Brazil and the BRICS in a Changing Global Order: Autonomy, Multipolarity, and Multilateralism

DOI: 10.58867/RLTC2784

A meeting between the Foreign Affairs ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which took place in September 2006, in New York City, parallel to the United Nations General Assembly, is often considered as the first specific move that paved the way for the emergence of BRIC. An important meeting that laid the groundwork for the BRIC grouping was held in 2009 in Yekaterinburg, Russia. It started with the participation of ministers of foreign affairs and was followed by another meeting with the leaders of state and government of the four countries. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dmitry Medvedev, Manmohan Singh and Hu Jintao were all present at the first BRIC summit, which took place on the same occasion. Some of the Summit’s principal goals were broad issues that persisted throughout time, including during the 2020s. Among such goals, which were essential for Brazil, were strengthening the global economy and international financial institutions. Certainly, the topic of broadening cooperation between the four countries was central, pointing them toward the future. 

During the 2000s, in an international environment undergoing deep changes, the defense of multilateralism and multipolarity has been a guiding feature of Brazil’s international action, consistent with its structural characteristics and international action standards. During Michel Temer’s government (2016-2018), and especially during Jair Bolsonaro’s (2019-2022), this standard for international insertion, whose two defining dimensions are regional integration and cooperation with the Global South, was detracted, in favor of alignment with Western countries, which did not bring forth substantial benefits for the country, nor to the issue of development in the global agenda. Despite Brazil's diminished foreign involvement and priority given to the BRICS from 2016 to 2022, the organization persisted in its initiatives. More and more nations expressed interest in joining the alliance around this time.  

From a formal standpoint, the foreign policy’s rerouting between 2016 and 2022 did not cause a rupture regarding the BRICS. Even under Jair Bolsonaro, the administration has not shied away from group commitments , particularly in regards to the Russia-Ukraine war that started in February 2022 and in which Brazil cautiously remained neutral for a variety of reasons, including economic and commercial interests. However, during that period, Brazil’s stance regarding South American issues was very different, especially regarding regional integration. In such topics, Brazil’s position was clearly contrary to the perspective of autonomy.

In 2023, after Lula da Silva's narrow reelection as president in October 2022, Brazil's foreign policy once again revolved around the BRICS and presidential diplomacy, with the goal of reestablishing a connection between Brazil's development, regional integration, environmental preservation, and multipolarity agendas. Furthermore, Lula da Silva’s new government reclaims the centrality of the autonomy and universalism dimensions in the country’s international insertion. The shape that the international system seems to take as of the second decade of the 21st century[1] reinforces the relevance of an insertion centered on autonomy and universalism.

In the 2010s, the financial crisis triggered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008, created new issues. Even though the crisis was overcome thanks to the coordinated intervention of states and international agencies, distrust grew over the medium term, which would later spill over the global issues. These divergences and distrust on a global scale may accelerate the transformation of the international order. A significant part of Brazil’s foreign insertion is structured around the perspective that it can advance this transformation. From the Brazilian standpoint, as of 2023, the BRICS is a coordination factor, an important forum to face a world where instability and tensions are rising. Therefore, it also represents an adaptation to new governance standards in a context of global instability.  

Brazil played a part in transforming the BRICS acronym, from a category created by an economist from Goldman Sachs in 2001, to a political and diplomatic grouping of emerging and developing countries in 2009, with the first Summit in Yekaterinburg, in Russia.[2] Subsequently, the country also supported the bloc’s expansion in 2010, with the accession of South Africa, so there would be a country representing Africa. At the same time, they maintained the idea of an attainable governance of the bloc with few countries involved. This criterion explains why Brazil, on the occasion of the fifteenth BRICS summit, in August 2023, was less enthusiastic about immediately expanding the bloc’s members.

Since the beginning, BRICS countries have strived to strengthen cooperation through annual Summit, side gatherings in multilateral conferences, and the creation of their own institutions, a highlight being the New Development Bank (NDB), currently directed by former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff. In past years, the debate has grown to allow the use of the group’s own currencies in commerce between the BRICS’s member countries. During the Johannesburg Summit, in August 2023, the Economy ministers and Presidents of Central Banks from Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa were asked to foment technical studies on the topic, to be presented in the bloc’s next Summit. Brazil’s interest also relates to the BRICS’s ability to create economic instruments, for which China’s power is key.

