Governos divergentes, objetivos comuns? O BRICS e os desafios para integração interestatal

Abstract

The study “Divergent Governments, Common Objectives? BRICS and the Challenges for Interstate Integration” investigates how BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), with their distinct models of governance, have played a central role in promoting an increasingly multipolar global order. Grounded in Wallerstein’s World-System theory and Arrighi’s Cycles of Accumulation, the study offers a theoretical framework to understand how BRICS navigates the new configuration of the World-System. Initially, the analysis aims to revisit and contribute to updating the writings of Stuenkel in the book BRICS and the Future of Global Order, thus bringing the debate about the group's governance models up to date; subsequently, the analysis of the BRICS Summits covers the period from 2009 to 2023, with a greater emphasis on the Summits from 2017 to 2023, discussing the progress of cooperation in economic, technological, and political areas, as well as the bloc's central role in the expansion of South-South Cooperation through the creation of the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, which paved the way for the expansion into BRICS+ in the most recent summit. The research demonstrates that despite political divergences among the group members, recent years have affirmed BRICS+ as a reference when considering multipolarity through cooperation among peripheral countries. Initiatives such as the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement highlight progress towards greater group integration while strengthening ties with other states in the world system.