Is BRICS Offering an Alternative Model for Global Governance?
来源:eastasiaforum.org;发表于:2024-04-12;人气指数:46
Friday, April
12, 2024
Is BRICS Offering an Alternative
Model for Global Governance?
By Mihaela Papa and Ravi Chaturvedi
After the landmark 15th BRICS Summit in
August 2023, foreign policy analysts raised concerns that BRICS — a grouping of
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa at the time — may be seeking to
construct an alternate world order and upend Western-led global governance.
Before the 2023 BRICS Summit, 40
countries expressed interest in joining the group and 23 formally applied. In
2024, the group welcomed five new members — Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates.
The expansion of BRICS prompts
speculation about the direction of the group’s mobilisation and possible
alternatives to the current global system. If the group manages to reach a
consensus on key policy issues, it might exert significant pressure to change
the system from within, but it could also use its political and economic power
to create a new, potentially parallel system of governance.
Sustaining and expanding a large
coalition to challenge the status quo is strenuous work. Yet the BRICS group
has evolved into a strategic entity dedicated to system-wide reforms. Waning
enthusiasm for US leadership following the global war on terrorism and weakened
trust in the Western-led financial system after the global financial crisis
created fertile grounds for BRICS countries to cooperate on common goals. The
group’s resource investment, multi-level engagement and robust internal
processes have deepened policy coordination.
The BRICS group has consistently argued
for a more multipolar and democratic order, emphasising the imperative for
diversified global leadership and a greater plurality of ideas. This pursuit
will likely result in the reduced representation of Western ideas and leaders
in global decision-making.
Yet the notion of a parallel order
gained prominence as BRICS started institutionalising cooperation. The New
Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, established by
the group with significant investments, have frequently been discussed as
alternatives to Western-dominated institutions such as the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund. The track record of the Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank, a China-led multilateral development bank whose membership has
nearly doubled since its founding in 2016 to over 100 countries, lends credence
to such notions.
In their summit declarations and
diplomatic practice, the BRICS members have consistently demonstrated an
eagerness to reform the Bretton Woods system and remain in the fold. The formal
criteria for becoming a new BRICS member explicitly require the candidate
country to support multilateralism and comprehensive UN reform.
There is also significant convergence
among major powers. The Rising Power Alliances project examined BRICS
cooperation between 2009 and 2021 and how it relates to US policy priorities.
While the project found deepening convergence among BRICS members overall and
in a few areas strategically relevant for the United States, the findings
demonstrated limited divergence between the joint policies of BRICS and those
of the United States on a wide range of issues.
One area where discourses about
alternatives to the current system are most pronounced is these countries’
efforts to move away from the US dollar. Since the group’s establishment,
transitioning to local currencies and de-dollarisation initiatives have been
important issues on the BRICS agenda. This is gaining momentum. BRICS leaders
used the 2023 summit declaration to set a one-year deadline for reporting on
the progress of using local currencies, payment instruments and platforms.
As intra-BRICS trade and commodity
exports from and imports to member countries are often priced in US dollars,
altering these patterns can adversely impact the dollar’s dominance. This is
particularly the case in energy trade given that BRICS now accounts for over a
third of global production and consumption of oil. The de-dollarisation of
these flows can have a significant impact. New efforts to set up an inter-BRICS
grain exchange also merit a close watch given these countries’ market share.
The US dollar has already faced a
backlash in the oil market, with the BRICS countries increasing non-dollar
bilateral trade among them. US officials anticipate a gradual decline in the
dollar’s share of global reserves, but the use of alternative currencies for
now remains limited. Since most of the BRICS economies and the NDB remain
dependent on the dollar, there is little risk to its near- to medium-term
dominance.
BRICS members exist in a symbiotic
relationship with the Western-led global governance system — their development
is contingent upon it, and they seem committed to operating within its
framework. This is partially a result of path dependence and, more importantly,
an indicator of their benefit from the system.
Yet, as BRICS straddles old institutions
and its new ambitions, its institutional trajectory is likely to evolve,
particularly in connection with its original aspiration to be the voice of the
Global South. With great power comes great responsibility and it remains to be
seen whether BRICS can deliver the greatest good for less developed countries,
whose wellbeing it seeks to advance.
The real appeal of BRICS in the Global
South lies less in the group’s top-down rhetoric and more in the new ideas to
advance wellbeing and inclusive economic prosperity from the bottom up and the
middle out. With ‘the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) in peril’ — barely 15 percent of the targets on track and the World Bank
undergoing major reforms, BRICS has an opportunity to step up with development
funding and new initiatives.
For example, the current BRICS members
are laboratories for digital and financial inclusion and innovation with
rapidly evolving digital economies, as evidenced by our Digital Intelligence
Index. Such innovations are extremely relevant in the Global South, where many
of the world’s 1.5 billion people are excluded from the formal financial
system, and many of the billion people living in internet poverty reside. The
group’s efforts have not been proportionate with their shared intent to be
perceived as a champion of the Global South. BRICS has yet to effectively
leverage the digital development expertise of its member states.
It remains to be seen whether the bloc
can design, share and scale concrete policy solutions as the 2024 BRICS
presidency implements the Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2025, with
the digital economy at the forefront of its agenda.
BRICS member states would do well to
harness best practices from within the bloc and corral their digital innovators
in the public and private sectors to advance inclusion among the 40 countries
seeking inspiration and new development opportunities from BRICS and NDB.
Aligning the digital development activities of the NDB more closely with the
World Bank’s acceleration efforts would support the bloc’s relationship with
Bretton Woods institutions and greatly assist the Global South in reaching the
SDGs. Top of Form
The expanded BRICS is poised to persist
in both aligning with the existing system where desirable and advocating for
specific changes when necessary. It will need to reach a consensus on its
priorities and where to deploy its bargaining power. To provide a compelling
alternative to the status quo, it must demonstrate a distinctive vision for the
Global South and expedite development progress. Otherwise, it risks either
becoming the new G77 — an unwieldy political coalition in a deadlocked
multilateral system — or the new anti-globalisation movement, a shrill critic
of globalisation incapable of designing and scaling alternative and
transformational ideas.
Mihaela Papa is Senior Fellow, Rising
Power Alliances project, at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts
University.
Ravi Shankar Chaturvedi is the Managing
Director of Digital Planet and Faculty in Global Business at The Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
East Asia Forum
Source: eastasiaforum.org