BRICS and Global Governance

John Kirton, Marina Larionova, John Kirton, Marina Larionova

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781472480767
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317172567
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The past few decades have witnessed the development of an increasingly globalised and multipolar world order, in which the demand for multilateralism becomes ever more pronounced. The BRICS group established in 2009, has evolved into a plurilateral summit institution recognized both by sceptics and proponents as a major participant in the international system.

Addressing the BRICS's role in global governance, this book critically examines the club's birth and evolution, mechanisms of inter-BRICS cooperation, its agenda priorities, BRICS countries' interests, decisions made by members, their collective and individual compliance with the agreed commitments, and the patterns of BRICS engagement with other international institutions. This volume advances the current state of knowledge on global governance architecture, the BRICS role in this system, and the benefits it has provided and can provide for world order.

This book will interest scholars and graduate students who are researching the rise and role of emerging powers, global governance, China and India's approach to global order and relationship with the United States, Great Power politics, democratization as a foreign policy strategy, realist theory-building and hegemonic transitions, and the (crisis of) liberal world order.

Part I
Introduction

1 The rise of new institutions

Marina Larionova

Introduction: the challenges and responses

The past decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the world. The bipolar world order has vanished, the unipolar period has passed and a new multipolar world order is emerging.

In this “unraveling” globalized world, geopolitical, economic, environmental, societal and technological challenges are tightly interconnected (Haass 2014). They “transcend borders and spheres of influence and require stakeholders to work together, yet these risks also threaten to undermine the trust and collaboration needed to adapt to the challenges of the new global context” (World Economic Forum 2015). The challenges and their perceptions have been driving shifts in international cooperation. One major trend is “the proliferation and diversification of actors, forums, and their arrangements to address global challenges,” leading to a presumed fragmentation of global governance (Egel 2015, 4–5). However, fragmentation is also often perceived positively as “contested multilateralism,” because institutional diversity can produce better outcomes than “stalled cooperation through existing venues” struggling to respond to persisting and emerging challenges (Egel 2015, 5).

With multipolarity rising as countries outside the old core become economically more powerful, and clusters of countries gravitate to form new poles, the demand for multilateralism becomes more pronounced (Wade 2011). Multilateralism can be defined simply as the practice of coordinating policies in groups of states through ad hoc arrangements or institutions (Keohane 1990). Different modes of multilateralism and participation in coordinating mechanisms exist: the entry of new states into apex governing forums, the increased voting power of emerging states in international organizations, and new agreements and institutions established to coordinate and contribute to regional or global governance.

In spite of an increasing number of international actors, including nonstate actors, both formal and informal organizations as well as governments remain key players. Responsibility for ensuring that this emerging multipolar world remains stable and contributes to global well-being rests with the states—both the established powers and the rising centres of power—as well as with the principals of global governance and their agents—international institutions, global and regional, multilateral and plurilateral.

The emergence of informal multilateral institutions claiming a major role in defining the global governance agenda has created alternatives for providing common goods. These new summit institutions—led by the Group of Seven/Eight (G7/8) and, more recently, the Group of 20 (G20) and the BRICS group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—are at the centre of the galaxy of global governance institutions.

These groupings are often referred to as clubs, an arrangement that does not imply a common ideological commitment of its members, whose positions can differ on policy and economic ideas (Reay 2012). Club mechanisms are considered flexible, noninstitutionalized intergovernmental platforms for engagement (Drezner 2007). Other experts define a club as a group with clear rules, concrete and exclusive privileges for members, and a high degree of protection from external pressure.

These informal summit institutions are characterized by limited membership, relatively low bureaucracy and reliance on open, flexible and voluntary approaches. Regular meetings of heads of state and government who engage on a wide range of international, regional and domestic politics stand at the pinnacle of such international arrangements, which involve many actors operating according to established procedures on two levels: domestic and international. Commitments contained in their collectively agreed documents are not legally binding, but implementation is stimulated by peer pressure. As with any multilateral institution, they are based on the principles of generalized reciprocity, in which states make common undertakings and agree to act cooperatively, irrespective of their degree of institutionalization (Hampson and Heinbecker 2011, 300).

Most importantly, within informal summit institutions, states do not delegate certain levels of authority to international bureaucrats within intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), so there is no delegating relationship between the states and the IGOs in which states are principals and the IGOs are agents. Hence the states retain their sovereign control over their institution’s design and agenda.

These new informal groupings set their own agenda. They also engage with established international organizations to steer global governance processes. Those formal organizations have “the UN system as the core of the organized multilateral order” (Thakur et al. 2014, 1). They need reform and cannot respond on their own to the interconnected persisting and arising challenges. Interinstitutional cooperative mechanisms are being transformed, and new models of cooperation are being established.

