DOCSLIB.ORG

Impacts of Hegemonic Decline in Southeast Asia: the Case of ASEAN Cooperation Amidst an Outpaced U.S

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Impacts of Hegemonic Decline in Southeast Asia: the Case of ASEAN Cooperation Amidst an Outpaced U.S Impacts of Hegemonic Decline in Southeast Asia: The Case of ASEAN cooperation amidst an outpaced U.S. Foreign Policy Anthony T. Reyes POS 4970, Senior Thesis Honors Thesis Candidate Spring 2016 Professor Selden University of Florida Reyes INTRODUCTION I first had the opportunity to visit the Philippines at the age of nine for my grandfather’s funeral. While I was largely oblivious to the deep cultural, familial, and moral obligation I had to be there I did recognize early on that I was no longer in the United States. I vividly remember arriving in Cebu on a rainy day and seeing the streets filled with families coming out of their makeshift shelters to bathe in the rainwater and bottling it for future consumption. My favorite place to visit had always been the local shopping mall where only upper-class Filipinos and foreigners could enter, and where store employees largely outnumbered visiting shoppers. To a younger and more innocent version of myself, the favoritism was a result of it feeling comfortable and familiar to my home stateside. On my most recent visit there, however, the experience was much more different. There were now three shopping centers within a ten-mile radius, and they were crowded. Filled with individuals regardless of income level or economic stratum, I even lost my traveling companion in the sea of people on a busy Saturday morning. When I would arrive at my grandmother’s home, I noticed my cousins were playing with the same Nintendo gaming console I was; with even newer games. This small personal anecdote is used to illustrate the growth of the Southeast Asian sub-region. Economic growth in the region has occurred at unprecedented levels, even impacting my own family there. Individuals each day are increasingly escaping the cycle of poverty, transforming into global-minded consumers and responsible stakeholders in the world. While the growth of Southeast Asia’s relevance and influence on the international stage is undeniable and unlikely to end abruptly, what remains 2 Reyes uncertain is its future. More specifically, the future of how the sub-region relates to the rest of the world is uncertain and needs to be examined. The anecdote captures another trend aside from the remarkable progress occurring in the Southeast Asian domestic condition. Equally as important, it captures the relative progress globally that the region has made towards closing the gap between a developing and developed region. Something as simple as video games can be demonstrative as to how the usual reliance and envy of the developing world upon the United States has decreased. This has allowed international observers to portend that these countries amongst one another are playing an increasingly significant role in the world. While moderating a panel with Southeast Asian business and governmental leaders at the 2014 Annual World Economic Forum, political commentator Fareed Zakaria was right to notice: “If you look at international relations, and you say to yourself: when was the last time you saw a group of countries that were close to one another growing very fast? All growing at three, four, five percent. That had different kinds of political regimes. That had historical problems with one another. That had histories of conflict with one another. Some unresolved border issues or sovereignty issues. But very vigorous economic growth. That place would have been Europe in the nineteenth century. And what you had was 150 years of war.” (World Economic Forum, 2014) Noteworthy caveats to this are that Southeast Asia is decidedly distinct from Europe, the qualities of the world today are fundamentally different from those which characterized the history of the nineteenth century, and the international context in which the sub region is developing in is different as well. But the realization of similar shifts, integrating behaviors, and trends of growth provide an insight into a tension present in the region: higher rewards breed higher risks. As the sub region’s countries continue to prosper alongside one another, realist theory would crudely argue that these countries will follow history and conflict with one another. Growth will translate into having more 3 Reyes to lose, establishing a sense of insecurity and self-driven interests that run diametrically opposed to one another. While the anarchy of realpolitik still shapes state decision making in many ways, an analysis of the present-day Southeast Asian condition by this realist approach forecasts a pessimistic and conflict-riddled future (Keohane, 2005, 67). The liberal institutionalist counter to this gloomy picture understands international institutions, which regional organizations are a subset of, as a valuable tool which increases the likelihood of cooperation and shifts the focus beyond state survival and towards state welfare (Kupchan and Kupchan, 1995). The benefits of information includes the promotion of trust and confidence, lowering transaction costs, issue linkage, and the reduction of uncertainty (Keohane and Martin, 1995). Mentioning these perspectives is noteworthy in understanding how large scale power conflict has not happened between ASEAN states in the twentieth century and is unlikely to occur in the twenty-first century. The primary reason for this lack of conflict is found in analyses of how these Southeast Asian nations relate to one another; such as through ASEAN. The reasoning also factors into the narratives of American relative decline in the region alongside growth of Southeast Asia, and how the two may be related. The countries in the region: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, and Thailand; are ethnically diverse, culturally unique, and have large gaps in development levels. Despite these differences, the two most meaningful characteristics they all share is that they have experienced general economic growth and that