BRICS: Opportunities and Risks of the Club of Discontents. DOI: http://dx.doi.org.10.18847/1.22.8

Abstract

The BRICS have become one of the most significant developments on the current international stage. Initially conceived in the late 1990s as a term to describe a group of promising emerging economies, this geopolitical bloc, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is the most visible indication of the Global South's rise as a conglomerate of autonomous strategic actors. Despite the dense network of cooperation mechanisms connecting its members in areas such as politics, security, economics and social exchanges, the group is divided by a fundamental rift between its more moderate partners, such as Brasília and New Delhi, which seek reform of international institutions that recognizes them as emerging powers, and the radical revisionism of Moscow and Beijing, which want to demolish the current status quo. This internal contradiction means the BRICS are a disruptive force without the capacity to establish a new international system, and prevent the demolition of the current strategic order from resulting in chaos.