A trend in the informal groupings leadership is evident in certain areas. On financial regulation, the G20 has taken up the initiative for decision making since its first summit in Washington in 2008, issuing mandates for further elaboration and implementation to relevant international organizations. The BRICS has adopted a different approach, characteristic of the G7 in its early years of performance, transmitting signals to international organizations, treating the issues within the summit-based apparatus and establishing its own institutions, such as the New Development Bank (NDB) (on the G7 see Putnam and Bayne 1987, 156–57).

If common sense is any guide, global governance would gain effectiveness from a combination of the catalyst, core-group and parallel-treatment approaches exercised by summit institutions: influencing international organizations’ changes through endorsement or stimulus, or compelling them to reform; setting a new direction by taking a lead that the other organizations would follow; and creating the informal institutions’ own mechanisms. The first two approaches—especially in relation to the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and relevant regional organizations—would undoubtedly enhance the resilience, legitimacy and effectiveness of the global governance architecture. The parallel treatment, however, could initially give rise to tensions and concerns about competition or rivalry, but fills a gap in governance and serves the needs of members and other interested stakeholders, with the new arrangements acquiring their own actorness and a place in the system of global governance.

Analytical paradigm

Rational choice institutionalism can best explain not only the origins of the summit institutions, but also their existence and evolution. In its account of the institutional origins, rational choice institutionalism turns “primarily on the functions that these institutions perform and the benefits they provide” (Hall and Taylor 1996, 952). The rationalist fundamental position aptly holds that institutions are created by states because the states see benefits accrue to them from the functions performed by the institutions (Rosamond 2000, 116).

The calculus approach fits the analysis of summit institutions bringing together states from a wide range of civilizations, continents and economic development. Its distinctive features clearly apply to the analysis of the origin of the BRICS. First, the member states act strategically to maximize the attainment of their priorities. Second, summitry presents an arrangement where strategic interaction among leaders plays a major role in determining political outcomes. Third, according to Peter Hall and Rosemary Taylor (1996), rational choice institutionalism offers the greatest analytical leverage to settings where consensus among actors accustomed to strategic action and of roughly equal standing is necessary to secure institutional changes—the features typical of summitry institutions. Fourth, the institutions are created by a voluntary agreement among the leaders of the respective countries to perform concrete functions and missions (Hall and Taylor 1996). Thus, the leaders designated the G20 to be the premier forum for their international economic cooperation (G20 2009, para. 19). BRICS members came together to establish a platform for dialogue and cooperation to promote peace, security and development in a multipolar, interdependent and increasingly complex, globalizing world, on the basis of universally recognized norms of international law and multilateral decision making (BRICS 2012, paras. 3–4).

Any theory has its strengths and weaknesses, however, and the rational choice limitations do not conscribe the analysis in this book. First, the book relies on a highly functionalist approach to explore BRICS performance on the global governance functions of deliberation, direction setting, decision making, delivery and development of global governance. Deliberation is understood as face-to-face discussions of the members encoded in their collectively issued communiqués. Direction setting is defined as collective affirmation of shared principles, norms and prescriptions. Decision making is regarded as credible, clear, collective commitments with sufficient precision, obligation and delegation. Delivery is understood as stated compliance with collective decisions. The development of global governance is perceived as the capability of the BRICS to use other international institutions and create its own institutions as global governance mechanisms (Kirton 2013, 37–39).

Second, given that the founders’ intentions may not be fully understood or attained and that the founders themselves may not fully perceive the future effects of the institutions they establish or control, the analysis in Part II tracks the evolution and contribution of the BRICS to global governance across a wide range of policy areas. This analysis is based on the assumption that its agenda and the commitments its leaders make nevertheless reflect its intentions, interests and priorities, which are changing in response to the external and internal dynamics. Part III reviews the BRICS contribution to the global finance and economic architecture and on traditional and nontraditional security issues, science, technology and innovation. Part IV explores the BRICS members’ interests and priorities that shape the cooperation agenda.

Third, the actors voluntarily create an institution to realize certain functions they value in a world already crowded by other organizations. In order to maximize benefits from the new arrangement, the founders may choose to engage with existing institutions in ways they regard most efficient for attaining their goals. Those modes of BRICS engagement with the other international organizations reflected in the leaders’ discourse should indicate the group’s place and role in the global governance architecture, as imputed at its launch and through its subsequent evolution. This assumption is tested by Andrey Shelepov in Chapter 3 on “BRICS Engagement with International Institutions for Better Governance” and Maria Raquel Freire in Chapter 4 on “Political Dynamics within the BRICS in the Context of Multilayered Global Governance.”

Why the BRICS?

This book deals directly with one of the most visible recent cases of summitry institutions, namely the BRICS, which is gaining importance and attention both regionally and globally but which, as an international actor, remains largely unexplored by scholars.

