Leaders or Loners? How Do the BRICS Countries and their Regions Vote in the UN General Assembly

Renan Holanda Montenegro,Rafael Mesquita

doi:10.1590/1981-3821201700020005

Renan Holanda Montenegro, Rafael Mesquita

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/1981-3821201700020005

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Abstract

The so-called emerging powers, including the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), typically present themselves as natural leaders of their regions. Although physical size confers them the status of regional powers, their role as leaders depends on the consensual acceptance of their would-be followers. Can it be affirmed then that the countries under the influence of the BRICS show convergent positions? Can the five BRICS be considered de facto leaders of their regions? This article sets out to answer these questions by analysing the behaviour of the BRICS and their regional partners in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). The research design replicates the data from Voeten (2013) in order to compare the average affinity between each of the BRICS countries and their regions in the votes of the UNGA from 1992 to 2014. The data indicate a high level of regional cohesion for Brazil, China and South Africa when compared to Russia and India. The findings corroborate the literature in relation to Brazil and South Africa but conflict with what has been produced on the regional leadership of Russia, India and China.

Highlights

The so-called emerging powers, including the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), typically present themselves as natural leaders of their regions
The new emerging powers, called regional powers, have drawn increasing attention in the international political arena, the bloc formed by the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which has attracted considerable attention from scholars of the topic
The coefficient of variation (CV)9 reveals that Russia/Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is the group with least affinity on average, it shows the highest heterogeneity (17.97%), indicating that some CIS members are much more closely allied with Russia than others

Summary

Introduction

The so-called emerging powers, including the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), typically present themselves as natural leaders of their regions. The new emerging powers, called regional powers, have drawn increasing attention in the international political arena, the bloc formed by the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which has attracted considerable attention from scholars of the topic. The article is structured as follows: a presentation of the literature on emerging powers and the actions of the BRICS in this new international context; a description of the BRICS as regional powers and an investigation of each country's relations with its zone of influence; a presentation of the methodology used; a discussion of the results and concluding remarks. The economic and political rise of large peripheral countries at the start of the twenty-first century have made the limits of the concept clearer insofar as the behaviour of these new actors contrasts with earlier expectations concerning 'middle powermanship'

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