BRICS and the Privileging of Informality in Global Governance
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12077 |
| Author | Asif B. Farooq,Andrew F. Cooper |
| Published date | 01 November 2013 |
| Date | 01 November 2013 |
BRICS and the Privileging of Informality in
Global Governance
Andrew F. Cooper and Asif B. Farooq
University of Waterloo
Abstract
The staging of the Fifth BRICS summit on 26–27 March 2013 consolidated the impression of nuanced club dynamics.
Despite considerable differences in strategic perspectives, the BRICS members have been successful in amplifying con-
verging interests while avoiding friction from disagreement by downplaying issues on which there is geopolitical diver-
gence and policy competition. Their ‘agency’of cooperation within BRICS is founded on an informal and loose
operational style, which has facilitated organizational maintenance. The approach of accenting institutional flexibility is
demonstrated by content analysis of BRICS declarations, interviews and media releases, which reveal how the member-
ship of this forum have given greater attention to areas in which they share common interests, and made progress
working towards them, while refraining from addressing issues in which there are serious underlying tensions.
The staging of the Fifth BRICS summit on 26–27 March
2013 in Durban, South Africa, reinforced the need for clo-
ser scrutiny of the nature and impact of this forum. In
format, the durability of this summit institution is a sign
of the degree to which informality has become increas-
ingly privileged in the architecture of global governance
(Pentilla, 2009). Although credit for the name of the
forum is correctly given to Goldman Sachs (Wilson and
Purushothaman, 2003; O’Neill, 2001; Pentilla, 2009), the
establishment of the BRICS as a practical enterprise
emerged out of connections (and disconnects) with a
wider shift towards loose plurilateral mechanisms,
located in both the dynamics of the G8 and G20. Marked
by greater flexibility and reduced transaction costs, all of
these forums overlap and compete with each other. How
this mix of institutional processes will play out remains
unclear. It can at one extreme be interpreted as a revi-
sionist-cum-transformative challenge to the prevailing
global (dis)order. Less dramatically and arguably far more
accurately, the BRICS can be interpreted as part of a
hedging approach that allows its members, emerging
powers of the global South, some flexibility in strategic
options. It can also be analyzed in a more nuanced tacti-
cal fashion as a lobby group that attempts to leverage
the weight of the ‘rising’big powers (China, India and
Brazil) through collective action.
What is clear is that the BRICS must be taken seriously
as a phenomenon, in that the summit is illustrative of a
‘new-found agency’of emerging countries within the
international system (Alexandroff and Cooper, 2010). The
growing economic self-confidence of the BRICS finds
expression increasingly in political assertiveness, explicitly
revealed in the declaratory messages of global transition
that underlies the group’s policy priorities. Brazilian Presi-
dent Lula da Silva, host of the April 2010 summit,
declared grandly that ‘a new global economic geography
has been born’(Escobar, 2010; Cooper, 2011). In fact, the
BRICS have come a long way since its establishment as
an informal club in 2009. President Hu Jintao noted, ‘it
has not been long since we launched BRICS cooperation,
but within just a few years, we have put in place a mul-
titiered and wide-ranging cooperation structure and
delivered real benefits to our people. BRICS cooperation
now stands at a new starting point’(Mission of the
People’s Republic of China in the European Union, 2012).
The economic and social dynamism in the BRICS coun-
tries, combined with their diplomatic and political ascen-
dancy, underpins the shift in the global balance of
power and triggered changes in the global order. Master-
ing the club-like diplomacy through the formation of
BRICS, the members have found a mode of institutional-
ism that can help reinforce their agenda in the global
forums but only when they can avoid frictions on mutu-
ally contesting issues. This article argues that despite
serious competing strategic perspectives, the BRICS
members have been able to overcome intra-BRICS con-
flict by downplaying the contentious issues while ampli-
fying the areas on which they share common objectives.
The endurance and strength of the BRICS group after 5
years of existence, therefore, rest on the informal club
dynamics that have facilitated its organizational mainte-
nance. The operational style of the forum gives greater
attention to areas in which there are shared common
interests and endeavors to make progress on them, while
©2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2013) 4:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12077
Global Policy Volume 4 . Issue 4 . November 2013
428
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