they share membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. As a regional organization, ASEAN has largely defined how 4 Reyes these nations relate to one another and manage the world around them collectively. It has helped the growth of the region remain stable and peaceful concurrently increasing interdependence in the region independent of the United States. Aside from the enhancement of ASEAN cooperation, one of the even more historically sustained trends is the immense amount of influence that the United States has in Southeast Asia to the point of hegemony. After World War Two and the defeat of the Japanese, American primacy in the region dwarfed the states living there, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union this was even more pronounced. In the present-day, it is important to reassess what role the United States has. How powerful is the role of the United States in the region, given that ASEAN members are looking towards one another within the region for political and economic growth? Do these two trends contradict one another, or are they reliant upon one another? The debate on America’s decline as a global superpower and sole hegemon has been contentious and left incomplete by many international relations scholars. However, a useful way of observing how the role of the United States has changed on the world stage is by viewing it in relative terms. As the twentieth and twenty-first century has seen what Fareed Zakaria has described as the rise of the rest, it suggests that America’s ability to dictate international decision making and define common international interests has been curtailed. It is not as much a failure in American power, as it is an increase in the share of power from other actors. This decrease in relative power by the United States has left states that once looked to America as a security, political, and economic guarantor to look to elsewhere for legitimacy and leadership. The evolution of ASEAN is a meaningful demonstration of this. 5 Reyes Therefore, the argument of this paper is that in an international system with a hegemon present, regional organizations are likely to increase levels of cooperation when said hegemon seems to be in decline. ASEAN has increased levels of cooperation as a result of the relative decline by the United States. They are increasingly looking towards one another, rather than the United States, to carry out their interests. While the actual merits of an America in decline have been contested, the perception of decline has played a powerful role in Southeast Asia. In recognizing the United States’ loss of influence in the Asia region, the ten members of ASEAN have focused efforts on fostering solidarity and creating a common purpose towards dealing with the challenges of the current global system. Brief History of ASEAN The Association of Southeast Asian Nations officially began in 1967 with five members: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. The foreign ministers of these states became signatories to the Bangkok Declaration in August of that year, establishing ASEAN as a regional organization. The document outlined the aims of enhancing political, economic, social, and cultural cooperation to “ensure the survival of its members by promoting regional stability and limiting competition between them” (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 1967). Nations saw the shortcomings of previous regional ambitions such as the Southeast Treaty Organization (SEATO), Association of Southeast Asia (ASA), and the Greater Malayan Federation (MAPHILINDO) as learning experiences to create a stronger and more useful regional organization. 6 Reyes While these diverse nations came into ASEAN under different circumstances and with different intentions, one common interest at the time brought them together. They were all firmly anti-communist and the shared fear of an internal indigenous uprising was a source for early cooperation between the original members. The institutional structure was non-binding and intended to avoid a strong security orientation. The only mention of security action in the Bangkok Declaration focused on defining foreign bases as temporary establishments and decreasing the influence of external interference in the interest of national identity among members.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Lost Generation in American Foreign Policy How American Influence Has Declined, and What Can Be Done About It
    September 2020 Perspective EXPERT INSIGHTS ON A TIMELY POLICY ISSUE JAMES DOBBINS, GABRIELLE TARINI, ALI WYNE The Lost Generation in American Foreign Policy How American Influence Has Declined, and What Can Be Done About It n the aftermath of World War II, the United States accepted the mantle of global leadership and worked to build a new global order based on the principles of nonaggression and open, nondiscriminatory trade. An early pillar of this new Iorder was the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction, which British histo- rian Norman Davies has called “an act of the most enlightened self-interest in his- tory.”1 America’s leaders didn’t regard this as charity. They recognized that a more peaceful and more prosperous world would be in America’s self-interest. American willingness to shoulder the burdens of world leadership survived a costly stalemate in the Korean War and a still more costly defeat in Vietnam. It even survived the end of the Cold War, the original impetus for America’s global activ- ism. But as a new century progressed, this support weakened, America’s influence slowly diminished, and eventually even the desire to exert global leadership waned. Over the past two decades, the United States experienced a dramatic drop-off in international achievement. A generation of Americans have come of age in an era in which foreign policy setbacks have been more frequent than advances. C O R P O R A T I O N Awareness of America’s declining influence became immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic and by Obama commonplace among observers during the Barack Obama with Ebola, has also been widely noted.
