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Laying the BRICS of a New Global Order: A conceptual scenario
- Africa Institute of South Africa
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1 …no convincingly universalist response exist today to Western ideas of politics and economy, even though these seem increasingly febrile and dangerously unsuitable in large parts of the world…The ‘Washington Consensus’ may lie in tatters, and Beijing’s Communist regime mocks – simply by persisting as long as it has – Western claims of victory in the Cold War and the inevitability of liberal democracy. But the ‘Beijing Consensus’ has even less universal application than its Washington counterpart… Pankaj Mishra, 2012 Why is Europe in this downward spiral of mutual resentment? Because of the basic design flaws of the euro certainly. Also because of mistaken economic policies in some of the ‘peripheral’ countries of the Eurozone and, more recently , in the northern core…Yet, the deepest cause is the mismatch between a single currency area and 17 national polities. The economics are continental; the politics are still national. (italics added) Timothy Garton Ash, March 29, 2013 INTRODUCTION U nderstanding BRICS requires locating this grouping within a global integrationist pattern of transition. Call it post-Westphalian and postWilsonian in an accelerating Age of Global Integration.1 BRICS also symbolises an age of re-emergence; this is after centuries of non-western humiliation at the hands of a Euro-American west wherein simmering wells of outrage, resentment and yearnings for redress run deep.2 The economics of ‘BRICS laying’ is but the tip of this iceberg. It involves a compulsion to Laying the BRICS of a New Global Order: A conceptual scenario Francis A. Kornegay, Jr 2 LAYING THE BRICS OF A NEW GLOBAL ORDER: A CONCEPTUAL SCENARIO catch up and reclaim lost civilisational ground at all cost, even at the cost of civilisation itself! Even at the risk of the planet’s carrying capacity. But integration is unmistakably the leitmotif of this re-emergence and international relations generally. This is characterised by: converging forces of economic interdependence, technological change and informational hyper-connectivity intertwined with humanity’s advanced reintegration; this dimension reflects an expanding but complex demography of population expansion, urbanisation and migratory movements imposing hyperconsumptive impacts on ecosystems, natural and man-made alike. All in all, what is being witnessed is a critical mass of convergence eclipsing the sovereignty of the nation-state as the essential basis of the international system. Only an adaptive evolution from sovereign independence and Wilsonian self-determination toward variations of autonomy interacting with greater governance integration in the global political economy seems likely to guarantee a sustainable future as the 21st century unfolds. BRICS is on the revisionist cutting edge of this transition. As expressions of ‘emerging economies’ reclaiming anew great power status in a global system long dominated by the West, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa constitute fitting points of departure for speculatively navigating the global integrationist scenario; it is one driven by their quest for a transformed strategic landscape. Thus, BRICS, for the purpose of this chapter, is conceived as a convenient tool for conceptualising a much wider and deeper phenomenon of global change. Here, the operative assumption is a trajectory toward long-term systemic economic, political and security integration. Global integration is not conceived as an idealist vision of a desired future. What is attempted is an examination of its implications as reflective of trends constituting multiple geopolitical power struggles over integrationist terms and conditions. Involved here is an interplay of power shifts and adjustments occurring between and among contending state actors and coalitions. They unfold within the context of a global capitalism in crisis, one interacting with strains on the outdated institutional architecture of post-war liberal internationalism. Intimately intertwined in these dynamics are competitive as well as complementary integration initiatives influenced by aspiring great power agendas. As such, they revolve around regional powers. They tend to be motivated by strategic compulsives which will be elaborated on later. Suffice it for now to suggest that these motivating forces entail powerdriven impulses toward optimising a state’s relative positioning within the international system. [44.202.128.177] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 18:04 GMT) 3 LAYING THE BRICS OF A NEW GLOBAL ORDER: A CONCEPTUAL SCENARIO The aim is to expand and consolidate control over the flow of or access to resources, markets and strategic benefits in driving economic growth momentum while enhancing national prestige. Thus, international systemic change becomes pre-conditional for such aspiring state actors. Nevertheless, their freedom of action is inevitably mired in constraints of regional and global interdependence. These powers are not as sovereign as they...