The Rise of BRICS- A Multipolar World? Shraddha Naik, Research Scholar Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Asia-Pacific ISA Conference Hong Kong- June 25-27, 2016. Abstract: Key Words: BRICS, World Order, Regionalism, Interregionalism, Emerging Powers. With the rise of new groups of emerging powers, the world in the 21st century is witnessing a shift in power calculus. The BRICS has certainly created a new constellation in the world system. It has emerged as a new region of their own with certain shared similarities and common objectives. Since its formal inception in 2009, the group has been trying to create a niche in international system and stresses on forming a multipolar world. The countries together demand for a revival in the traditional setting of the United Nations Security Council, reforms in the international financing system such as the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and have initiated a new discourse of the Global South on the Responsibility to Protect and Climate Change. The introduction of the BRICS Development Bank has been one of the prime contributions of the group thus, showcasing their willingness and capabilities in accepting the responsibilities that comes with the growing power. Highlighting the BRICS as a new interregional grouping of the emerging powers, the paper will assess the achievements and divergences of the group and its efforts to raise its status and create a multipolar world. Introduction The world order has witnessed a regular transformation from period to period. Its consistent nature of revolving depicts the power cycle dynamics in international relations. Following this theoretical analysis of power cycle, the BRICS grouping imprints its potential arrival. With the growing political and economic importance to the grouping and economic slowdown of the established powers, raises pertinent questions of whether the group has arrived finally? Leading to an interrogation if, BRICS can be an important factor in turning the current phase of world order from that of unipolarity to multipolar world. The BRICS grouping is highly looked upon by the governments of the five countries. There is a greater amount of stress led on insisting the significance of the grouping for engaging at the bilateral, group level and global level cooperation’s among the member countries. According to former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “BRICS has demonstrated the shared will and capacity to engage with each other as well as with the world community in addressing and seeking sustainable solution to global economic and political challenges and concerns for the promotion of global stability and well being” (MEA 2012). There is a visible shift in the platform for discussing the major global issues. The G20 has taken a prominent position in discussing the current crisis, which was earlier managed by the G7 countries. This has raised a great level of speculations among the developed world community. The changing dynamics of the balance of economic power has also led to the transformed political and soft power. This growing phenomenon is evident thorough the formation and successful organisation of the grouping such as the BRICS (Acharya 2014), (Stuenkel 2015). The emerging powers move beyond the regional domain. As the world is witnessing a geographical diffusion of power, the emerging powers have engaged themselves in improving their economic and political powers along with the hard power capability. It clearly seems that social and economic transformation in the interregional groupings of the emerging countries like the IBSA, the BRICS, the G20, and Brazil-South Africa-India-China (BASIC), combined with their large populations as well as their diplomatic and political rise, underpins the ever more visible shift in the global balance of power. Antkiewicz and Cooper mention that “such power shift calls for change in the current world order and with the global financial crisis; the future global economic and political leadership must include the participation of the biggest countries of the South” (Antkiewicz and Cooper 2011: 300). The rising share of new groupings in international system is a result of the gradual process of regionalization. States that share a geographical proximity and aim for a security and economic engagements have led to the formation of progressive regional groupings that has surpassed to all the regions of the world. With the process of globalization and complex system of international trade, the movement of regionalism surpassed from old regionalism to the new form of regionalism that engages in not just political issues but also economic, cultural etc. The phenomenon of interacting beyond the regional capacities also flourished thorough the phenomenon of interregionalism. Both the processes of regionalism and the interregionalism have observed intensification across the world in the 21st century. The trend towards interregionalism has been more intense in the coming decades. With the fall of the cold war, liberlization of the economies, and emergence of the post colonial countries the old interregionalism got further transferred to the ‘New interregionalism’ focussing issues related to trade, investment, culture and security. Genesis of BRICS The Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) interregional grouping is seen as one of the most ambitious endeavour of the emerging powers and through it these countries are trying to play more active role in international politics. Many scholars now stress on the rising paradigm of the BRICS countries. The countries which were seen as mere talk shop for some years have now attracted major attention from the officials, academics and the media from all over the world. BRICS was formed in the year 2006 and comprises of total membership of five countries namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The BRIC idea was first conceived in 2001 by Goldman Sachs which is one of the influential companies in the world, as part of an economic modelling exercise to forecast global economic trends over the next half century. It was first used by the Goldman Sachs in their Global Economic Paper No. 66, “The World Needs Better Economic BRICs The grouping was initially envisioned as an economic model that would create an alternative in finance structure of the world which was based on the growing GDPs of these countries. Eventually the members of the grouping broadened the scope and objectives of the grouping to more issues of international importance that also had relevance to the emerging powers of the Global South. The grouping got more popularised after the publishing of the second work by the Goldman Sachs in the year 2003 titled’ Dreaming with the BRICs: The Path to 2050”, declaring it as both economic and political entity to reckon with (Wilson 2003). South Africa was later added to form BRICS grouping in 2010 (Fourth BRICS Summit 2012).With the inclusion of South Africa the grouping attained a comprehensive characteristic by adding a region of Africa which is relatively lesser represented at the global arena leading Goldman Sachs to declare the first ten years of the 21st century as “BRICS Decade”, (Wilson 2010). Overview of BRICS 2010 GDP in PPP GDP Share in World Per Capita (US $ billion) GDP GDP (US$) (in per cent) Rank in GDP 1990 2010 1990 2010 1990 2010 World 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Brazil 8 2,172 508 2,090 3.3 2.9 3,464 10,816 Russia 6 2,223 - 1,465 - 3.0 -- 10,437 India 4 4,060 326 1,538 3.1 5.4 378 1,265 China 2 10,086 390 5,878 3.9 13.6 341 4,382 South 26 524 112 357 0.9 0.7 5,456 7,158 Africa Source: IMF Database. The Finance Ministers of BRIC met in 2006 to discuss the possibility of establishing an interregional grouping of the four countries drawn from different regions. The first summit of the BRIC grouping was held in 2009 in Russia, signifying the need for many developing nations to meet in new formats. In the first summit the members laid emphasis on the need to develop an alternative financing system, and in the second summit held in 2010 in Brazil, the group pressed the need for a stable and predictable currency system. The third summit held in Sanya, China, in 2011 was significant for the induction of South Africa in the grouping, which made BRIC into BRICS. The fourth summit was held in New Delhi in 2012 and in 2013, the fifth summit was held in Durban, South Africa. The grouping preferred to focus on giving credits and trade payments in each another’s national currency, and also proposed for political negotiations to resolve crises in Syria, Libya and Iran. The grouping envisions its role in reforming the financial institutions. In its fifth Summit in 2013, the member-countries decided to set up the BRICS Development Bank to mobilise resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other developing countries. They also established a $100 billion Contingency Relief Arrangement (CRA) to forestall short-term liquidity pressures, provide mutual support, and further strengthen financial stability. The member-states have taken common stand on various global issues such as the situation in West Asia and the global economic recession. It has also created the BRICS Business Council and Consortium of Think Tanks. BRICS as an Interregional Grouping How do regions and countries in a grouping come together? What is the nature of such formations? How has it helped uphold principles of sovereignty and modern state systems? Louise states that “interregional grouping has come about because of the presence of certain identifiable traits which regional units, zones, states or territories share. Such groupings are smaller than international system of states, but larger than any individual state or non-state unit.