BRICS and the Unfinished Politics of a Multipolar World

The 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi has ended, but the political questions surrounding the organisation are far from settled. The summit took place at a moment when the architecture of the post-Cold War world is under visible strain. Wars have returned to the centre of international politics, economic sanctions have become instruments of strategic coercion, and trade, technology and investment are increasingly entangled with geopolitical rivalry. Artificial intelligence is opening a new frontier of competition over knowledge and productive power, while institutions created in the aftermath of the Second World War continue to operate according to a distribution of power that bears an increasingly limited resemblance to the realities of the twenty-first century. BRICS has acquired importance within precisely this moment of transition. Its significance lies not simply in the growing number of countries associated with it, but in the fact that it has become one of the principal arenas in which the future distribution of global power is being negotiated.

Yet BRICS is difficult to understand through conventional geopolitical categories. It is neither the coherent anti-Western bloc imagined by some of its critics nor the embryo of an alternative world order imagined by some of its admirers. It is better understood as an expression of a historical contradiction. States that once occupied a relatively marginal position in the institutions governing the world economy and international politics have acquired far greater demographic, economic and strategic weight, but the structures through which global decisions are made have not changed at the same pace. BRICS represents an attempt to address this imbalance, but the weakening of Western dominance and the democratisation of international relations are not the same process. A redistribution of power among states does not necessarily amount to a redistribution of power within societies.

This distinction is essential to any serious assessment of multipolarity. A world in which power is distributed among several major states is not necessarily a world in which ordinary people possess greater influence over the conditions of their lives. Multipolarity can weaken one hegemonic centre while strengthening several others. It can make the international system more plural at the level of states while leaving economic inequality, corporate concentration and political exclusion substantially intact. The important question, therefore, is not simply whether BRICS can contribute to the emergence of a multipolar world. It almost certainly can. The more difficult question is what kind of multipolar world is emerging and whether the redistribution of geopolitical influence will be accompanied by any deeper democratisation of economic and political power.

The historical grievance behind BRICS is nevertheless real. The international order established after 1945 was constructed around political and economic realities that have changed profoundly. The composition of the United Nations Security Council still reflects the geopolitical consequences of the Second World War more than the contemporary distribution of population and economic power. International financial institutions continue to reflect deeply unequal patterns of voting power and influence, while the rules governing trade, finance, technology and intellectual property have often been shaped within institutions in which developing countries possessed considerably less bargaining capacity than they do today. The demand for institutional reform is therefore not merely diplomatic rhetoric. There is a genuine democratic deficit in global governance, particularly when countries representing vast populations and increasingly important shares of global production remain inadequately represented in institutions whose decisions affect their economic and political futures.

But representation immediately raises a more complicated question: representation of whom? The language of the Global South can become misleading when it is treated as though the countries gathered under that description constitute a unified political subject. They do not. The states associated with BRICS differ enormously in their political systems, class structures, economic interests and foreign-policy traditions. India and China are partners within BRICS but also strategic competitors. Iran and the Gulf states bring different regional interests into the organisation. Brazil’s political history and international outlook differ significantly from Russia’s, while South Africa’s approach to questions of international justice remains deeply shaped by the history of apartheid and anti-colonial struggle. Indonesia, meanwhile, has long pursued a foreign policy centred on strategic autonomy rather than permanent alignment with any major power.

What binds these countries together is therefore less an ideology than a shared dissatisfaction with the existing distribution of international power and a desire for greater strategic autonomy. That is sufficient to make BRICS historically significant, but it is not sufficient to make it emancipatory. The sovereignty of a state is not necessarily identical to the sovereignty of its people. Governments can resist external intervention while suppressing political opposition at home, invoke national independence while permitting profound inequalities of wealth and power, or defend non-interference internationally while limiting democratic participation domestically. A state can be autonomous from Washington and still be authoritarian, unequal or deeply dependent on structures of domestic and global capital. The politics of international power cannot therefore be separated from the politics of social power.