    [Show full text]
  • American Exceptionalism, American Decline? Research, the Knowledge Economy, and the 21St Century Challenge
    AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM, AMERICAN DECLINE? Research, the Knowledge Economy, and the 21st Century Challenge December 2012 Benchmarks of Our Innovation Future III | Task Force on American Innovation | www.futureofinnovation.org TASK FORCE ON AMERICAN INNOVATION www.futureofinnovation.org AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM, AMERICAN DECLINE? Research, the Knowledge Economy, and the 21st Century Challenge Benchmarks Of Our Innovation Future III December 2012 The Task Force on American Innovation is a coalition of businesses, scientific and university organizations that came together in 2004 out of concern that insufficient investment by the federal government in research in the physical sciences and engineering was threatening the nation’s global economic leadership and national security in an increasingly competitive world. http://www.futureofinnovation.org Acknowledgements This document was produced by the members of the Task Force on American Innovation. Special thanks go to Josh Trapani of the Association of American Universities, Robert Rains and Paul Fakes of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Abby Benson of the University of Colorado, and Steve Pierson of the American Statistical Association for their role in helping to write and edit this report. Special thanks are also due to Tawanda Johnson and Krystal Ferguson of the American Physical Society for their help with the layout and graphics for the report. TASK FORCE ON AMERICAN INNOVATION www.futureofinnovation.org TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary .........................................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Tragedy of American Supremacy
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2015 The rT agedy of American Supremacy Dante R. Toppo Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Toppo, Dante R., "The rT agedy of American Supremacy" (2015). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 1141. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1141 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE THE TRAGEDY OF AMERICAN SUPREMACY: HOW WINNING THE COLD WAR LOST THE LIBERAL WORLD ORDER SUBMITTED TO PROFESSOR JENNIFER MORRISON TAW AND DEAN NICHOLAS WARNER BY DANTE TOPPO FOR SENIOR THESIS SPRING 2015 APRIL 27, 2015 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I must thank Professor Jennifer Taw, without whom this thesis would literally not be possible. I thank her for wrestling through theory with me, eviscerating my first five outlines, demolishing my first two Chapter Ones, and gently suggesting I start over once or twice. I also thank her for her unflagging support for my scholarly and professional pursuits over the course of my four years at Claremont McKenna, for her inescapable eye for lazy analysis, and for mentally beating me into shape during her freshman honors IR seminar. Above all, I thank her for steadfastly refusing to accept anything but my best. I must also thank my friends, roommates, co-workers, classmates and unsuspecting underclassmen who asked me “How is thesis?” Your patience as I shouted expletives about American foreign policy was greatly appreciated and I thank you for it.
