a dual strategy of transforming the hegemonic order from within, while also attempting to create new international mechanisms to bypass US-led hegemonic institutions in the long run.
