Toward New Forms of Hybrid Interregionalism
Christina Stolte
Goodbye Neighbors, Hello BRICS
Brazil has been a key player in South American regionalism and interregionalism in the 1990s and early 2000s. As initiator of the Common Southern Market MERCOSUR (Mercado Commun del Sur) and the South American Union of States UNASUR (Union de Naciones Suramericanas), arguably the two most important forums of South American regional integration, Brazil has held a central position with regard to regional dynamics and interregional dialogues such as the EU-MERCOSUR negotiations or the Africa-South America summits (ASA) (Gratius and Saraiva, 2013). Due to its engagement in regional integration and its enormous size, the country has often been considered the speaker and leading power of the region. While not all neighboring countries have always shared Brazil’s ideas on regionalism and often criticized it for a lack of consideration for the needs of its regional partners, criticism has notably shifted over the last years. Today, the South American power is not criticized for its (sometimes self-interested) regional initiatives but for a lack of engagement in its neighborhood (Stuenkel, 2016). As South American regionalism has stalled and interregional negotiations have not resulted in any tangible results, Brazil’s focus seems to have shifted to the global level, leaving its regional neighborhood only in second place on the list of its foreign policy priorities. Most notably, the BRICS, a global forum comprised of large emerging countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) from different world regions, has received increased attention from the Itamaraty, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry. The multilateral club, formed with the substantial participation of the Brazilian government in 2009, has been on top of the country’s foreign policy agenda ever since.
Yet, why did Brazil choose to give priority to a group of countries dispersed across various world regions and with which it had only loose relations instead of pursuing its regional and interregional projects? As will be shown in this chapter, the BRICS forum offers various advantages for Brazil’s foreign policy ambitions as compared to other regional and interregional projects. Not only has Brazil achieved global recognition and status through its membership in the emerging powers club but it has also seen its position as regional leader strengthened by having been selected as the South American representative for this multiregional association. As the forum links Brazil with other regional powers of the developing world, it has given the country the opportunity to present itself as the leading power of its region without the need to have the backing of its regional neighbors to claim this position.
This chapter will explore why Brazil has given preference to the BRICS and how it has used its membership in the emerging powers club to strengthen both its regional and its international position. In a first step, the chapter gives a short overview of Brazil’s international role conception and the relationship with its region as well as its record of interregional relations. The chapter then proceeds to analyze Brazil’s BRICS membership in more detail, shedding light on the particular benefits and potential drawbacks of the alliance and examining how it has been used as a new form of (hybrid) interregionalism.
Brazil in Its Region: The Reluctant Regional Power
As the biggest country and biggest economy in South and Latin America Brazil exerts a natural dominance in its region. Taking up about half of the South American landmass and constituting about half of the regional GDP, it can be considered a “natural regional power.” Yet, despite its overwhelming material dominance, Brazil’s neighbors have always been reluctant to recognize it as the regional leader and have at times even openly rejected the idea of Brazilian regional power status (Malamud, 2011; Wehner, 2015). Yet, also from the Brazilian perspective there are some doubts considering its role in the region.
Being the fifth biggest country of the world, the characteristic of being a great, even giant country has always been a key element in the country’s self-understanding (Lafer, 2009). However, it has not necessarily defined its greatness in relation to its regional neighbors. Rather its group of reference has been the big powers of the world. As they were traditionally defined by their territorial greatness and their relative population size, Brazil always considered itself in the natural position of meriting a big role in world affairs (Stolte, 2015). By contrast, its identification as a Latin or South American power was traditionally low. The fact that Brazil had entered the international community of states as empire and the heir of the Portuguese kingdom defined Brazil as an “almost European” power that distinguished itself markedly from its Hispanic neighbors, which had broken into independence from their European colonizers and had entered into bloody wars until they established their rather fragile republics (Mello e Silva, 1995). Hence, while the material facts clearly speak in favor of Brazil assuming a dominant role within its region, it has actually never really associated itself with its neighborhood and has (with the exception of the Paraguayan War) never leveraged its material superiority. In fact, with regard to its region, Brazil has always fluctuated between the feeling of superiority and disinterest on the one side, and anxiety about a hostile and potentially violent neighborhood from which it sought to distance itself as best as possible, on the other side. One demonstration of Brazil’s rather distanced stance toward its South American neighborhood is the fact that its population—until today—has settled almost exclusively on the coast, where there is no interaction with its Hispanic neighbors. When there were attempts to gather at the regional level, Brazil was careful not to be isolated and joined the regional initiatives—but it was never in the driver seat. Decades later, in the 1970s–1980s when most of South America was under military rule, Brazil’s then military government entered into a regional competition with Argentina (the number two on the continent) and both countries went as far as to strive for nuclear weapons in order to keep their neighbor at bay.
