BRICS can transform from an intl club into a global lab
Andrey Kortunov
Why does anyone join a club? Membership in a prestigious club offers undeniable benefits: It is a place where you can make useful acquaintances, exchange views on matters of common interest and have fun interacting with fellow club members.
This is probably one of the main reasons why many nations of the Global South want to join BRICS. An important feature of BRICS is that the entrance ticket is free, and there are no membership fees. You don’t have to meet numerous accession criteria or high institutional standards; you are not expected to make heavy commitments that might compromise your sovereignty or question your national interests.
The big question of today is whether BRICS member states have higher ambitions for the project that they launched in 2006. Are they happy with the already well-established club format or do they aspire to turn the group into something more institutionalized and potentially more influential? Of course, one could argue that the sheer growth of BRICS membership already adds to the group’s diversity, legitimacy and, ultimately, its international influence. However, the quantitative growth does not come without a cost. It might lead to multiplying disagreements within a larger group of members, immensely complicate the decision-making process.
Judging from the preliminary results of Russia’s 2024 chairmanship within BRICS, it would be reasonable to conclude that the ambitions of the group are indeed higher than just continuing to recruit new members to their club. One possible intention is to turn the fancy international club into a global laboratory.
The main difference between the two is that a club is about communication, while a lab is about specific outputs. Within the BRICS lab, they could work on new approaches to, concepts and guidelines for and models of multilateral cooperation that may, later on, be further elaborated and customized by other international bodies. They may even be applied at the global level as a part of the desirable “new normal.”
The last couple of months have been densely packed with ministerial and other high-level governmental meetings on issues ranging from fighting international terrorism to managing the global green transition, from reforming the world’s financial system to ensuring global food security. These governmental consultations have been complemented by a broad variety of activities engaging BRICS parliaments, universities and think tanks, civil society institutions and public movements of all kinds.
The fundamental challenge for BRICS summits is to gradually shift the focus from rather general political statements to specific proposals and solutions that reflect the fundamental interests of developing nations, which have long been underrepresented in global and regional governance. So far, the role of global labs designing rules of the game for the international system has been almost monopolized by a small group of West-led institutions and forums. This monopoly has unavoidably led to serious discrepancies within the system, raising concerns about fairness and justice, not to mention the system’s efficiency.
This is not to say that the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development or IMF, G7, or the European Union should stop being a source of new norms, patterns and specific elements of the future world order. However, the West and the West-dominated multilateral institutions should not remain the only source of new norms for the entire world. BRICS, together with SCO, BRI, ASEAN and other non-Western groupings and initiatives, should take the stage and become part of the cast rather than remaining in the gallery, merely observing the transformation of the international system unfolding before their eyes.
Transforming BRICS from a global club into a global lab will require significant political commitment, persistence and stamina. A single summit, as important as it is, will not suffice. However, the meeting in Kazan can become an important step toward this clearly achievable, though quite ambitious, goal.
The writer is academic director of the Russian International Affairs Council
