Ushering in a multipolar order requires a streamlined and coherent political agenda - not unfocused expansion.
The 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, concluded last week with the usual grand declaration of the group's commitments, concerns and aspirations.
Many media headlines, particularly in Western countries, focused on how the summit and BRICS generally, symbolised Moscow's ability to circumvent the fallout of sanctions by turning to the global south. In this way, BRICS is indirectly viewed as a threat to Western efforts to isolate Russia, weaken its power projection capabilities, and end its invasion of Ukraine.
Western governments and analysts often struggle to frame BRICS's evolution beyond a binary, zero-sum narrative in which the group is a key geopolitical challenge to the Western-dominated international order. This interpretation places the forces of democracy and liberal political values in one camp and authoritarian governments in another, with certain developing countries caught in the middle, trying to play one side off the other for their own benefit.
There is some merit to these kinds of headlines. Russia and China are primarily major status-quo powers. Both have been permanent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members since its establishment. Moscow was the 'other pole' in the international order for most of the 20th century, a position Beijing is working towards. And the foreign policy goals of both place them in confrontation with the United States and its Western allies.
So, are these two countries in a position to champion the global south's cause, and why haven't more representative bodies like the Non-Aligned Movement played a more prominent role?
The preoccupation with Russia and China detracts from BRICS's broader, underlying geopolitical project - the need for global south countries to reform and shape the international order's future direction on their own terms.
These include greater representation and agency in global policy- and decision-making bodies and facilitating greater freedom to trade, invest and borrow money outside the Western-dominated financial system. They also include a more just and equitable global power balance that reflects modern realities.
In pursuing these aims, BRICS countries have made steady progress on developing a shared strategic agenda for increased cooperation across various policy domains.
The Kazan summit's 32-page outcomes declaration covers almost everything from reforming the UNSC and Bretton Woods institutions to climate change, biodiversity and conservation. It also covers challenges from global crises, conflicts and terrorism and a suite of economic development, health, education, science and cultural exchange-related issues.
The group's ballooning cooperation agenda may indicate progress. But it could also signify the limits of its diverse members' ability to agree on 'hard' political and security matters central to the core business of reforming the international order.
The expansion of BRICS' substantive agenda and its membership dilutes its primary purpose and reinforces the binary, zero-sum Western narrative its members constantly try to shed.
Tangible, albeit gradual, progress on establishing intra-BRICS institutions and processes such as the Interbank Cooperation Mechanism, the cross-border payment system and its independent reinsurance capacity suggest that BRICS' clout and credibility are growing.
These initiatives could enable members to pursue their international economic objectives without the constraints and transactional costs associated with traditional financial bodies like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Ideally, this would improve their relative positions of global power and influence, and help deliver a more multipolar international order.
In contrast, deepening cooperation on big cat conservation, while important, doesn't serve that purpose. Nor does facilitating youth exchanges on sports and healthy lifestyles or championing a BRICS alliance for folk dance. Including these kinds of initiatives in BRICS' growing agenda detracts from its core objectives.
More worryingly, this suggests that BRICS' diverse constellation of member states is pursuing the path of least resistance - expanding their cooperation in every direction, hoping something eventually sticks.
Instead of doubling down on hard strategic questions about a shared conception of multipolarity, and the steps necessary to reform global governance and security institutions, BRICS seems to be heading for greater expansion and formalisation. And with that come the risks, challenges and institutional dependencies that have led to the stagnation and ineffectiveness plaguing more established international organisations in recent years.
Perhaps the group's core members recognise that they have very different ideas of what constitutes multipolarity. Russia (and China to an extent) envisage much more than global institutional reforms, focusing instead on reimagining international norms and core principles.
These differences are also reflected in BRICS' expanding membership. It seems Russian and Chinese enthusiasm has been curbed by other founding members, who prefer a 'partner country' model for future growth. This contrasts with the full membership offers to Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE in 2023. (Argentina's new political administration declined, and the Saudis have remained non-committal.
Most worrying, however, is BRICS' preoccupation with promoting democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms. There is no doubt that these terms are increasingly politicised and rife with double standards - among developing nations with mixed political systems and traditionally liberal, Western democracies. However, for BRICS to meaningfully champion normative values, its members must at least attempt to commit to common political governance systems in their own countries.
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Having a group of partner nations composed of progressive constitutional democracies and closed repressive autocracies and theocracies attempting to speak with one voice on promoting human rights, democracy and fundamental freedoms is absurd. It reeks of empty political rhetoric at best, and Orwellian double-speak at worst.
This again dilutes BRICS' key messages, undermines its important core business, and detracts from the significant progress being made towards a common strategic agenda.
BRICS primary goal moving forward should be to trim the fat.
A streamlined annual working agenda would divert attention away from its individual member states' contradictions and geopolitical manoeuvring. With a focus on addressing the international system's failures, institutional reform and greater representation for global south countries in policy- and decision-making bodies could be prioritised.
This seems unlikely though, if this year's summit is anything to go by. By following the path of least resistance, BRICS may be setting itself on a course towards increasing and unnecessary substantive bloat, and away from its core business.
Only time will tell if certain members are willing to be more assertive and correct course before they are too far down a path impossible to pivot away from.
Priyal Singh, Senior Researcher, Africa in the World, ISS Pretoria
