Welcome to our website dedicated to exploring the complex dynamics of BRICS+. Our mission is to provide comprehensive analysis and understanding of the BRICS+ group and its implications for global governance. Click on the topics below to dive into each area:
Since Ukraine War at the latest, it has become clear that the Western-oriented international world order is currently being put to the test. International economic relations and trade routes, cooperation and free trade agreements that were taken for granted may no longer be, just like trust in the international legal order. From this process of upheaval, new transnational institutions and associations arise or old alliances are revived and attempt to reinvent and shape themselves.
In this project, we focus on the BRICS and BRICS+ group, their organisational and institutional setup, the historical and theoretical references as well as their economic and geopolitical agenda in order to draw conclusions about a global trend that has been observed in recent years: the emergence of informal international groupings that are not institutionalized under international law, which also applies to groups like the G7 or G20 (Papa et al. 2023). Therefore, other types of organizations (e.g. the EU) are not included in this analysis.
The informal nature of the BRICS+ group, in conjunction with formal agreements and politically relevant actions on the international stage by the participating states, send ambiguous signals and make it difficult for the West to grasp this phenomenon, which has not yet been sufficiently researched. The lack of understanding about the functioning of BRICS+ in the context of rapidly developing international relations creates uncertainty in the Western world and could lead to overestimation or worse, underestimation of the group. It is therefore important for Western countries to acquire the necessary knowledge and a better understanding of BRICS+ in order to anticipate possible effects on the current world order and to be able to act in a timely manner by implementing necessary measures instead of having to react when confronted with a fait accompli resulting from this union.