CETRI
The formation of BRICS is one of the main features of globalization in the 21st century. Originally formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the group has become a political and economic platform since the late 2000s. The rise of BRICS reinforced the entrenched imaginary of ‘modernization’ and ‘development’ in the Global South [1], giving rise to some optimism about the ability of these countries to become an alternative to Western hegemony. Nearly two decades later, the BRICS countries continue to meet this ideal as geopolitical tensions have risen and more than 20 countries have applied to join the group. These include the wealthy oil-producing and exporting countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Iran, as well as Ethiopia. This has led some to argue that the BRICS may shift the world’s centre of gravity.
In this essay, I present three ways to analyse the BRICS : a top-down geopolitical perspective, a horizontal view of intra-BRICS relations, and a bottom-up examination of power asymmetries and exploitation among the current BRICS and other countries and regions in the Global South2. Given the complex international conjuncture, geopolitics now pervades our everyday realities, although of course geopolitical analysis alone does not provide the full picture of contemporary global capitalism. Here I introduce other elements that might help to reposition the debate and move beyond the old dichotomies of ‘North–South’ and ‘West–East’.