The regularity of the BRICS’s agenda and of its specific institutional bodies, such as the NDB, go against the expectation of some analysts who were betting on the grouping’s quick dissolution, after its formalization in 2009, considering the differences between its members and the disparity between their international insertions and formal and informal alliances. According to Desiderá Neto (2016), the plight to attribute responsibility to developed countries for the 2008 financial crisis, and the joint search for more participation and influence in international financial institutions were the starting point to bring the group together as an international coalition.[3] The argument that the five countries should have larger voting quotas in economic institutions is an important and often-stated one. As a result of the 1940s Bretton Woods Agreement, the United States and the United Kingdom continue to hold the position of prominence. This remained as a burden that has not been in line with the realities of global life for decades.

As the years went on, the push forward in the agenda and activities of the BRICS’s thematic and technical groups, in addition to the Summits and the fact that China is a prominent presence in the bloc, are aspects that led to the interest of new countries to join the grouping. This does not mean that each country’s international agenda is free of idiosyncrasies and significant divergences. For example, regarding UN reform and its Security Council, Brazil converges with India, but not China. It should be noted that other countries’ interest in joining the BRICS, apparently larger than the bloc’s ability to accept them, indicates the grouping’s success, evidently made easier by the fact that accession does not require binding agreements.

With regard to the bloc’s expansion, the original members were also interested, especially China and Russia. In the case of China, one can argue that the aim is to expanding Beijing’s international influence. In the case of Russia, possibly with the expectation of diminishing the isolation it has suffered from Western countries since February 2022, due to the war with Ukraine. For Brazil and India, there were worries that the bloc’s expansion could diminish the role of founding members, especially those with lesser power, as is the case of Brazil. Also with regards to the implications of the accession of new members for the geopolitical balance. During part of the negotiation process, before the August 2023 meeting, these issues were translated into arguments regarding criteria for inclusion and the status of new members. Nevertheless, from Brazil’s point of view, as pointed out by Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira: “It would not be coherent of Brazil, who advocates for reform of global governance and broader participation of developing countries in decision-making bodies, such as the UN Security Council, to block access to the group”.[4]

In the Johannesburg Summit, in August 2023, the countries came to an understanding on the bloc’s expansion, stating that as of January 2024, the grouping would count with six new members: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran and Ethiopia. The bloc will concentrate approximately 36% of the world’s GDP and 46% of its population, in addition to encompassing countries from Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Africa, the Middle East, Eurasia, Southern Asia and the Asian Pacific. Given the profile of some new members, there is also the possibility the expansion broadens the revisionist aspect of the grouping’s agenda, such as advocating for less Western-oriented approaches to international issues, thus capturing the tendencies to redefine the international power distribution and global governance standards. That is, the rise of international tensions, weakening the institutionalist perspective, may broaden the BRICS’s protagonism as a pivot in the international system. It is also possible that a BRICS with 10 members tend to be more differentiated between them. This was decidedly limited during the bloc’s 15 years of existence. There are reasons for this, and some bilateral severe tensions between part of the 10 members are significant, as those between China and India, Egypt and Ethiopia, and others.

The recently elected President of Argentina, Javier Milei, announced in December 2023 that the country would not formalize its accession to the BRICS, changing the prevailing intention of the previous government, which counted on Brazil’s support for its viability. Argentina’s decision certainly poses an issue for Brazilian politics regarding the grouping’s internal balance. Nonetheless, in all 10 members, original or new, the main political authorities can foresee some continuity of their mandates and leaderships, despite differences in political regimes, a fact that may increase the possibility that the bloc promotes the necessary actions to bolster cooperation agendas in their new format.

It should be pointed out that the bloc’s expansion may extend difficulties for purposeful actions, impacting the BRICS’s ability to act as a collective arrangement in relevant global government matters. Therefore, states’ ability to articulate will become more relevant. Similarly, the BRICS’s expansion will demand significant efforts to reorganize the procedures within the group, the organization of meetings, working groups, consultations and decision making. The ability to absorb and manage its new setting will be seen in practice in the 16th Summit, scheduled to take place in Russia, in November 2024, which will include the new members. The same can be said about the group’s 17th Summit, which is expected to take place in Brazil, in 2025, during Lula da Silva’s government.[5]

