The BRICS need to turn to policies instead of politics!

  • Sven Grimm

Abstract

The annual BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit is coming up on 28/29 March, this time in India, under the slogan „BRICS Partnership for Global Stability, Security and Prosperity‟. This list of good things in the world is non-descript. Well, such is summit culture. Discussions can go one way or the other on the respective sizes of the economies and their respective roles in the world. Yet, what is the group‟s role and position, a year since their enlargement with South Africa – or asked differently: is there a single understanding and one role that the debate is about? The ringing words in the title of this summit are illustrative either of huge ambitions – or of a lack of depth to the agenda. It is most likely the latter. The BRICS are clearly not an international organisation and thus have a loosely defined agenda. But the aspiration is more than just another global summit. Public-relations are an important part of the event, so some semantic difficulties will persist while presenting a somewhat coherent agenda. Yet, expectation management is also part of the task and here the group fails.