    [Show full text]
  • Dealing with Allies in Decline Alliance Management and U.S
    DEALING WITH ALLIES IN DECLINE ALLIANCE MANAGEMENT AND U.S. STRATEGY IN AN ERA OF GLOBAL POWER SHIFTS HAL BRANDS DEALING WITH ALLIES IN DECLINE ALLIANCE MANAGEMENT AND U.S. STRATEGY IN AN ERA OF GLOBAL POWER SHIFTS HAL BRANDS 2017 ABOUT THE CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS (CSBA) The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is an independent, nonpartisan policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking and debate about national security strategy and investment options. CSBA’s analysis focuses on key questions related to existing and emerging threats to U.S. national security, and its goal is to enable policymakers to make informed decisions on matters of strategy, security policy, and resource allocation. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Hal Brands is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and is also Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In 2015–2016, he was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. In that capacity, he served as a special assistant to the Secretary of Defense, working on a range of strategic planning and policy issues. He has also consulted with a range of government offices and agencies in the intelligence and national security communities, as well as the RAND Corporation, and provided research and analysis for the Office of Net Assessment in the Department of Defense. He received his BA from Stanford University (2005) and his Ph.D. from Yale University (2009). He previously worked as an Assistant and Associate Professor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and as a researcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses.
    [Show full text]
  • The End of the TPP: Symptoms of American Decline and ASEAN's
    ISSUE: 2017 No. 25 ISSN 2335-6677 RESEARCHERS AT ISEAS-YUSOF ISHAK INSTITUTE ANALYSE CURRENT EVENTS Singapore | 19 April 2017 The End of the TPP: Symptoms of American Decline and ASEAN’s Response Shaun Narine* EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A sizeable part of the general public in the US is blaming international Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) for problems that are endemic to globalization. Managing the effects of globalization requires serious reforms in the US social safety net and a change to the American approach to state-society relations. However, the politics of racial division and ideological rigidity are too deeply entrenched for the country to effectively address its problems. This means there is no possibility that the TPP will be resurrected with US participation. It also means that domestic social and economic problems that undermine US global leadership will continue, and possibly get worse. This holds serious effects on US foreign policy that may include an over-emphasis on military power. The decline of US power and engagement will alter the regional balance of power. This opens up possibilities for ASEAN to become a more active institutional actor. However, since divergent national interests make it unlikely that the organization can behave as a unified political actor, ASEAN’s best response to the decline of US power is to ready itself for a region wherein China is the most important regional actor. * Shaun Narine was Visiting Fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute from 16 Jan 2017 – 15 Apr 2017, and Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
    [Show full text]
  • Power Shift: the Decline of the West, the Rise of the Brics, and World Order In
    POWER SHIFT: THE DECLINE OF THE WEST, THE RISE OF THE BRICS, AND WORLD ORDER IN A NEW ASIAN CENTURY (IR201) Course duration: 54 hours lecture and class time (Over three weeks) Summer School Programme Area: International Relations, Government and Society LSE Teaching Department: Department of International Relations Lead Faculty: Professor Michael Cox (Dept. of International Relations) Pre-requisites: At least one introductory course in either social science (e.g. political science, international relations, sociology, economics), history, law or any other cognate subject in the Arts or Humanities. Course Outline: At the beginning of the 21st century the world stood on the cusp of what most experts assumed would be a golden age of international peace and global prosperity guaranteed by American power and underwritten by an ever-expanding world market dominated by the West. But 9/11 and the financial crisis of 2008 followed, leaving – or so many pundits insisted - the United States in decline, Europe in tatters, and the balance of power rapidly shifting southwards towards the ‘rest’ and eastwards towards Asia and China, or more generally towards the BRICS. A very different kind of world now beckoned – one more balanced and fair perhaps, according to Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs, who coined the term BRICs to characterise the emerging order; but 1 less under the control of the West. Many pundits even began to talk of a new world disorder in the making. Certainly, with tensions increasing between Russia and the West, ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, an apparently insoluble crisis in Europe, and new uncertainties arising from BREXIT in the UK and the election of Donald Trump in the United States, it did appear as if the international system was fast becoming a much less stable place.