In fact, it took Brazil about a hundred years to overcome the uneasy and problematic relationship with its region. Only in the late 1980s, after the country’s return to democracy, it started to develop a more positive agenda with its regional neighborhood. The newly elected democratic government sought to distance itself from the foreign policy of the military regime and started to engage more actively with Brazil’s regional neighbors. Deepening its ties with Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, Brazil set up the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) with its Southern neighbors in 1991 (Gardini, 2010).
Regional Power Base or Regional Constraint?
While Brazil continued to have foreign policy ambitions that went clearly beyond its region, seeing its true and destined place in the international community among the big powers of the world, its view of its South American neighborhood changed fundamentally in the early 1990s. All of a sudden, it seemed that Brazil needed its region as it should serve as an important stepping-stone in order to achieve its broader foreign policy ambitions.
Globally, the 1990s saw a wave of newly created or revamped regional organizations (Hettne, 1999; Mattli, 1999). The idea of joining forces by creating regional blocks in an increasingly globalizing world gained strength after the bipolarity of Cold War and Brazil joined the wave of so-called open regionalism by becoming one of the driving forces of South American regionalism. After all, the idea of leveraging the power of single countries through the formation of trade blocks that would negotiate together trade agreements with other countries or regions appeared to be very compelling for Brazil, which saw itself in a weak bargaining position vis-à-vis the economic Great Powers USA and the European Union. Negotiating as a block with its MERCOSUR peers Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, Brazil entered free trade talks with the United States (1994—FTAA-Free Trade Area of the Americas) and the European Union (1995—EU-MERCOSUR negotiations) in a strengthened position.1
The post–Cold War world was seen to be a “world of regions” (Katzenstein, 2005) in which different world regions, constituted by regional organizations, interacted with each other under the lead of regional powers. A global role would therefore necessarily build on a leading role in the region, making regional hegemony a prerequisite for any country with global ambitions (Hurrell, 2009; Bernal-Mesa, 2010). Against this background, Brazil’s ambitions to gain a seat among the major powers of the world became dependent on its success to rally its regional neighbors behind itself. As a consequence, Brazil officially declared its neighborhood a priority of its foreign policy and started to actively engage with its region. Besides the before mentioned MERCOSUR, a trade block in the South of the continent that associated itself with other trade initiatives of the region like the Andean Community, Brazil also initiated other regional institutions like the South American Community of Nations (UNASUR). This regional community, comprising all 12 South American states, was designed to be the political representation of the region with a symbolical2 leadership role for Brazil as the biggest member and initiator of the regional entity.
Brazil’s plan to use its region as a springboard for a global role, however, did not fully turn out as intended. Within the MERCOSUR, things developed away from the idea of a Common Market. The clearly defined project of reducing trade barriers and tariffs and eventually creating a Common Market through the establishment of a common tariff vis-à-vis other countries got stalled half way (De Onis, 2013). Trade liberations that had been implemented were reinstalled in times of economic crisis and not lowered again when the economies recovered. Even though the 2000s were an exceptionally good period in terms of economic growth, tariffs, and trade barriers between the MERCOSUR partners remained relatively high and the idea of trade liberalization more and more lost track. Moreover, trade agreements with other countries and regions hardly materialized and after more than 25 years of existence as a trade block, MERCOSUR has no FTA with a major trade partner (MERCOSUR, 2017). UNASUR, Brazil’s political project for the region, has shown little effectiveness in dealing with regional crises and has attracted criticism for its passiveness on defending the region’s democratic values against violations (Stuenkel, 2014).
Yet, what is more, regional neighbors turned out to be both more demanding and more resistant than expected. The more Brazil tried to act as the regional power, the louder voices from neighbors became, urging it to assume not only symbolical leadership of the region but real responsibility by bearing the associated costs of the regional leadership role. At the same time, Brazil’s Hispanic neighbors revealed themselves to be quite unenthusiastic to give regional leadership status to a Portuguese-speaking country that had never really identified with their region.3 As a consequence, Brazil’s claim for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council was not supported, and even refused, by some of its neighbors (Malamud, 2011).
Brazil, on the other hand, was not prepared to pay the prize for regional leadership status. While it showed great activism in the political-symbolical realm when setting up regional cooperation schemes like MERCOSUR or UNASUR, it was never ready to formally bind itself to its region. Especially with regard to its national sovereignty, Brazil remained very cautious, resisting any commitment that could potentially compromise its room for maneuver or would imply any political or economic costs.
