BRICs at the Gate

Former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda warns in a new Foreign Affairs essay that the BRICs—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—are not ready for leadership roles in key international institutions. The gist of the argument is that their committment to democracy and human rights is shaky and that handing them keys to the inner sanctum would weaken institutions like the UN Security Council, the IMF, and the World Bank.

Consider these states’ positions on the promotion of democracy and human rights worldwide. Brazil, India, and South Africa are representative democracies that basically respect human rights at home, but when it comes to defending democracy and human rights outside their borders, there is not much difference between them and authoritarian China. On those questions, all four states remain attached to the rallying cries of their independence or national liberation struggles: sovereignty, self-determination, nonintervention, autonomous economic development. And today, these notions often contradict the values enshrined in the international order.

I’m not sure how convincing this will be to the emerging powers, whose immediate response would be to ask who built the current international order and whose interests it serves. Several of the BRICs—particularly Russia and China—have never seen key global institutions as their own. On the Security Council, for example, those two powers to this day spend most of their time reacting to the initiatives of the Western powers and relatively little generating their own.   

More parochially, I’m sure some BRIC champions will see this essay as little more than a complaint by a regional wannabe frustrated at Brazil’s new prominence. Particularly when it comes to permanent Security Council seats, the BRICs’ fiercest opponents are often not the established powers but nearby competitors who fear being spoken for by the new regional luminary. This kind of argument underlines how tricky restructuring key international institutions will be; in many situations, the bulk of states will prefer the status quo to a reform in which a competitor benefits. Last year, David Rothkopf reported hearing hints that the Obama administration would consider placing a non-American—maybe Lula?—at the helm of the World Bank to help convince the world that these institutions belong to everyone. Castañeda’s essay is a good reminder that there really is no "everyone." 

Leaving substantive policy differences aside, there’s a related danger associated with too quickly dispersing leadership in key international institutions: that nobody will feel ownership of them. Particularly when it comes to the World Bank, it’s critical to remember that there are donors and borrowers. And if the donors stop feeling that they ultimately run the show, their appetite for donating may subside. Congress has already put up some almighty fights about UN dues.  Without an American at the head, Bank funding might come in for the same treatment.