    [Show full text]
  • The BRICS Fallacy
    Harsh V. Pant The BRICS Fallacy The term BRICSÑ/referring to the association of emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South AfricaÑ/dominated the headlines in March 2013 as Durban hosted the annual group summit. South African President Jacob Zuma suggested that the nascent organization’s leadership has ‘‘firmly established BRICS as a credible and constructive grouping in our quest to forge a new paradigm of global relations and cooperation.’’1 The meeting resulted in a much-/hyped proposal to create a joint BRICS development bank that would finance investments in developing nations. Notwithstanding the pomp and ceremony in South Africa, the BRICS grouping has begun to lose much of its sheen. Reports have even emerged detailing its impending demise. For example, the U.S. Conference Board released a global economic outlook in November 2012 that called into question the BRICS miracle, arguing that the ‘‘low hanging fruit’’ from cheap labor and imported technology has already been picked.2 The report said that China’s double-/digit expansion rates will soon be ‘‘romantic memory’’ as growth will fall dramatically over the next few years, with investment returns going into ‘‘rapid decline’’ and an aging crisis hitting the country hard. India will also see a fall in its growth rate by 2018, from 5.5 percent to around 4.7 percent. The report underlined that ‘‘as China, India, Brazil and others mature from rapid, investment-/intensive ‘catch-/up’ growth, the structural ‘speed limits’ of their economies are likely to decline.’’3 Prominent economic analysts such as Ruchir Sharma have also suggested that growth rates in Brazil, Russia, India, and China Harsh V.
    [Show full text]
  • The Curve of American Power
    immanuel wallerstein THE CURVE OF AMERICAN POWER ince the end of the Second World War, the geopolitics of the world-system has traversed three different phases. From 1945 till ca. 1970 the us hegemony exercised unquestioned hegem- ony in the world-system. The period from 1970 to 2001 was a Stime in which American hegemony began to decline, but the extent of its decline was limited by the strategy that the us evolved to delay and minimize the effects of its loss of ascendancy. In the period since 2001, the us has sought to recuperate its standing by more unilateralist poli- cies, which have, however, boomeranged—indeed actually accelerating the speed and depth of its decline. i. 1945–c.1970 If we look back to 1945, we can see that the end of the Second World War marked the conclusion of an 80-year struggle between the United States and Germany to determine which of the two rivals would be the successor to Great Britain—which had started to decline at least since 1873—as the hegemonic power in the world-system. The culminating phase of this struggle involved a thirty years’ war from 1914-1945, which came to include all the major industrial powers of the world-system, and in its last phase (the so-called Second World War) inflicted enor- mous massive physical destruction on the populations of Europe and Asia and devastated most of their industrial equipment. The us won the war against Germany, obtaining its ‘unconditional surrender’, with the indispensable assistance of its main allies, the ussr and Great Britain, who sustained huge losses.
    [Show full text]
  • Waves of Empire US Hegemony and Imperialistic Activity from the Shores of Tripoli to Iraq, 1787–2003
    Waves of Empire US Hegemony and Imperialistic Activity from the Shores of Tripoli to Iraq, 1787–2003 Julian Go Boston University abstract: Is there a relationship between the global hegemonic position of the US on the one hand, and imperialistic activities such as war-making, sending troops abroad, colonial annexation and/or temporary military occupation? In an attempt to offer a preliminary answer to this question, this article offers a novel longi- tudinal analysis of US imperialistic activities from 1787 to 2003, and shows that America’s imperialistic activity has been punctuated by waves of high amplitude and frequency. The article also shows that each of these waves correspond to different phases in America’s career. Specifically, they are associated with America’s movement from regional to hemispheric to global dominance and, ulti- mately, to its decline from its prior hegemonic status. The analysis offers prelim- inary support for a new theory of the relationship between hegemony and imperialistic activity. keywords: American empire ✦ hegemony ✦ imperialism ✦ United States ✦ world-system Introduction Various views on ‘American empire’ have proliferated since America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. The views run between two poles. At one end, popular writers such as Max Boot and Niall Ferguson suggest that America’s recent interventions into the Middle East are neither surpris- ing nor negative. Not only are they necessary for the ‘war on terror’, they are also the proper manifestations of America’s hegemonic status. As the US remains the world’s unrivaled economic and military power, it should use its power for good – just as the British did during their period of hegemony.