Whereas for a long time, Brazil’s regional integration projects sailed relatively calmly and without major ambitions for deeper integration, over the last years the perceived costs of the projects have risen. Lengthy coordination procedures and the regard for the peculiarities and interests of its regional partners in parallel to the lack in progress in both regional and interregional negotiations have notably reduced Brazil’s euphoria for regional integration and interregional processes that are based on regional consensus and institutional representation. Seeing itself in an increasingly difficult and constraining regional context, Brazil has sought alternative alliances beyond its neighborhood that offer a less arduous and costly way to achieve its global ambitions.
The BRIC(S) Opportunity: Brazil as Member of the Emerging Power Club
At the same time as Brazil’s impetus for regional integration started to diminish, a new international concept emerged that would offer new possibilities to gain international clout. The BRICS, a grouping consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, and China—four geographically disperse emerging powers—gained more and more momentum in the international arena. Independent from any notion of regional leadership, the four powers had been selected on the basis of their economic might, their population size, and their prospect for future economic growth.
Interestingly, the idea of BRICS was not developed by the four countries themselves in the search for international peers with similar characteristics, but by an economist of the US investment bank Goldman and Sachs (O’Neill, 2001). At a time when developing countries stood at the margin of the economic and political world order and were associated with hunger and misery rather than with economic potential, the new chief economist of Goldman and Sachs, Jim O’Neill, predicted a steep economic and political rise of the four regional powerhouses. While at the time of his prediction none of the BRICS had considerable clout in world affairs, he forecasted a time when the four countries would be too important to be left on the sidelines of world politics. Against this background, he advised the established powers to be aware of the imminent tectonic shifts and find ways to collaborate with these future powers. Yet, designed as a new investment concept, BRICS was never intended to become a political club and chances that these four very different and geographically dispersed countries would align with each other were relatively low, given that they had no considerable relations with each other at the time the concept was coined (O’Neill, 2011). In 2009, however, the BRICS gathered for their first official summit and have met every year at presidential level ever since.
Of all the BRIC countries, Brazil was the least likely member—both in terms of the investment concept and the political alliance. The selection of Brazil as one of the future growth markets was met with widespread surprise and skepticism when Goldman and Sachs announced its new investment label BRIC in 2001. Unlike the Asian growth markets China and India, Brazil did not have high growth rates at the time Jim O’ Neill coined the term. In fact, it was growing at a meager 1.6% (2001) compared to 8.3% and 4.8% by China and India (World Bank, 2017) and also had to weather a spillover of the economic crisis in its neighboring MERCOSUR partner Argentina. As The Economist noted, the South American economy was a candidate “with a growth rate as skimpy as its swimsuits, prey to any financial crisis that was around, a place of chronic political instability, whose infinite capacity to squander its obvious potential was as legendary as its talent for football and carnivals” that just “did not seem to belong with those emerging titans” (The Economist, 2009). Against this background, many financial analysts considered Brazil to be the weakest of the BRICS, accusing the US bank of having included the country only to make the name catchy (Pereira, 2013).
In political terms Brazil also did not fit into the club. The RICs (Russia, India, and China) were nuclear powers with according geopolitical weight, with Russia and China even possessing a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council. While they did not enjoy particularly cordial relations and regarded each other as competitors rather than as trustworthy partners, the RICs had been meeting at foreign minister-level to discuss security issues since 2001 (Stuenkel, 2015). Brazil, in comparison, had only worked with India on a regular basis in the realm of the IBSA Forum (India, Brazil, South Africa Forum). This multilateral forum, Brazil’s global pet project at the time, linked the three democratic and multicultural developing nations from three different continents that shared the common goal of gaining greater participation in global affairs (Flemes, 2009). With the rest of the BRIC group, China and Russia, Brazil did not share many obvious commonalities. Also in geopolitical terms, Brazil as Southern soft power located in the Western Hemisphere, was different than the rest. Situated far away from the major conflicts of the world, the South American country was not considered an important player with regard to issues of international security.
Notwithstanding its rather disadvantaged position, Brazil was an active member of the BRICS group from the first hour. Seeing the potential for a non-regional, global platform on which it could project its power, Brazil actively engaged to help the group constitute itself. Together with Russia,4 it pushed for the countries to coordinate and meet at the sidelines of multilateral gatherings. On September 20, 2006, roughly five years after the BRIC investment concept had been launched, the four countries came together for an informal meeting at the Brazilian Mission to the United Nations in New York at the sidelines of the 61st UN General Assembly (Stuenkel, 2015). A year later on the same occasion, Brazil took the initiative and suggested to deepen the political coordination of the group through the organization of a BRICS summit. While Russia offered to organize the first official BRICS summit in Yekaterinburg in 2009 as it could reuse the facilities and organizational infrastructure of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Brazil was quick to offer the organization of the second summit in Brasília in 2010 to follow up on the incipient coordination between the BRICS (ibid.).
