India , Brazil And South Africa Research Articles

Southern multilateralism from IBSA to NDB: Synergies, continuities and regional options

AbstractThe shifting nature of contemporary global politics highlights the growing contestation about power and how it is distributed, with multipolarity as its hallmark and distinguishing feature. Amid the shift to multipolarity, new forms of multilateralism are emerging from the South, which are grounded in ‘institutional arrangements led by countries of the Global South’ in terms of the origin of initiatives, the drivers of such arrangements and the resources to sustain them. In this context, Southern Multilateralism offers a differ approach to classical Realist thinking where power is ‘the final arbiter of things political’. Southern Multilateralism has also given rise to new international institutional arrangements, such as the BRICS‐led New Development Bank (NDB) and its predecessor, the India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) Trilateral Forum and the IBSA Fund Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation.This article compares the IBSA and their Fund with the NDB and argues that there are continuities and linkages between the NDB and the IBSA Fund, which have yet to be examined by scholars; and to be more precise, the NDB has absorbed and reflects, key attributes of the IBSA and their Fund. Moreover, this study concludes by suggesting regional collaboration options for the NDB, led by South Africa, India and Brazil and their respective regions, whereby the NDB can expand its global role and relevance in future via its regional offices, particularly by supporting the regional trade integration plans in Africa, South Asia and South America.

Sustainable Development in Middle Powers’ Governance Arrangements


 Considering middle powers’ potential to address new demands worldwide and their propensity to contribute to new forms of institution-building in global governance, arrangements between them consist of interesting opportunities to promote sustainable development. However, some have shown to be more effective than others in this regard. When observing two of these partnerships’ outcomes between 2015 and 2018, India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA) Trilateral Forum has demonstrated more effectiveness than Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, and Australia (MIKTA) New Innovative Partnership. To understand why, this study analyses specialized literature, with special attention to Koenig-Archibugi’s (2002) framework on global governance arrangements’ effectiveness. Arguing that middle power arrangements that address sustainable development are more effective when benefiting from greater functional specialization and that diversified power access also plays a role, this study raises awareness about middle powers’ relevance in addressing new global demands. The study points out the nascent research on these informal partnerships and the causal relations between these arrangements’ structures and effectiveness.

Progress of IBSA Countries Towards Universal Primary Education: A Comparative Analysis

Free and compulsory primary education remains a priority area in the international policy perspective, starting from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 to the formulation of Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. Under the impact of globalization, an impressive expansion in the access to primary education has been observed in recent decades and the global trends in enrolment rates across the developing world have attested this fact. However, many developing countries, such as India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA), are still struggling with the goal of quality primary education for all. The IBSA countries are emerging economies and very proactive in addressing past inequalities prevalent in their countries. With the cooperation of international organizations, national policy planning and other initiatives, these countries have performed quite well in the educational attainment. But even today, these countries have not achieved the goal of quality primary education for all. This paper reviews the attainment of free and compulsory primary education in these countries, along with the challenges faced in the achievement of universal primary education. These challenges may hinder the progress of these countries towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal.

Democratic BRICS as role models in a shifting global order: inherent dilemmas and the challenges ahead

India, Brazil and South Africa constitute an important subset of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) and emerging powers at large in a shifting global order. The article examines the capacity of these democratic BRICS to serve as a role model to the rest of the developing world, at a time when liberal democracy seems to be experiencing serious challenges and dislocations in the Global North. The article considers the important achievements of democratic BRICS, in terms of their individual performances as well as through active cooperation strategies through organisations such as the India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum. Attention is drawn to the inherent structural dilemmas confronted by democratic BRICS to serve as genuine role models, given their domestic weaknesses as well as inherent constraints on their collective action strategies. Our central argument is that these countries, individually and collectively, are likely to have a crucial bearing on the future of liberal democracy on a global scale.