The debate over de-dollarisation illustrates this problem particularly clearly. The extraordinary international role of the US dollar gives the United States forms of financial power that extend well beyond its borders. Monetary decisions taken in Washington can have consequences for developing economies regardless of whether their interests have been considered. Access to international finance can become a geopolitical instrument, while sanctions and restrictions on financial transactions can affect economies far removed from the country imposing them. There is consequently a legitimate case for greater monetary and financial autonomy. Yet monetary diversification is not the same thing as economic emancipation. If dependence on the dollar were simply replaced by dependence on another dominant currency, the underlying hierarchy of international finance would remain largely unchanged. The deeper issues concern who controls capital, who determines the conditions of lending, who bears the consequences of financial crises and whose developmental priorities are treated as legitimate.

The New Development Bank has financed infrastructure and energy projects across member states, yet the existence of successful projects does not settle the larger political question. Infrastructure and energy investment can improve lives, but they can also reproduce existing patterns of inequality, displacement and environmental damage if affected communities have little influence over the decisions that shape them. The real test for the New Development Bank is therefore not whether it can lend money more efficiently or establish itself as another significant multilateral financial institution. Its significance will depend on whether it develops a conception of development that differs substantively from the assumptions that have historically dominated international finance. This would require greater attention to who participates in defining projects, who benefits from them, whose land and labour are affected, how social and environmental costs are evaluated and what meaningful mechanisms exist for communities to challenge or influence decisions. An alternative source of finance is not automatically an alternative politics of development.
The same tension is increasingly visible in the field of artificial intelligence. BRICS has recognised AI as an important area of cooperation and has increasingly incorporated discussions of technological governance, scientific collaboration and access to emerging technologies into its broader agenda. These developments matter because artificial intelligence is not simply another technological innovation. It is becoming a major arena in which economic and political power will be reorganised. The decisive issues concern ownership and control: ownership of computing infrastructure, control over data, access to advanced chips and cloud systems, intellectual property rights, the development of foundational models and the distribution of the economic gains generated by automation.
For many countries of the Global South, the danger is that artificial intelligence will reproduce older patterns of dependency in a technologically more sophisticated form. Countries may acquire access to powerful AI systems while remaining dependent on infrastructure, platforms, models and standards controlled elsewhere. Political independence did not automatically eliminate economic dependency, and access to technology does not automatically produce technological sovereignty. BRICS could make a significant contribution if it approached AI not simply as a field for investment and national competitiveness but as a question of public capacity. Joint research, publicly supported computing infrastructure, open scientific cooperation, accessible education and common approaches to technological governance could reduce dependency and widen access to knowledge. Such an approach, however, would require BRICS to confront the concentration of corporate power as seriously as it confronts the concentration of geopolitical power. A grouping that challenges the dominance of a small number of states while leaving the growing power of a small number of technology corporations largely unquestioned would only be addressing part of the problem.

Climate change exposes an equally difficult contradiction. BRICS includes major energy producers, rapidly industrialising economies and some of the societies most vulnerable to climate disruption. Its members are justified in demanding recognition of historical responsibility for the climate crisis and in insisting that countries which became wealthy through earlier periods of unrestricted industrialisation cannot now impose permanent developmental limitations on those that industrialised later. Demands for climate finance, technology transfer and a fairer distribution of responsibility are therefore legitimate. Yet climate justice cannot simply mean asserting the right of emerging powers to reproduce the same extractive model that produced the present ecological crisis. The atmosphere cannot distinguish between Western and non-Western emissions. If the twenty-first century becomes a competition among major powers to secure energy, minerals, land and technological resources through increasingly intensive extraction, the result may be a more multipolar world that is nevertheless materially less habitable.

The challenge is not to deny development to the Global South but to reconsider what development means. Economic security, public services, technological advancement and improved living standards cannot indefinitely depend upon an ever-expanding model of extraction and consumption. The political task is to develop forms of prosperity that do not simply universalise the ecological trajectory previously followed by the industrialised world. This is where the politics of multipolarity encounters the politics of planetary survival. A redistribution of geopolitical power will mean little if the competition among the new centres of power accelerates the ecological crisis that threatens them all.
The question of war reveals another fundamental limitation of the existing international order and presents BRICS with a particularly difficult test. The wars of recent years have demonstrated not only the destructive capacity of modern states but also the selective manner in which international principles are applied. Sovereignty is defended vigorously in some cases and compromised in others. International law is invoked against adversaries and interpreted more flexibly when it constrains allies. Civilian suffering receives different levels of political attention depending upon the geopolitical circumstances surrounding it. The problem is not simply the absence of international principles but the unequal political power that determines when those principles are enforced.

