Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to examine the emergence of BRICS from their 'arranged marriage' (Anand et al, 2021) to today's challenges of a post-pandemic context and the opportunities and challenges to their potential contribution to 'build back better'.

Paper long abstract:

Twenty years on since being identified as BRICs by O'Neil (2001), the 'arranged marriage' (Anand et al, 2021) of the five nations has withstood some significant tests of time including the sanctions against Russia, the corruption scandals in Brazil and South Africa and heightened state of alert due to border disputes between China and India in the Himalayan border regions. The Covid-19 pandemic has presented significant challenges for these nations but also opportunities for vaccine diplomacy. The aim of this paper is to contextualise the relationships of BRICS and explore and conjecture potential pathways in the next phase of their relationship with one another and more importantly between individual BRICS members and the countries of the Global South. We have a number of questions to consider. Can we conjecture a transformation of the BRICS to become BRICS2.0 or would it be business as usual? Would BRICS make or break further co-operation to deliver the Paris 2015 Climate deal? Beyond vaccine diplomacy of the short term, what should BRICS do differently to have a significant impact on 'building back better'? Given the G7 and Biden presidency's focus on democracies, are BRICS likely to undergo a split as IBSA (democracies) and R-C (the non-democracies) or would the (presently) 'all male' (metaphorically chest thumping) 'strong men club' likely to recruit other similar members such as Turkey into the group? What are the implications of the next phase of BRICS for development co-operation and the future of South-South co-operation? Drawing upon the conceptual work of North et al (2009 and 2013) and Nye (2015), the paper identifies some potential responses to these questions and also issues for further consideration.

References:

Anand PB, Fennell S, Comim F (ed) (2021) Handbook of BRICS and Emerging economies, New York: OUP

North D et al (2009) Violence and social orders: a conceptual framework, CUP.

North et al (2013) In the shadow of violence: politics, economics and the problems of development, CUP.

Nye J (2015) Is the American century over?, Political Science Quarterly, 130/3:393-400.

O'Neill J (2001) Building better global economic BRICs, Global economics paper 66, New York: Goldman Sachs.