Restructuring the World Order: BRICS and Africa at the Time of Change, or “Multicore” against “Polycentric”

Abstract

The article discusses some aspects of the formation of a new post-crisis world order, emerging on the ruins of a short-lived unipolar world order, from two perspectives: (a) the future structure of the new world system and (b) the role of fundamentally new constructs of global governance in it, such as BRICS. The role of the latter’s relations with Africa in the formation of a new world order is considered at length. In theoretical terms, for the first time, the concept of a possible construction of two alternative versions of the world order has been put forward: one of a “single” world order with a number of “cores” coexisting inside it, the other of a world divided into two or more monocentric systems forced to somehow interact or isolate from each other.