Brazil has thus acted as important catalyzer of the BRIC grouping since the beginning. What is more, the South American country, while not being a geopolitical or economic heavyweight in the international arena like the other group members, added a factor that helped the group to establish a common narrative and position itself as brokers of a neglected Global South. In fact, Brazil under its then President Lula da Silva (2003–2010) had accumulated significant symbolical capital as a leading power of the South on which the BRICS could capitalize on. Especially Brazil’s (partially self-proclaimed) function as a representative of the developing world benefitted BRIC by linking its grouping to the cause of the global South (Cooper, 2016).
Leaving Behind the Regional Neighborhood
For Brazil the fact of having been chosen as part of the BRIC group signified a great and unexpected opportunity to emancipate itself from its regional neighborhood. Belonging to the investment label BRIC meant an immediate rise in global status. After all, having been selected as a member of the investment category meant an increase in international visibility and unexpected gains in international authority, as an independent US investment bank had acknowledged the country’s economic potential. In addition, being listed in the same category as the rising powers China and India associated Brazil with Asian growth and thus bolstered Brazil’s international standing to unexpected heights.
Being part of a political BRIC grouping also held a number of advantages: Not only did the membership mean a cost-free rise in international status, as Brazil emerged from a contested South American power to a global player. By belonging to the emerging powers elite club, Brazil also automatically established direct channels to global powers that used to play more than a league above the South American country before (Stuenkel, 2015). Powers that were once out of reach, like China and Russia who hold veto rights in the UN Security Council and have a seat at the table of the great powers, all of a sudden became partners and belonged to the same club. In the realm of BRICS, once rather loose relations turned into close partnerships with frequent high-level meetings. In essence, the BRIC membership granted Brazil the opportunity to play at the global level it had always striven to play at.
In comparison with Brazil’s challenged regional leader status in South America, the status as BRIC state and emerging power was relatively undisputed since it was not based on a doubtful and self-proclaimed declaration by Brasília but had been externally accorded to Brazil by the chief economist of one of the most powerful investment banks of the world. The analysts and bankers of Goldman & Sachs (and other international banks that followed their lead) had not only made a careful and informed decision on which country they selected for their fund but had also affirmed their eventual decision by channeling huge sums of investment into these selected countries.
Brazil’s policymakers immediately understood the potential that BRICS held for their country. It is thus no surprise that the South American power was not only open for cooperation with the other BRIC countries but also keen to foster the formation of the political grouping. Pushed actively by Brazil, exchange on and coordination of the positions of the BRIC had begun on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly but quickly broadened to other arenas and topics. In important global questions Brazil from now on sought alignment with its BRICS peers. Already in 2008, when the world economy seemed to stand at the edge of breakdown due to the outbreak of the global financial crisis, Brazil did not resort to its closest trade allies of the MERCOSUR but chose to coordinate its position and policy response with the geographically distant BRIC powers with which it didn’t share strong political or economic relations at the time. Even with Argentina, Brazil’s MERCOSUR partner and most important trade ally in the region, Brazil did not develop a common South American position—despite the fact that Argentina was also represented in the G20, the primary international forum for concerted policy responses to the global financial crisis by the world’s biggest and most important economies. With its BRICS partners, in contrast, Brazil has met on every single encounter of the G20 (Stuenkel, 2015, 13).
Brazil’s cooperation with the BRIC countries has lasted across different governments with different political orientations. Under the administration of Lula da Silva (2003–2010) which had initiated BRIC cooperation in the late 2000s, BRICS was one among other projects on the international level that the country pursued. In parallel to its active membership in the BRIC group, Brazil for instance pursued the aim of deepening cooperation with its partners of the IBSA forum and still demonstrated engagement within its region by promoting new projects like CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States). The successive government of President Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016) of the same party already gave clear preference to BRICS.5 Being more interested in positioning Brazil as a global economic player and harvesting clear economic benefits from aligning the country with the world’s growth markets, Brazil under Dilma opted to emphasize its membership in the group of future economic powers instead of pursuing multiple cooperation projects at the regional and international level with less powerful partners that would not bring the same visibility. Even the successive administration of Michael Temer (2016–present), initially thought to shift Brazil’s foreign policy focus to cooperation with the established powers United States and European Union, has maintained Brazil’s dedication to BRICS. Only weeks after he was sworn in as the new president of the South American country, he attended the 2016 BRICS summit in Goa (India), pledging to foster cooperation with the club of emerging powers (Schreiber, 2016).
Brazil’s BRICS Membership: Low Costs, Big Stage
Brazil’s unbroken enthusiasm for BRICS is no surprise. The participation in the grouping has in fact many advantages and benefits that make it attractive for the South American power. Especially when compared with Brazil’s rather complicated regional groupings, membership in the BRICS group is clearly more convenient.