The BRIC group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which was hosted by Russia for its first stand-alone leaders’ meeting at Yekaterinburg in Russia on June 16, 2009, has evolved into a plurilateral summit institution recognized both by skeptics and by proponents as a major participant in the international system. Ever since, the forum has grown institutionally, developed into the BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa, expanded its agenda and the intensity of interaction among its members, and demonstrated its capacity to deliver on a wide range of decisions. Among the examples are the NDB, the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), the Cooperation Agreement on Innovation and the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation among BRICS Export Credit Insurance Agencies.

Skeptics, however, still regard BRICS as a loose group operating in opposition to western states, unable to articulate a shared alternative agenda, and struggling to secure solidarity among its members and its future as a bloc (Egel 2015, 3). Some go as far as to assert that

no idea has done more to muddle thinking about the global economy than that of the BRICs. Other than being the largest economies in their respective regions, the big four emerging markets never had much in common. They generate growth in different and often competing ways — Brazil and Russia, for example, are major energy producers that benefit from high energy prices, whereas India, as a major energy consumer, suffers from them. Except in highly unusual circumstances, such as those of the last decade, they are unlikely to grow in unison. China apart, they have limited trade ties with one another, and they have few political or foreign policy interests in common.

(Sharma 2012, 4)

In spite of the critique, the BRICS is firmly established as an international actor and prominent for at least three reasons: first, the sheer size of its members’ combined population and their share of global gross domestic product; second, the fact that all its members are regional powers; and, third, the BRICS operates across at least five regions. So, what are the key features of BRICS actorness?

Nature of the grouping

The BRICS runs counter to the general trend among the progeny of IGOs observed since 1950, accounting for the majority of them (Johnson 2014, 8). As an informal multilateral institution, it is an example of intergovernmental cooperation in which states retain their monopoly over the establishment and evolution of a new actor. There is no agent, no delegation of authority to international bureaucracy and no principal-agent relationship.

The institutional design and agenda setting remain the prerogative of the BRICS leaders, the national governments and their bureaucrats. International bureaucrats or a secretariat do not affect the content or flow of information, which is similar to the G7. To some extent, it is also similar to the G20, although avoiding the influence of international bureaucracies is more difficult given the highly technical nature of many of the issues addressed by the G20 and the need for expertise from relevant international organizations. Thus, the nature of the BRICS permits it to avoid being influenced by international bureaucrats. However, it is not immune to national bureaucracy entrepreneurship and is certainly not free from national interests.

Given its nature, the BRICS is not as far removed from the attention and control of the general public as traditional IGOs are and cannot as easily avoid the democratic deficit. As with other exclusive clubs, the BRICS is often accused of being illegitimate and ineffective, but the increasing involvement of business, experts and, recently, non-governmental organizations from the five members is a good indication of their awareness of their responsibility to the public.

Mission

At the heart of the BRICS mission is support for a multipolar, equitable and democratic world order, based on international law, equality, mutual respect, cooperation, coordinated action and collective decision making of all states. The group strives to improve the global governance system and ensure the representation of developing countries in international institutions, which goes hand in hand with its commitment to take more responsibility for delivering global public goods through existing institutions or, if needed, through a parallel governance system. The NDB is the most vivid example of such a parallel system. Moreover, the BRICS also sees its mission as finding a new model of socioeconomic development.

Values

BRICS members have repeatedly defended their values. Those values include multilateralism; the indivisible nature of security; democracy in international relations; inclusive decision making based on universally recognized norms of international law; a comprehensive, concerted and determined approach to establishing sustainable peace based on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equity and cooperation; and the inadmissibility of unilateral military interventions and economic sanctions.

An established and expanding agenda

The BRICS agenda reflects the group’s mission and values. An increasing share of social issues on the agenda indicates the commitment to deliver public goods for the members’ own citizens and those other countries. Based on the documents released by the leaders at their summits, the issues of health (9.78 percent), development (7.22 percent), and education, science and innovation (6.15 percent) have higher shares of the discourse than do political (5.60 percent) and security (3.40 percent) issues, even though the BRICS is often labelled a political gathering. However, the economy (23 percent), finance (11 percent) and trade (17.68 percent) remain the top three priorities. This pattern reflects the members’ shared objective to ensure sustainable and inclusive growth.

Environmental protection, renewable energy, and clean and efficient energy technologies have been on the agenda since the first summit; their share in the documents is not high, but remains stable. With the launch of the energy ministers’ dialogue in 2015, cooperation on these policy areas will likely expand. Similarly, with the sta...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• List of contributors
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Abbreviations and acronyms
• PART I Introduction
• PART II The evolving institutional identity of the BRICS
• PART III The BRICS contribution to global governance
• PART IV BRICS interests and priorities for cooperation
• PART V Conclusion
• Index