In an international system that is experiencing a period of transition and shifts in the global pecking order, the BRICS organisation may emerge as the next fully-fledged global governance institution. To achieve this ambitious end, the group must steer clear of traditional self-centred great power politics that characterise Western-led blocs, writes Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.
At present, the most absurd course of action for BRICS would be to attempt to imitate one of the structures created over recent decades, and even earlier, by powers whose predominance in world politics was based on military might. This is precisely why, when considering the role that this platform could play in global governance, it makes no sense whatsoever to even contemplate reproducing within it those practices that are generally regarded as successful. This is primarily due to the underlying logic of its purpose that we have already mentioned: all the international organisations of the past and present known to us are either legal manifestations of the balance of power between their members, or formal expressions of their intentions towards the other countries and peoples of the world.
BRICS, by contrast, is not founded on a balance of power, does not seek to codify the relative strength of military capabilities among its member states that might be revealed as a result of conflict, and was not created to coordinate the policies of a narrow group of countries on the world stage in the traditional sense of the term. Therefore, the movement towards greater stability and effectiveness of BRICS should, it seems, begin with the question of the most general objectives shared by its member states, which connect their domestic and foreign policy agendas. We will now attempt to explain what is meant by this and why it appears to be of greatest importance.
Any international cooperation must serve the fundamental interests of its participating countries. European integration, for example, whose institutional embodiment is now the European Union, was originally the unification of countries that had suffered the heaviest defeat in the Second World War (1939–1945), had partially lost their sovereignty in military affairs through participation in NATO, and, as a result of all these circumstances, sought to consolidate their new strategic position. The most important task of the European elites at the moment when integration was created was to preserve their positions of power and strengthen their material foundations through the integration of markets and joint engagement with their most important external economic partners.
Domestic objectives were the dominant factor in this case, and it was on this basis that sufficiently effective mechanisms of influence over global politics and the global economy were later developed. At the very least, these mechanisms far exceeded the actual geopolitical capabilities of countries such as Germany, France, or Italy, not to mention their smaller allies.
Another example is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose emergence in the late 1960s was a wise and far-sighted response to the challenges that immediately confronted a significant group of Asian countries after they gained independence. Its goal was to prevent conflicts during the process of establishing sovereign statehood and to avoid competition on the international stage.
Another strong example is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), created 25 years ago to address an important and specific challenge: stabilising the “internal perimeter” of Greater Eurasia in a region directly affecting the security interests of Russia and China, while also being home to Central Asian countries that were then particularly vulnerable in this regard. These objectives were purely internal in nature for a clearly defined region and were, it should be noted, achieved with considerable success.
It is important to bear in mind, however, that the effectiveness of both organisations is also limited by their original functions. For the European Union, the attempt to create a fully fledged political union has ended in failure; for ASEAN, significant difficulties arise from its aspiration to influence the domestic political development of its members or to formulate common approaches to the most important challenge facing Asian politics today—the confrontation between China and the United States; and the SCO has so far been unable to demonstrate a significant role beyond its original area of responsibility.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.
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