As a flexible, relatively low-institutionalized alliance, BRICS membership does not require any compromises on national sovereignty—a principle that Brazil has always sought to protect. Fearing external interference and loathing compromises on its sovereignty to act according to its interests, Brazil’s regional projects were always institutionally weak. While the regional giant sought to court neighboring countries to join its regional projects, it was always more than reluctant to establish robust institutions with binding rules for all member countries. Where it did create common rules and legally binding frameworks (e.g., in the MERCOSUR) it showed resistance to abide by them if they went against its interests. Although it did not openly break commonly agreed-upon rules, it often disappointed neighboring countries’ demands to subdue its interests and restrain itself through institutional agreements. The BRICS alliance, by contrast, was never meant to have a legally binding character. All member states share a high appreciation for their national sovereignty and hold up the principle of noninterference (De Coning et al., 2014). As none of the member countries wants to formally bind itself to the group, BRICS remains a flexible coordination mechanism rather than an institutionalized alliance. While the group has decided to establish a joint development bank and a contingency mechanism with according legal frameworks, the alliance has no institutional basis and the member states are not bound together by a formal declaration or legal document. Their foreign policy decisions thus remain completely independent and unrestrained. More importantly, as the BRICS members are scattered across different world regions and their common denominator is the fight for more voice and weight in global institutions, their regional policies are considered an issue that does not affect the alliance and are therefore not commented upon by the other member states.6
While BRICS countries disagree on many aspects of world politics and have at times even conflicting interests, it is often easier for Brazil to work with its fellow members than to collaborate with its neighbors. This is because BRICS is a very pragmatic enterprise with each member appreciating the benefits of the alliance. Whereas Brazil’s regional projects have suffered from implicit and explicit disputes and hidden power struggles, BRICS members—despite diverging interests and the drive for relative power gains—do not openly criticize the behavior of fellow members as they do not want to jeopardize the alliance. Leaving BRICS as a rather loose association without a common value base, the member states make no effort to force a common position when they cannot agree on one (Gvosdev, 2012). This flexible and purely interest-based alliance provides a neutral work base, meaning that the very different member states can collaborate with each other without endorsing all foreign policy positions and actions of their BRICS partners.
Different from the regional context, where Brazil as the biggest country and supposed regional leader is often seen to be responsible for not taking action against transgressions and problematic behavior of neighboring states, in the realm of BRICS, Brazil is not held responsible for the misbehavior of its fellow members. Being a rather weak and geographically distant member in an alliance with nuclear powers, its potential to influence the other members is of course relatively limited. Yet, this is rather a benefit than a disadvantage for Brazil as it can take advantage of being a member of the emerging power club without having to fear a negative image for being associated with the overt power politics of fellow members like Russia or China. In fact, as the geographically and politically most “Western” member of an alliance that is often perceived as anti-Western, Brazil’s relations with the West also benefit. As a member of the BRICS, the South American country is taken more seriously on the global stage, while at the same time its credentials as a peaceful giant and good global citizen shine more. Indeed, when contrasted with tough hard powers like Russia and China, Brazil appears as a very cooperative and complaisant power.
Yet, most importantly for Brazil, its membership in the BRICS makes it being heard globally. Being a member of the club, Brazil benefits from the economic and geopolitical weight of the other BRICS members as it is no longer perceived as the representative of an economically and geopolitically relatively insignificant world region, but as a member of a group of states that is seen to have the potential to shape world politics in a significant way. With BRICS, Brazil does not need the backing of its regional neighbors anymore to play at the global level as its membership in the club has elevated Brazil to the global stage and has given it more independence from its regional fellows. From its perspective, with BRICS Brazil is, for the first time, given the international appreciation and global status that it has always felt entitled to.
Potential Downsides of Brazil’s BRICS Membership
Although the balance of Brazil’s BRICS membership is very positive so far and all Brazilian governments have embraced this emerging powers alliance, the South American country is very aware of the potential downsides and dangers of this affiliation.
