OTS - Report: BRICS+ likely new counterpoint to G7-led geopolitical order (part 1)
2024. April 30. 15:15
Los Angeles, 30 April, 2024 (APA/OTS) - DNA - The expansion of the
BRICS group of nations into what has informally been named BRICS+
could highlight a geopolitical shift, with the new grouping
positioning itself as a counterpoint to the Western-led
geopolitical order, a report published by the Luskin School of
Public Affairs at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
argues.
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The report, titled "Towards A New Global Contestation?
Comparing the Governance Performance of G7 and BRICS+ Nations"
examines how the ten BRICS+ countries compare to the G7 nations on
factors such as provision of public goods, quality of democracy and
quality of governance. It uses the Berggruen Governance Index (BGI)
to measure the governance performance of countries in these three
dimensions.
In January 2024, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt and the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) joined the BRICS group.
The term BRICS was originally coined by an economist in the
2000s to refer to a group of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia,
India, China, and later, South Africa. Argentina's new president,
Javier Milei, pulled the plug on his country joining BRICS+ in late
December 2023. He said the decision to join had been taken by the
previous government and had to be reviewed.
The BRICS+ have much larger combined population, which, at a
rate of 7.8 per cent by 2025, is expected to grow twice as much as
in the G7 countries (United States, Germany, France, Japan, Canada,
Italy and the United Kingdom). At the same time, economic output
and per capita GDP are lower than in the G7. The latter
organisation also boasts greater soft power, a term used to
describe the exertion of influence over other nations through
attraction and persuasion, not coercion or force.
Over the coming years, the projected growth rates of the BRICS+
members are expected to enhance the group's economic clout. For
example, Egypt's GDP is projected to increase by 635 per cent by
2050, the report says, quoting investment firm Goldman Sachs.
At the same time, the quality of democracy according to the BGI
index has declined in India, Brazil (during the rule of President
Jair Bolsonaro) and China, with authoritarian trends persisting
particularly in China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
According to the report, improvements in the provision of
public goods have also been significant in some BRICS+ countries,
even as state capacity and democratic accountability have declined.
Overall, the authors conclude, the BRICS+ countries appear
increasingly susceptible to authoritarian rule. "The G7's
consistently high Democratic Accountability scores contrast sharply
with the BRICS+ countries, where a noticeable trend towards
centralized authority prevails", the report states.
New members have notably dragged down the average BRICS+
democracy accountability score, the report says, pointing to a
"longstanding lack of meaningful checks on executive power". It
cites Saudi Arabia as an example, arguing that its "absolute
monarchy has consistently restricted all but the most basic
political and civil rights of its citizens".
With an eye on the trends towards authoritarianism it
identifies in most BRICS+ members, the report outlines two possible
future scenarios.
In the first scenario, the government of a given country cannot
sustain improvements in delivering public goods, possibly due to
declining resources, high debts or other economic factors. As a
result, most of the population grows dissatisfied with the quality
of life. "However, authoritarian countries can remain in an uneasy
suboptimal equilibrium for decades, as the history of the Soviet
Union and Iran, among others, have shown", the report cautions.
The second scenario would see some or most of the BRICS+
members reach a quality of life comparable to that of liberal
democracies. According to the authors, this would challenge the
so-called "autocratic fallacy". According to this theory,
authoritarian governance cannot effectively scale public goods, and
broad-based prosperity is correlated with adherence to democratic
principles.
The outcome of the second scenario would call into question the
longstanding assumption, the report says, that democracy and the
well-being of the population are the common aims of how countries
develop. "It would shatter the belief in a growing global comity of
wealthy and democratic countries", the report warns.
The report's findings also indicate that most BRICS+ members do
not seek increasing confrontation with their G7 counterparts, and
that they engage instead in a strategy that mixes cooperation and
contestation. It is a way for them, the authors conclude, to take
advantage of opportunities that may open up during the current
uncertain geopolitical conditions, while at the same time
mitigating risks: "Together with Brazil, India and South Africa,
more of the new BRICS+ members may engage in fence-sitting and
hedging behaviour rather than take clear and active sides in some
fuller scale contestation or conflict."
The report already identifies some evidence of this trend:
"Even China - which is seen in increasingly confrontational terms
in the West - retains enormous economic links with its geopolitical
adversaries at the same time as it deepens its alliance with
Russia", it states. "Variations on this theme - such as the
countries who rely on the US for external security and China for
internal security - will likely only become more common in the rest
of the 2020s."
Further coverage by the Democracy News Alliance can be found in
the DNA digital newsroom at https://www.presseportal.de/en/nr/174021
(Cntinues)