    [Show full text]
  • Comparing Regional Cooperation Efforts in the Asia-Pacific and North
    A revised version appears as: Comparing Regional Cooperation Efforts in the Asia-Pacific and North America." In Andrew Mack and John Ravenhill, eds., Pacific Cooperation: Building Economic and Security Regimes in the Asia Pacific Region (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1994 and Boulder: Westview, 1995), pp. 40-65. COMPARING REGIONAL COOPERATION EFFORTS IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC AND NORTH AMERICA Vinod K. Aggarwal Department of Political Science University of California Berkeley, California 94720 Tel. 510-642-2817 email: [email protected] December 1993 An earlier version of this paper was presented at a conference entitled "Economic and Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific," Canberra, Australia, 28-30 July 1993. A portion of the paper examining APEC appears in the November 1993 issue of Asian Survey. For research assistance, I am grateful to Carol Medlin and Sarah Kelsey. I would like to thank the University of California Pacific Rim Program, UCMEXUS, the UC Center for German and European Studies, and the Institute of International Studies at Berkeley for financial support for work on which this paper is based. John Ravenhill, Faith Raider, and Paolo Guerrieri provided invaluable comments. COMPARING REGIONAL COOPERATION EFFORTS IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC AND NORTH AMERICA John Maynard Keynes once said that "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." His observation notwithstanding, it is difficult to convince policymakers of the relevance of theoretical musing. Academics often assume that the reluctance of decisionmakers to embrace theoretical arguments reflects their simple ignorance or inability to appreciate academia's valuable contributions.
    [Show full text]
  • The US in the Early 21St Century: Decline Or Renewal? Abraham F
    ARI 43/2013 ARI 20 November 2013 The US in the early 21st century: decline or renewal? Abraham F. Lowenthal | Professor emeritus of the University of Southern California, President Emeritus of the Pacific Council on International Policy and non-resident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution. Theme The core challenge for the US in the first quarter of the 21st century is the capacity of its political system to fashion and implement public policies to respond effectively to today’s and tomorrow’s concerns. Summary The bitter impasse finally, if temporarily, resolved in Washington last week made it absolutely evident to all that the US faces serious problems. These problems did not suddenly arise, nor are they limited to the showdown regarding the shutdown of government activities and services and raising the national debt limit. The difficulties are not only political, but also economic and social; they have developed over many years, and they are by no means resolved. Nevertheless, the core challenge for the US in the first quarter of the 21st century is not the prowess or potential of its economy nor its relative external power and influence. The central question is, rather, the capacity of the US political system to fashion and implement public policies to respond effectively to today’s and tomorrow’s concerns. Whether the US political system can regain its former capacity, evident in past times of war and other crises, to mobilise the country’s resources and energies is the central question for the US in coming years. Analysis The bitter impasse finally, if temporarily, resolved in Washington last week made it absolutely evident to all that the US faces serious problems.
    [Show full text]
  • Emerging Powers and Status: the Case of the First Brics Summit
    (c) Copyright 2014, vLex. Todos os Direitos Reservados. Cpia exclusiva para uso pessoal. Proíbe-se sua distribuição ou reprodução. Emerging Powers and Status: The Case of the First Brics Summit Asian Perspective - Vol. 38 Nm. 1, Janeiro 2014 Asian Perspective Vol. 38 Nm. 1, Janeiro 2014 Autor: Stuenkel, Oliver Id. vLex: VLEX-494287502 http://vlex.com/vid/emerging-powers-status-brics-summit-494287502 Resumo Why did the leaders of four very different countries-Brazil, Russia, India, and China- decide to hold a summit in 2009 in Yekaterinburg, thus transforming "the BRICs" from a financial category into a political grouping? I argue that the main driver for the first summit to take place and succeed was to strengthen each member country's international status. The 2009 BRICs summit was successful in that it led to the birth of a political platform during highly unusual international economic and political circumstances. In a global economy in the midst of a recession and widespread uncertainty, the BRICs' relative economic stability and capacity to respond to the crisis was decisive and lent credibility to their call for reform of the international system. The United States' temporarily reduced legitimacy also provided a window of opportunity for emerging powers to act as aspiring guarantors of stability in tomorrow's world. While measureable gains from cooperation and stronger rhetoric that delegitimized the global order did occur in the following years, they were not the primary drivers for the first summit to take place and succeed. Texto THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE BRICS ACRONYM FROM AN INVESTMENT term into a household name in international politics is one of the most important developments in international politics in the past decade.
    [Show full text]