BRICS has the opportunity to challenge this selectivity, but doing so would require more than criticism of Western intervention or opposition to unilateral sanctions. A genuinely different internationalism would have to apply its principles consistently, including when doing so is politically inconvenient for its own members or their allies. Opposition to unilateral coercion cannot be credible only when BRICS states are affected. Concern for civilian life cannot depend upon geography. Sovereignty cannot become a principle invoked selectively to protect strategic interests. This is one of the most difficult challenges facing an organisation composed of states with sharply differing strategic relationships and regional interests, and it partly explains why BRICS declarations often rely on language broad enough to preserve consensus among governments that might otherwise disagree. Diplomatic ambiguity may help maintain unity, but it can also weaken accountability and leave fundamental political contradictions unresolved.

India’s role within BRICS makes these tensions particularly visible. New Delhi has consistently sought to preserve strategic autonomy and has resisted the transformation of BRICS into a straightforward anti-American alliance. India maintains longstanding relations with Russia, manages a difficult strategic rivalry with China, expands economic and technological ties with Western powers and simultaneously presents itself as an important voice for the concerns of developing countries. This balancing act reflects India’s increasing diplomatic importance, but it also demonstrates why the language of representation should be treated carefully. India may articulate concerns shared by many developing countries, but its national interests are not identical with those of the developing world as a whole. The capacity to speak within a coalition is not the same as possessing a mandate to speak for it.

This becomes particularly significant when development is discussed. Much of the political language surrounding emerging powers remains centred on growth, infrastructure, investment, industrial capacity, technological competitiveness and national power. These are undoubtedly important, but they do not constitute a complete definition of development. A country can become wealthier while inequality deepens, acquire advanced technologies while large sections of its population remain economically insecure, build globally competitive corporations while public institutions weaken and gain geopolitical influence without significantly expanding the political agency of ordinary citizens. The question is therefore not simply whether BRICS can make its member states stronger, but whether it can contribute to forms of development in which economic growth is linked more directly to human security, public welfare and democratic participation.

This is where the absence of ordinary people from the institutional structure of BRICS becomes increasingly important. BRICS has developed a wide network of ministerial meetings, business councils, academic initiatives and sectoral mechanisms, but decision-making remains overwhelmingly mediated through governments and established institutions. Workers whose labour generates the wealth discussed at international summits, communities affected by infrastructure and extraction projects, farmers confronting climate change, citizens whose employment may be transformed by artificial intelligence and communities exposed to the environmental consequences of development have little direct institutional influence over the policies formulated in their name.

This does not have to remain an unavoidable feature of the organisation. BRICS could create a permanent civil society and people’s forum linked formally to its institutional structure, rather than treating public participation as a parallel event with no influence on official deliberations. Such a mechanism could include representatives of labour organisations, farmers’ groups, environmental movements, public-health networks, universities, women’s organisations, technology researchers and community groups from across member states. Its purpose would not be to replace governments, but to introduce a structured mechanism through which social interests could enter the official conversation.
For such an initiative to be meaningful, however, it would need to have more than symbolic status. Major development initiatives could be accompanied by publicly available social and environmental assessments and mechanisms for consultation with affected communities. The New Development Bank could strengthen opportunities for independent review and public participation in projects that have significant social consequences.

Recommendations emerging from a representative civil society forum could be formally presented to relevant ministerial meetings, while governments could be required to respond publicly to major recommendations supported across multiple member states. Such measures would not transform BRICS into a democratic institution overnight, and civil society itself is hardly free from inequalities of class, resources and influence. Yet institutionalising participation and dissent would be preferable to treating populations merely as beneficiaries of decisions made elsewhere.

The same issue arises in debates about labour and technological transformation. Cooperation on skills, employment and social protection is important, particularly as platform work, automation and artificial intelligence reshape labour markets. But workers cannot simply be treated as individuals who must continuously adapt themselves to technological change. The more fundamental questions concern who captures the gains produced by rising productivity, whether workers possess meaningful bargaining power, how platform companies are regulated, whether social protection extends to new forms of employment and whether the costs of technological transformation are imposed disproportionately on those with the least economic security. A serious approach to the future of work would therefore move beyond the language of employability and ask how technological progress can be accompanied by a redistribution of economic power.

