Discussion Papers

This paper offers a critical assessment of the BRICS grouping by examining its trajectory, main actors, and contemporary challenges within the evolving international order. While BRICS initially emerged in the 2000s as a reformist coalition seeking greater representation within existing global governance institutions, particularly after the 2008 global financial crisis, the grouping has gradually assumed a more pronounced geopolitical role. Drawing on a methodological framework structured around three analytical dimensions – geopolitical competition among states, intra-BRICS dynamics, and the social and territorial impacts of BRICS-related investments – the paper seeks to move beyond traditional dichotomies such as North–South and West–East.

This paper addresses the relevance of the New International Economic Order (NIEO) as an inspiration for a new global economic order based on greater equality between the North and the South. It analyses the 1974 UN declaration and plan of action as one of the earliest attempts to articulate the demands of newly decolonised states. It notes the forces that defeated the NIEO including the importance of neoliberal restructurings at the end of the 1970s. It examines some of the similarities and differences between the global economic and political order at the time and contemporary realities. It discusses the ways in which the NIEO may be relevant for the elaboration of a new, more just and equitable, global order and which social forces may be able to bring such an order into being, with particular reference to BRICS and BRICS+.