Testing output gap and economic uncertainty as an explicator of stock market returns

This study examines whether output gap along with the US economic uncertainty can explain the variations in stock market returns of G7 and IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) countries. Using quarterly data on output gap and US economic policy uncertainty index, the study reports following empirical regularities. First, there is a significant impact of immediate lag of output gap on stock market return, implying that output gap can help predict the stock market returns. Second, US economic policy uncertainty impacts these markets negatively. Third, the results of the country-specific output gap and global (common) output gap indicate that the impact of the global output gap is relatively stronger compared to country specific output gap on stock market returns of most of the G7 and IBSA countries. Fourth, these results are further confirmed by directional interdependence approach except Brazil and India where the stock market appears as an explicator of economic activity. Fifth, under the time-varying framework, the results show that for emerging markets, global output gap along with economic policy uncertainty explains variations in stock market returns. Overall, our findings thus suggest that output gap along with economic uncertainty can be considered as an important explicator of stock market returns in case of developed and emerging markets.

Framing cooperation among regional economic powers: The South in global spheres of influence

This study examined the coverage of the trilateral commission of India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA) in the national press of these three countries over a 6-year period. Even though this group has pre-dated the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) group and shares an affinity from political and economic standpoints, it has received little attention in media research. The goal of the study was to understand how news media framed the relationship among the IBSA member nations, and their individual and collective policy stances to their citizens. Each news source emphasized different areas of the cooperation; all three news sources expressed faith in IBSA to varying degrees, but also kept a close eye on the more recently formed BRICS. In sum, this study offers an exploratory view of cooperation among emerging regional economic powers located across and lobbying for the South in contemporary global spheres of influence.

South–south relationships and the transfer of ‘best practice’: the case of Johannesburg, South Africa

The reconfiguration of economic and political power globally is reshaping the geographies of ‘best practice’ knowledge transfer, with a discernible shift from north–south to south–south learning. In the case of Johannesburg, South Africa, embedded patterns of north–south transfer were at least partially disrupted from around 2000 with a new discourse around south–south cooperation and the emergence of new global coalitions, including IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). South–south transfer has arguably led to policy solutions that are more appropriate to contexts such as Johannesburg, but south–south engagements are not inherently virtuous or immune to the power inequalities and other pitfalls of north–south engagements. New, hybridised patterns of north–south, south–south transfer are emerging within Transnational Municipal Networks (TMCs), but these, too, both entrench and challenge previous relationships.

Inequality, development, and the rising democracies of the Global South

The 2010 G-20 summit marked the transition to a new multipolar world with participation of rising powers from the Global South. This article explores the new hopes for a more equitable future with a focus on the tripartite alliance of India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA). In contrast to their BRICS counterparts China and Russia, the IBSA countries have democratic political systems and share major foreign policy objectives, including UN Security Council reform. Rejecting deterministic and neoliberal models, this article presents a broader conceptualization of inclusive development and examines the trenches of development as contentious constructions. The IBSA countries’ legacies of steep socio-economic inequalities are compared with their most recent development records and stated ambitions of policy discourse. The article uses scenario construction to highlight stakes and choices for democratic development at this critical geopolitical juncture.

Mutual Accessibility Amongst Markets In India, Brazil And South Africa (IBSA)

Using data for the period 2001-2011, trade by each country with its fellow IBSA countries was analysed. It was found that since 2004, a year after the inception of the IBSA development initiative, intra-IBSA trade has been rising. However, tariff barriers continue to be of concern. Data available for tariffs show that each country continues to have a very high number of tariff lines which complicates their tariff structures. Each country has huge disparities between bound and applied tariff rates, which results in exporter uncertainty as countries can raise applied tariff rates to bound levels so as to manage prices and supply. On some products, countries continue to apply significantly high tariffs to each other. In an effort to reduce tariffs on each other, the countries have taken initiatives to negotiate and sign preferential trade agreements with a free trade area as the eventual outcome. Non-tariff barriers also continue to constrain intra-IBSA trade. These include infrastructure constraints, inadequate business information, import licensing and customs regimes. Through IBSA Working Groups, initiatives are being taken to address non-tariff barriers. To ensure that such initiatives are legally binding, Memoranda of Understanding are being signed and ratified.

