The structural power of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in multilateral development finance: A case study of the New Development Bank
| Author | Niall Duggan,Juan Carlos Ladines Azalia,Marek Rewizorski |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211048297 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211048297
International Political Science Review
2022, Vol. 43(4) 495 –511
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/01925121211048297
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The structural power of the
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa) in multilateral
development finance: A case study
of the New Development Bank
Niall Duggan
University College Cork, Ireland; Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Germany
Juan Carlos Ladines Azalia
Universidad del Pacífico, Perú
Marek Rewizorski
University of Gdańsk, Poland
Abstract
The emergence of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as an alternative force to the
West has ignited a debate within the discipline of international political economy on the nature of the
group’s rise. Global governance scholars either debate the role of the BRICS in transforming the world
order (playing the game) or focus on the domestic sources of the BRICS nations’ preference formation (the
position of states within the game). This article goes beyond the game-versus-player debate, by focusing
on the structural power of the BRICS to ‘change the rules of the game’. The article investigates how
the BRICS-created New Development Bank as an alternative circuit for actors to exchange goods in the
area of development finance has been integrated into global governance. The article argues that the New
Development Bank does not grant the BRICS the structural power needed to change the rules and norms
that underpin the game.
Keywords
BRICS, global governance, structural power, emerging markets and developing countries, New
Development Bank
Corresponding author:
Niall Duggan, Department of Government and Politics, University College Cork, 2nd Floor, Block B, O’Rahilly Building,
Cork T12 K8AF, Republic of Ireland.
Email: n.duggan@ucc.ie
1048297IPS0010.1177/01925121211048297International Political Science ReviewDuggan et al.
research-article2021
Special Issue Article
496 International Political Science Review 43(4)
Introduction
The emergence of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) as an alternative
force to the West has ignited a debate within the discipline of international political economy on
the nature of the group’s rise within global governance. The principal focus of this debate has
been on the structural power of the BRICS within global governance to change the institutions of
the system; that is, on the power of the BRICS to influence/change the ‘rules of the game’ – the
formal and informal constraints that shape human interaction (North, 1990: 3). We argue that
although the National Development Bank (NDB) can be understood as a new alternative to west-
ern global governance institutions, it offers limited structural power and is not sufficient to cause
foundational changes in the rules and norms that underpin the game. The increasing role of the
BRICS as a group within global governance marks a substantial shift in our understanding of that
system (Duggan et al., 2021). Therefore, the redistribution of power within global governance,
without a change in the rules of the game, may see the BRICS simply support western values and
norms. Thus, a critical question is how the BRICS are integrating their institutions into global
governance.
To answer this question, we need to examine whether the BRICS, as a group of non-establish-
ment powers rather than individual states, are creating innovative change in the structure of global
governance, or whether they are simply giving greater legitimacy to the current structure. This
requires the conceptualisation of structural power to reflect the ‘area of social interactions’, where
both western and non-western actors trade goods and articulate their needs. This application of
structural power will show how the BRICS, by using exit-voice pressure through ‘alternative cir-
cuits’ such as the NDB, can shape structures in global governance. This article will analyse the
initial strategy presented by the NDB as a single case study. The BRICS are a political grouping,
while the NDB is a multilateral institution, but it is the NDB as a source of structural power for the
BRICS that will be examined in this article. The remainder of this article is divided into five main
sections: a literature review of power analyses of the BRICS, an outline of a new structural power
approach framework, a presentation of the NDB case study, a debate on structural power in the
analysis of the NDB and finally a position on the innovative nature of the BRICS in global govern-
ance. A triangulate approach to the data collected is used to support the analysis. This includes
BRICS and NDB official statements and policy papers, and 12 semi-structured elite interviews
from officials in the banks listed in Table 1. This approach allows for a comprehensive understand-
ing of the structural power of the BRICS.
A new game or a new player?
The term ‘global governance’ can be understood as the creation of rules and norms that allow for
collective action at a global scale. The literature on the BRICS within global governance can be
attributed to two important clusters of research. One discusses the role of the BRICS in transform-
ing the world order (Larionova and Shelepov, 2021, this issue; Van Noort, 2019). This cluster
argues that, through interaction, the BRICS members have developed layers of collective identity
as emerging powers, and examines how this identity affects the role of the BRICS in global gov-
ernance (Mielniczuk, 2013; Thakur, 2014).
This cluster also argues that the BRICS operate on an international level within a rules-based
framework – that is, global governance – whereby states seek to achieve collective action through
a common understanding of a set of rules. Rather than focusing on which states are dominant
nations within the international hierarchy or on the international dynamics that drive the growth
in power of individual states, this group focuses on how the BRICS are changing the rules and
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