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Roundtable: Rising Powers and the International Order
*. Research for this article was supported by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie FP7 Initial Training Network on Power and Region in a Multipolar World. See www.primo-itn.eu.
People like simple stories and clear narratives. In the early years of the twenty-first century, the narrative of "emerging powers" and "rising powers" seemed to provide a clear and powerful picture of how international relations and global politics were changing. Indeed, there was an upsurge of policy and academic debate about the growing importance of non-Western regions and their leading states--notably Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, the so-called BRICS--for international politics and the world economy. The story suggested that power was diffusing away from the United States and the West; that the emerging powers were becoming far more consequential actors, both globally and within "their" regions; and that, to remain effective and legitimate, global governance institutions needed to be reformed in order to accommodate their rise.
The main elements of this "rise" narrative are by now well known. One of the most visible signs of change was increased diplomatic activism by large developing countries: coalitional politics within the World Trade Organization (WTO) following the Cancun Summit in 2003; the formation of the IBSA (India, Brazil, and South Africa) Dialogue Forum in June 2003; the activities of the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) countries at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in 2009; and the formation, diplomatic consolidation, and gradual institutionalization of the BRICS themselves. The emerging powers were seen to be pursuing a dual-track strategy. If one side of diplomatic activism was to seek greater influence and greater voice within existing institutions (as with the desire of Brazil and India to secure permanent membership on the UN Security Council), the other concerned the creation of alternative forms of cooperation, or what can be seen as "exit options," such as the BRICS New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), or China's One Belt, One Road initiative.
On their own, these events might have attracted only passing attention. To many, however, they reflected deeper structural changes that were taking place in the global economy and in the dynamics of global capitalism. The BRICS were important not just because of their...