These questions connect the apparently separate debates surrounding BRICS. Finance, artificial intelligence, climate change and labour are all, at a deeper level, questions about ownership and power. They concern who controls capital, technology and natural resources, who determines the direction of development, who bears social and environmental costs and who receives the benefits generated by economic transformation. These questions are ultimately more significant than whether the next international order is described as Western, post-Western or multipolar.

There is also a danger that should not be underestimated. As the Western-led order weakens, the resulting transition may not produce a more democratic international system. It may instead intensify competition among several major powers. The world could move from one dominant centre to several competing centres, each seeking greater strategic autonomy and influence. Smaller states might gain greater room to manoeuvre between these powers, but they could also become sites of competition among them. The vocabulary of international politics might change and the hierarchy might become less Western, while hierarchy itself remained firmly intact.

This is why multipolarity should be understood as a political condition rather than a political programme. It can create greater opportunities for national independence, South-South cooperation and institutional reform, but it can also coexist with authoritarianism, militarised nationalism, ecological destruction and new forms of economic dependency. History offers no guarantee that the decline of one dominant order will produce a better one. The end of Western predominance would not automatically mean the end of domination, because domination is not fundamentally a geographical phenomenon. It is a relationship of power.

The deeper problem with the existing international system is therefore not simply that particular Western states possess disproportionate influence. It is that military, financial, technological and institutional power is concentrated in ways that allow a relatively small number of states and corporations to shape the lives of billions. Changing the nationality of those exercising power does not by itself transform the structure of power. The democratisation of international relations requires more than expanding representation within existing institutions. It requires changing the terms on which international decisions are made and widening the range of people and social forces capable of influencing them.
The significance of BRICS should therefore not be measured solely by the number of countries it attracts, the size of its combined economy or the strength of its declarations against Western dominance. Its importance will depend on whether the institutions associated with it can reduce economic dependency rather than merely rearranging it, widen access to finance without reproducing old patterns of accumulation, expand technological capacity without creating new monopolies and apply international principles with greater consistency than the institutions it seeks to reform.

The present transition in global politics is real, but its outcome remains open. The old hierarchy is weakening without a new international order having acquired a settled political character. That uncertainty contains both danger and possibility. It may produce intensified rivalry among states, but it may also create space for new forms of cooperation and for movements demanding a more democratic distribution of global power. BRICS sits at the centre of this ambiguity. It should neither be dismissed as merely another instrument of state power nor romanticised as an automatic vehicle of emancipation. Its importance lies precisely in the contradiction it embodies: it challenges an existing hierarchy without necessarily challenging hierarchy itself, questions Western dominance without necessarily questioning the concentration of power as such, and speaks of equality among nations while leaving unresolved the inequalities within nations.

That contradiction is not a reason to ignore BRICS. It is the reason to take it seriously. The future of the organisation will depend on whether it remains primarily a mechanism through which emerging powers negotiate a larger place within the existing international system or whether it begins to participate in the construction of a different kind of internationalism. The first path would produce a more balanced distribution of geopolitical power. The second would require something considerably more ambitious: institutions capable of making power itself more accountable, more widely distributed and more responsive to human needs.

A genuinely post-Western world should not simply mean a world in which Western states possess less power. It should mean a world in which no state, bloc, corporation or financial institution possesses an unchecked ability to determine the economic and political destiny of others. That is a far more demanding conception of international equality than the simple redistribution of influence among competing powers. A world can have many poles and still contain enormous concentrations of power. It can become less Western without becoming more democratic, and more plural without becoming more just.

The central challenge, therefore, is not to replace one hegemonic centre with several competing centres, but to construct institutions in which power itself is subject to greater democratic control. BRICS has opened political space in which that possibility can be debated and contested. Whether it ultimately becomes an instrument for redistributing geopolitical privilege or a platform capable of contributing to the democratisation of global power remains unresolved. The first possibility requires diplomacy and institutional coordination. The second requires a deeper transformation in the political imagination through which states, development and international cooperation are understood.

That is the unfinished politics of the multipolar world.