As Brazil, together with South Africa, is among the smallest and weakest BRICS members with regard to economic power, population size, and military capabilities, it is carefully observing the behavior of the bigger members. So far, all five member countries are acting on an equal basis, with every member possessing the same voice and weight in BRICS negotiations. In contrast to other international institutions (e.g., United Nations Security Council—UNSC), there are no privileges or special veto rights reserved for the more powerful members. Yet, while officially all members have the same political status in the alliance, the power imbalances are evident to member countries as well as to outside observers. The discrepancies become especially apparent in the economic realm: While it is easy for an economic power like China to afford the ten billion US-Dollar capital for the BRICS Development Bank (The New Development Bank—NDB) that each BRICS member is required to provide, the same task is far more difficult for a struggling economy like Brazil or South Africa (Cooper, 2016). Yet, even more important for Brazil is its growing economic dependency on China. Already, the East Asian power has substituted the United States as Brazil’s biggest trade partner. Economic decisions and developments in China thus have a significant impact on the South American country. To the detriment of Brazil, this dependency is not mutual: For China, Brazil is just one provider of raw materials among others and economic decisions in Brasília will hardly affect the second biggest economy in the world. Fearing that its economic dependence could also be extended to the political realm in the future, Brazil is therefore cautiously watching the balance of power and the maintenance of the principle of equal status within the alliance. Despite struggling financially to provide the necessary sum for the establishment of the NDB it was therefore very important for Brazil that all members paid for the starting capital in equal parts.
Brazil is also aware of the fact that not all interests of the BRICS member states converge. When it comes to the United Nations Security Council (UNSR) reform—one of Brazil’s core foreign policy goals—China and Russia do not share its endeavor for a broadening of the highest body of the world organization. In this regard, China and Russia, which already hold a permanent seat and a veto right in the UNSR, are status quo powers while Brazil and India find themselves in the camp of reformers.
Moreover, the power imbalance between Brazil and the bigger BRICS members is so immense, that it is hard to imagine the South American country to exert influence on the course of the alliance or prevent it from taking directions that it does not support. While so far Brazil has succeeded in harvesting the benefits of an alliance with big powers like China and Russia without being associated with their assertive regional policies, it is well aware of the potential danger of a more anti-Western turn of BRICS. Despite pressure from the United States and Europe as well as domestic forces, Brazil resisted to take sides in the conflict about Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its meddling in Ukrainian policies. However, it is also clear that Brazil does not want to be linked to or seen to support policies of aggression, nor does it want to be part of an alliance that is on collision course with the West. Emblematic of Brazil’s difficulties to balance its BRICS membership and its good relations with the West, was the country’s participation in the G20 summit of 2014 in Australia that took place only months after the Crimea crisis. While Brazil had opposed moves by the host country Australia to exclude Russia from the summit, Brazil’s then President Dilma Rousseff (2011–2016) was visibly uncomfortable sitting next to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (2000–2008; 2012–) at the summit’s barbecue and hardly spoke to her BRICS partner (YouTube, 2017).
BRICS as a New Form of Hybrid Interregionalism?
Despite a few ambivalences regarding Brazil’s BRICS membership, the benefits of this affiliation so far clearly outweigh the disadvantages. In fact, for Brazil the dynamic emerging powers alliance has not only become a substitute for its stalled regional projects, but also for the interregional processes that sought to link South America with other regional institutions around the world.
As BRICS constitutes itself of five emerging powers from different development regions of the world (South America, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa) it serves as an alternative interregional mechanism for the member countries. Unlike traditional interregional processes that are based on formal relations between different regional organizations in which all countries of a region are represented, BRICS is not based on institutional relations but on a more compact and informal club format in which only the regional leaders are represented. Regions are thus linked through their regional powers, which act as gatekeepers and representatives of their regional neighborhoods. While there is no legal or institutional framework that formally binds the BRICS countries to this interregional forum, the annual BRICS summits, whose organization rotates between the different members and world regions, constitutes its defining element and provides for a strong and visible interregional link. As the exercise in summitry is a constituent component of interregionalism (Gardini/Malamud, this volume), the BRICS—despite its lack of institutionalization—thus resembles classical forms of interregionalism.
Through joint summits between the BRICS countries and the regional organization of the hosting state, BRICS connects its member countries with the other world regions. Starting in 2013, BRICS invited regional and subregional organizations for joint sessions in order to elaborate cooperation strategies between the emerging powers club and the regional neighborhood of the host country. In South Africa (Durban, 2013), BRICS connected itself with the African continent by inviting the African Union (AU) and various subregional groupings like the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Central Africa (Comesa), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to the summit. Brazil, when hosting its second BRICS summit in Fortaleza in 2014, not only invited countries of its immediate South American neighborhood but summoned a meeting with the whole CELAC. Russia, even invited two regional organizations, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to its 2015 summit in Ufa. Only India, which did not want to invite its neighbor and foe Pakistan, broke with the tradition of linking the BRICS summit to the regional neighborhood when organizing its 2016 summit in Goa (The Hindu, 2017).