Rising States and Distributive Justice: Reforming International Order in the Twenty-First Century

Contrary to predominantly materialist accounts of the impact and implications of rising powers in shaping the global order, the present study explores how ideas related to South-South solidarity formed the interests and directed the collective actions of emerging states. It specifically looks at attempts by India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA), through their trilateral development assistance mechanism, the IBSA Fund, to challenge traditional normative frameworks of best behaviour associated to Western/liberal development models. I argue that contemporary South-South initiatives in general and the India, Brazil and South Africa partnership in particular, are promoting changes in the current political-normative configuration of international relations. Unlike South-South coalitions of the early post-colonial era, such as the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) and the G77, when newly independent states in Africa and Asia had moral leverage but were economically weak, leading Southern states have achieved economic gains that have significantly raised their normative pull. However, their actual impact cannot be fully understood detached from the historical process by which Southern norms were first created and that later guided the foreign policy agendas of these emerging powers. This article shows the resilience of perceptions, values and ideas, which have been translated into conceptions of ‘distributive justice’ promoted by Southern powers through initiatives such as IBSA.

Rising Regional Powers and International Institutions: The Foreign Policy Orientations of India, Brazil and South Africa

How do rising powers relate to international institutions? At the same time as rising regional powers from the South emerge as key players in international politics, they confront a highly institutionalised world order established and maintained by and for the United States and its allies. Traditional perspectives identify three major patterns of behaviour for rising states in international institutions: balancing, spoiling, and being coopted. This article uses these perspectives to ask how the redistributive aspirations of three rising regional powers – India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA) – impact on international institutions in the fields of trade, money, and security. The findings indicate that there is strong variation across issue areas. Trade provides support for the spoiling perspective, while the areas of money and security exhibit aspects familiar both to the balancing and cooptation perspectives. A broader picture emerges of IBSA states' general integration into hegemonic norms and being coopted into existing international institutions, but at the same time as balancing the influence of the established powers and reforming these institutions to conform to a more South-oriented, sovereigntist image of world order.

India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA): South-South Cooperation and the Paradox of Regional Leadership

Abstract This article argues that the long-term sustainability of the trilateral partnership established in 2003 between India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA) rests on a more conscious engagement with their regional partners. The construction of a strong regional leadership role for IBSA based on its members' strategic positions in South Asia, South America, and southern Africa is the proper common ground to legitimize a diplomatic partnership between the IBSA states. This is even more pressing as China is actively competing for markets and influence with the IBSA trio within their respective regions, particularly in Africa. The paradox, though, is that while Northern powers have welcomed the regional leadership role of IBSA's members, most of their neighbors are not convinced of the actual intentions of New Delhi, Brasilia, and Pretoria. As a result, leadership within IBSA is defined in global terms as a claim to lead the developing world. At the regional level, however, IBSA's claim for leadership is l...

Immutable clauses and judicial review in India, Brazil and South Africa: expanding constitutional courts' authority

The development of immutable constitutional rights in India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) is an historical response to violence and oppression. Such rigidity, however, institutes a deep distrust of the legislature and the sovereignty of future generations, unbalancing the delicate democratic stability supporting the system of judicial review. This article discusses the lively jurisprudence of IBSA and notes that the courts adopt the formal shielding of the immutability theory selectively and not homogeneously if compared with each other when they are confronted with critical issues for the parliament and the executive. Nevertheless, it is contended that, as to the judiciary's institutional power and prerogatives, all IBSA's constitutional courts overall embrace activist interpretation based on immutable clauses to extend their jurisdiction and entrench their power over the other branches of government.

Strengthening Developing Country Coalitions in WTO Negotiations: Is IBSAC (India, Brazil, South Africa, China) the Right Forum?

The IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) Dialogue Forum came into being in middle of 2003 with the meeting of the heads of Governments of the three countries on the sidelines of the G8 Evian Summit. The countries have been part of the G-20 negotiating forum at the WTO and hold an important position among the developing countries. The article analyzes the cohesion among the IBSAC members and comments on its future outlook.

IBSAC (India, Brazil, South Africa, China): A Potential Developing Country Coalition in WTO Negotiations

The IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) came into being in middle of 2003 with the meeting of the heads of Governments of the three countries on the sidelines of the Evian Summit. Since then the three countries have collaborated at times in the WTO multilateral negotiation forums. Another leading developing country, China has occasionally collaborated with IBSA during WTO negotiations. The current analysis explores the possible emergence of IBSAC as a negotiating coalition at the WTO forums.

A Study of IBSA(India, Brazil and South Africa)

A Study of IBSA(India, Brazil and South Africa)