Regarding the expansion of BRICS, President Lula da Silva pondered, “Our diversity strengthens the fight for a new order, one which accommodates economic, geographic and political plurality in the 21st century”.[6] With regards to new members, the Brazilian President pointed out that “we are not bringing the ideological issue into the BRICS. We are bringing in each state’s geopolitical importance[7]”. Thus, the Lula da Silva Government brings focus back to multipolarity as a key topic for Brazilian foreign policy, which becomes a guide to its foreign action. As Celso Amorim, chief advisor to the President, stated, “in the world’s current condition, in economy and other aspects, it is in Brazil’s interest to strive for a multipolar world. Our voice will be more easily heard in it than in a world divided by a cold war between good and evil[8]”. So far, for Brazil’s current government, the BRICS must contribute for international governability, but with instruments where countries historically excluded from the center of power can weigh in in accordance with current relations, above all in the perspective of diminishing hegemonic and asymmetrical logics. And where they can weigh in for international peace, which includes possible contribution to the resolution of centuries-old conflicts in the Middle East, including the terrible situation in Gaza, Palestine, and Israel. 

As of 2023, the understanding that becomes central in Brazilian foreign policy is that multipolarity is the most adequate configuration for international order. Similarly, the idea is that Brazil can play a relevant role in the international system, beginning with South and Latin America, and those multilateral institutions should reflect more accurately the international reality of the 2000s. Despite the inexorable advance of informal international governance bodies and Brazil’s action in such bodies, like the G20, the Brazilian government also argues for the relevance of formal organizations and international institutionality. Brazil’s more active role can be seen in the attention granted to the global environmental issue, as demonstrated by the hosting of COP 30, the Conference of Parties in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will take place in Belém, in November 2025.

Despite disagreements regarding UN reform, the BRICS strive for converging paths. One such front is UN Security Council reform, with efforts to bring together different stances. During the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, the final Declaration, from August 2023, signed by the leaders of BRICS countries, stated: “We support a comprehensive reform of the UN, including its Security Council, intending to make it more democratic, representative, effective and efficient, and to increase the representation of developing countries in the Council’s memberships so that it can adequately respond to prevailing global challenges and support the legitimate aspirations of emerging and developing countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America, including Brazil, India and South Africa, to play a greater role in international affairs, in particular in the United Nations, including its Security Council”.[9] According to Brazil’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, ambassador Mauro Vieira, in the Johannesburg meeting, there was an important evolution in the BRICS’s and of all its five members’ stance regarding the United Nations’ and its Security Council’s reform, “which should be followed by the countries that want to join”.[10]

Given the well-known and new difficulties the topic of United Nations and Security Council reform face, including the vetoes of the Security Council’s permanent members to new members and the reform layout, it is impossible to predict whether the plight will succeed. Nevertheless, for countries interested in change, Brazil in particular, aiming to broaden support and keeping the issue in the agenda, in search of a window of opportunity to debate it, seems like a coherent strategy.

As of 2023, there was an increased focus on expanding the importance of growth, the struggle against world hunger, and environmental sustainability in Brazil's foreign agenda, along with the topic of bolstering multipolarity. These issues will be an important test for the BRICS. Regarding broader geopolitical issues, Brazil has been striving to maintain an equidistant position in the conflicts between China and the United States, and between the United States and Russia, although this position might come across more difficulties depending on the evolution of such conflicts. Undoubtedly, facing hegemonism is a guideline element in Brazil’s position. Inclusion in the agenda of issues that interest all countries, such as those pointed out above, the environment, as well as democracy, labor rights, the fight against hunger, allow for adequate and pragmatic ties with all, including the United States. Operationalizing multilateralism is a theoretical and empirical challenge, as is institutionalizing multipolarity.

It has become common place to state that the world is changing and that this change is complex and unpredictable. For countries and their foreign policy makers, the issue is to capture, address and adjust the direction of transformation, to strive to mold them according to their interests. It is important to consider that governance, global change and consensus building processes have a crucial political and agency dimension, permeated by states power. For Brazil, the strategy and the political choices matter due to the level of contribution foreign policy can offer to the development of the country and the building of structural projects domestically. At the same time, as argued in this article, these goals are attached to matters of principle that should prevail in the world order. Advancing on common interests with countries in the Global South, in the BRICS, and strengthening integration in the MERCOSUR and South America without disregarding the agendas of cooperation with the United States and the European Union, are aspects consistent with the country’s structural characteristics and its possibility to influence the directions of international politics.