As a forum that links the biggest countries and leading economies of the different development regions of the world, BRICS gives Brazil the opportunity to present itself as South America’s regional leader without the need to engage in lengthy regional coordination procedures. Interestingly, not only the BRICS membership itself but particularly the group’s practice of “hybrid interregional summitry” (where the heads of state of a particular region get the opportunity to meet with the leading powers of the other development regions) has led to a strengthening of Brazil’s regional position. Not only has Brazil been selected as the South American representative of the multiregional association, thus supporting its claim for regional leadership. But more importantly, the hybrid interregional mechanism offers Brazil the opportunity to get connected with other world regions and be received as South America’s leader while at the same time granting it the gatekeeper position of being able to decide on the organization of neighboring states that will be invited to meet with the BRICS when it is Brazil’s turn to organize the summit.
Conclusion
As this chapter has shown, Brazil’s membership in the BRICS offers manifold rewards for the country’s regional and international position and has therefore been on top of its foreign policy agenda across different governments. The membership in the emerging powers club has not only increased its global recognition and status, but has also strengthened Brazil’s position as regional leader as it was (externally) selected as the South American representative for this multiregional association. Given the long-standing contestation of Brazilian regional leadership and Brazil’s own reluctance to formally bind itself to South America, the BRICS alliance has provided a nearly perfect opportunity to emancipate itself from its regional neighborhood while still claiming regional power status. In fact, being a member of the BRICS has to some extent liberated Brazil from the need to seek regional recognition and support as the participation in the emerging powers club has elevated it to global status without the possession of a regional power base.
Despite considerable differences between the members with regard to hard power capabilities, status, and foreign policy interests, Brazil’s working relationship with the other BRICS is less overshadowed by rivalries and contestation than that with its regional neighbors. Whereas South American countries have always been reluctant to recognize it as the regional leader and have at times even openly rejected the idea of Brazilian regional power status despite the country’s position as natural regional power in material terms, Brazil’s BRICS partners grant it equal membership and status in their alliance despite its obvious inferiority with regard to hard power and geopolitical weight. Also, when compared with its challenged regional leader status in South America, the status as BRIC state and emerging power has been relatively undisputed since it was not self-proclaimed but externally accorded to Brazil. As all BRICS members share a high appreciation for national sovereignty and an aversion of binding rules and institutionalization, the club has acted as a flexible mechanism rather than an institutionalized alliance. This leaves Brazilian foreign policy unlimited room for maneuver with little responsibility for the actions of other group members, which can be considered a common peculiarity that Brazil appears to share with other Latin American countries in their approach to regional integration.
All in all, the BRICS alliance has been considerably more dynamic and profitable than Brazil’s regional projects (MERCOSUR, UNASUR) while at the same time bearing significantly lower political and economic costs than the regional engagement. Especially when compared to Brazil’s interregional projects (EU-MERCOSUR; Africa-South America summit), the benefits of the BRICS membership are overwhelming: While at the other interregional forums Brazil has no special role and is just one power among others, the hybrid interregional summitry process of BRICS gives Brazil a prominent role as South America’s regional power.
Unlike traditional interregional processes that are based on formal relations between different regional organizations, BRICS is based on a more compact and informal club format in which only the regional leaders are represented and regions are linked through their regional powers. Yet, despite its unconventional and arguably rather hybrid interregional format, BRICS essentially fulfills the criteria of interregionalism as the interregional summitry practice lies at the very heart of it and the exercise in summitry is the defining element of interregionalism (Gardini/Malamud, this volume).
The BRICS’ hybrid interregional mechanism gives Brazil the opportunity to represent South America and connect itself with other world regions but also to act as intermediary and gatekeeper with regard to South America’s interregional links. As a consequence, BRICS has not only displaced South American regionalism as Brazil’s top foreign policy priority, but has also been used as an instrument to foster a new form of interregionalism that links Brazil with other developing regions of the world.
NOTES
1. One successful example of this block-negotiating strategy was MERCOSUR’s unified position in the negotiations over the US initiative of a region-wide Pan-American free trade zone (ALCA/FTAA). When Brazil and Argentina felt that their economic interests were not reflected enough in the free trade project, they mobilized the MERCOSUR and developed a strong opposition block against ALCA. As a result, MERCOSUR not only became one of the main parties in the negotiating process but was finally capable of blocking the US initiative in 2005 in the summit of Mar del Plata in Argentina.
2. Formally, UNASUR has a rotating presidency and all members have the same rights and duties. However, seen from outside of South America, Brazil is most likely to be seen as the leading power due to its continental size and big economy.
3. For a differentiated analysis of the reactions by regional neighbors to Brazil’s claim for leadership see: Gardini, 2016 and Gardini and Almeida, 2016.
4. While Brazil and Russia did not have particularly close relations, their foreign ministers, Celso Amorim and Sergey Lavrov, enjoyed cordial relations as they had served together as diplomats in New York in the mid-1990s (Stuenkel, 2015, 11).
