Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The BRICS as a Club
BRICS in the Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis
Strategic Incentives in Unipolarity and Common Aversions
The BRICS and the Global Governance System
Formal Institutions and Informal Powers: The Emergence of Clubs
The BRICS as a Club
Clubs with Power Asymmetries and Dominant Powers with Outside Options
Plan of the Book

2. Global Power Shift: The BRICS, Building Capabilities for Influence
Conceptualizing Power
Measuring the Shift in Economic Capabilities
A New, Multipolar World?
The Global Financial and Monetary Capabilities of the BRICS
Redback Rising
Conclusions

3. BRICS Collective Financial Statecraft: Four Cases
Defining Collective Financial Statecraft
Four Categories of Collective Financial Statecraft
Inside Reforms: The BRICS Quest for Greater Influence Within the IMF and World Bank (Case 1)
Inside Reforms: Resist Manipulation of Financial Market Power for U.S./Western Political Aims (Case 2)
Outside Options: Create Parallel Financial Institutions Controlled by the BRICS (Case 3)
Outside Options: Diminish Dollar Dominance and Build the Financial Market
Power of the RMB (Case 4)
Future Directions and Cooperative Opportunities Not Taken
Conclusion: Mostly Successful BRICS Collective Financial Statecraft

4. Motives for BRICS Collaboration: Views from the Five Capitals
Six Propositions
The View from Beijing: In Search of Legitimacy and Unthreatening Leadership
The View from Moscow: Russia's Struggle for Autonomy and International Influence
The View from New Delhi: Amplifying Voice and Anticipating Multipolarity
The View from Brasília: Enhancing Status and Inviting Investment
The View from Pretoria: Support for Growth and Regional Leadership
Conclusions: Explaining BRICS Collaboration

5. Conclusion: Whither the BRICS?
BRICS and World Order: Too Much Pessimism Is Unwarranted
Growth: The Essential Need to Return to the BRICS' Roots
The Tension Between Formal and Informal Rules
Summing up: The BRICS, Collective Financial Statecraft, and the Multipolar Future

Notes
Index

About the Author

Cynthia Roberts is Associate Professor of Political Science at Hunter College, City University of New York, a Senior Associate at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, and Adjunct Associate Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University.

Leslie Elliott Armijo is term Associate Professor in the School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada.

Saori N. Katada is Associate Professor in the School of International Relations, University of Southern California.

Reviews

"This well-researched and insightful book represents the best effort yet to assess the impact of the brics, as the group of countries is known."
-Foreign Affairs
"This book provides an authoritative, comprehensive, and lucid account of the rise of the BRICS. A compelling narrative about how a group of economies, which have some congruent interests but are simultaneously competitors in many other areas, have set aside their differences and come together as a force to reckon with in global finance."
-Eswar Prasad, Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy, Cornell University, and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution
"Here is a book that sceptics of the BRICS must read. Through careful and nuanced analysis, the authors show why no serious analyst of global financial governance can ignore this grouping any longer."
-Eric Helleiner, Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo
"This well-researched and insightful book represents the best effort yet to assess the impact of the brics, as the group of countries is known."