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16. Laying the BRICS of a New World Order: Brazil’s Economic Stake in BRICS
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295 CHAPTER 16 Laying the BRICS of a New World Order: Brazil’s Economic Stake in BRICS Adriana Erthal Abdenur INTRODUCTION L everaging two decades of sustained economic growth and substantial social improvements, Brazil has significantly boosted its role in the international arena, diversifying its bilateral agreements and ramping up participation in several multi-lateral organisations and groupings. In addition to expanding its influence regionally and globally, Brazil has sought to expand its economic opportunities abroad. Since 2009, the BRIC forum (expanded to BRICS with the 2011 addition of South Africa) has offered Brazil a series of opportunities (as well as challenges) to advance key points within its economic foreign policy agenda by coordinating positions with other fast-growing emerging economies. This chapter analyses Brazil’s membership in the BRICS in terms of three broad economic foreign policy objectives: strengthening Brazil’s access to markets and capital abroad so as to consolidate its own socio-economic development; boosting the call for greater participation of developing countries in the global governance system, including within the institutions that regulate trade and finance; and consolidating Brazil’s position as a key negotiator of economic issues at a global scale. Understanding Brazil’s economic stake in the BRICS requires grasping how the country’s economic foreign policy has changed over the past twenty years, especially the role of economic multi-lateralism. Brazil’s participation in institutions such as the GATT and WTO, as well as less formal groupings such as IBSA, shaped the country’s key economic interests and strategies abroad and laid the foundation for its membership in the BRICS. 296 CHAPTER 16 THE CONTEXT The post-Cold War international system, long dominated by the United States (US) and other advanced industrialised countries, is arguably giving way to a more multipolar configuration. The economic crisis that began in the US subprime mortgage market in 2008 has weakened the economic standing of many industrialised countries, opening up new opportunities for key emerging countries, including the BRICS.1 This shift is not merely a result of the growth of emerging economies it is also a consequence of the increasingly active role that certain developing countries have been taking in the international arena.2 The increased activism by developing countries still takes place in a system dominated by states whose resources remain considerable. Thus the foreign policy options available to emerging powers, while broader than before, are still constrained by the dominance of the post-Cold War powers, especially the US. These limitations lead emerging powers to rely heavily on soft balancing, or non-military, institutional strategies such as multilateralism .3 Soft balancing allows emerging powers to limit the power of the strongest states by increasing the cost of unilateral action for the stronger state (particularly in the sense of retaliation) while opening up space for their own manoeuvres.4 The recent proliferation of coalitions and informal alliances – including the G20, IBSA, and BRICS – reflects this soft balancing approach. As a developing country that has become a far more active international player, Brazil may be seen as pursuing a ‘middle power strategy’ of coalition-building and soft balancing.5 Brazil’s sheer size – it is the largest economy in South America and the sixth largest in the world by nominal GDP, with well-developed agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and service sectors – gives it considerable leverage in its coalition-building strategies. And Brazil’s growth over the past twenty years has allowed it to pursue a strategy of complex coalition-building with other regional powers in a bid to increase its ‘systemic impact.’ Yet Brazilian foreign policy is not driven exclusively by concerns with the global balance of power; if anything, it has been far more focused on more identifying opportunities abroad that may contribute to its domestic socioeconomic development. Economic development remains the cornerstone of Brazilian foreign policy. Trade and investment are not only key objects of Brazil’s foreign relations; they are also tools for advancing other – not necessarily economic – ambitions within Brazil’s soft balancing strategy. Over the past fifteen years, Brazil has worked to both diversify the country’s economic opportunities abroad and increase its strategic flexibility via bilateral as well as multi-lateral agreements. Brazil’s membership in the BRICS offers [44.192.47.250] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:14 GMT) 297 LAYING THE BRICS OF A NEW WORLD ORDER: BRAZIL’S ECONOMIC STAKE IN BRICS it both the opportunity to expand access to other markets and increased leverage in negotiations...