5. At that time, BRIC had become BRICS with the admission of South Africa in 2010.
6. For insights into the separate spheres of BRICS’ global and regional leadership ambitions see: Kingah and Quiliconi, 2016.
References
Bernal-Meza, R. (2010). International Thought in the Lula Era. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 53 (Special Issue), 193–213.
Cooper, A. (2016). The BRICS: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Coning, C., Mandrup, T., and Odgaard, L. (2014). The BRICS and Coexistence: An Alternative Vision of World Order. New York: Routledge.
De Onis, J. (7 October 2013). Protectionist Policies Stagnate MERCOSUR Countries. World Affairs.
Flemes, D. (2009). India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) in the New Global Order: Interests, Strategies and Values of the Emerging Coalition. International Studies, 46(4), 401–421.
Gardini, G. L. (2010). The Origins of MERCOSUR: Democracy and Regionalization in South America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gardini, G. L. (2016). Latin American Responses to the Rise of Brazil. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 35(1), 3–4.
Gardini, G. L., and Almeida, M. Tavares de (Eds.) (2016). Foreign Policy Responses to the Rise of Brazil: Balancing Power in Emerging States. Palgrave Macmillan: New York.
Gratius, S., and Gomes Saraiva, M. (2013). Continental Regionalism: Brazil’s Prominent Role in the Americas. CEPS Working Document. No. 374, February 2013.
Gvosdev, N. (2012). The Realist Prism: What the U.S. Can Learn from the BRICS. World Politics Review. 22 June 2012.
Hettne, B. (1999). Globalization and the New Regionalism: The Second Great Transformation. In B. Hettne, A. Inotai, and O. Sunkel (Eds.), Globalism and the New Regionalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–24.
Hurrell, A. (2009). Rising Powers and the Question of Status in the International Society. Annual Conference of the International Studies Association. New York. 15–18 February 2009.
Katzenstein, P. (2005). A world of regions. Asia and Europe in the American Imperium. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kingah, S., and Quiliconi, C. (2016). Global and Regional Leadership of BRICS Countries. Springer: Cham.
Lafer, C. (2000). Brazilian International Identity and Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future. Daedalus. Special Issue: Brazil: The Burden of the Past; the Promise of the Future, 129(2), 207–238.
Malamud, A. (2011). A Leader without Followers? The Growing Divergence between the Regional and Global Performance of Brazilian Foreign Policy. Latin American Politics and Society, 53(3), 1–24.
Mattli, W. (1999). The Logic of Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mello e Silva, A. (1995). O Brasil no Continente e no Mundo: Atores e Imagens na Política Externa Brasileira Contemporanea. Estudos Históricos, 8(15), 95–118.
Mercosur. (2017). Tratados, Protocolos y Acuerdos. MERCOSUR: Montevideo. Retrieved January 2, 2017, from http://www.mre.gov.py/tratados/public_web/ConsultaMERCOSUR.aspx
O’Neill, J. (2001). Building better economic BRICs. Global Economic Papers. No.66. London: Goldman Sachs.
O’Neill, J. (2011). The Growth Map: Economic Opportunity in the BRICS and Beyond. London: Penguin Publishing Group.
Pereira, A. (2013). Does Brazil deserve its “B” for BRIC? Special to CNN. June 11, 2013.
Schreiber, M. (2016). Temer estreia no Brics: cinco destaques da cúpula de Goa. BBC Brasil. 16 October 2016. Retrieved Janaury 2, 2017, from http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-37667750
Stolte, C. (2015). Brazil’s Africa Strategy: Role Conception and the Drive for International Status. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stuenkel, O. (2014). Can Brazil Defend Democracy in Venezuela? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. April 9, 2014. Retrieved February 1, 2017, from http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/04/09/can-brazil-defend-democracy-in-venezuela-pub-55298
Stuenkel, O. (2015). The BRICS and the Future of Global Order. Lexington Books: Lanham.
Stuenkel, O. (2016). How Latin America Should Address the Crisis in Venezuela. Americas Quarterly. 31 May 2016.
The Hindu. (2017). India Used BRICS Summit to Outmanoeuvre Pakistan. October 19, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2017, from: http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/‘India-used-BRICS-summit-to-outmanoeuvre-Pakistan’/article16075650.ece
Wehner, L. E. (2015). Role Expectations as Foreign Policy: South American Secondary Powers’ Expectations of Brazil as a Regional Power. Foreign Policy Analysis, 11(4), 435–455.
World Bank. (2017). GDP Growth Per Country. Washington: World Bank Group. Retrieved January 2, 2017, from: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG
You Tube. (2017). World Leaders on Lunch Break at G20. Retrieved Janaury 2, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA-keQDAV68