The Devil is in the Detail

This chapter addresses the authority of the United Nations Security Council and its politicization by the BRICS. In particular, it explores the patterns of contestation for the reform of the United Nations Security Council and the Responsibility to Protect. How do the BRICS position themselves towards these two issues and how do they justify their demands? Do they build a challengers’ coalition? Using, first, a qualitative analysis of BRICS statements and, second, congruence analysis, this chapter maps and explains the positions of BRICS states on UNSC reform and R2P. We find that BRICS’ individual positions show a convergence on the basic contours of UNSC reform and R2P. The contestation pattern clearly indicates that this group favours the UNSC having strong international authority and also that they share concerns about the liberal content of the UNSC. While there is a strong tendency towards convergence on the one hand, BRICS strongly disagree on the details of the reform of the UNSC—as well as on the implementation of R2P on the other. These differences are so strong that they are unlikely to be resolved in the near future. Congruence analysis shows that power transition theory best explains their agreement ‘in principle’, but that none of the available theories explain their disagreement ‘in detail’. We conclude that, as things stand, the BRICS do not pose a challenge to the status quo in governance within the field of international security.

Exclusive Club Under Stress

This chapter traces how the seemingly united front against the G7 by rising powers and civil society actors broke apart in the early 2010s. While rising power criticism of the G7 waned after the first G20 summits, civil society organizations (CSOs) maintained their critical stance and extended it to the G20. The chapter argues that, from the beginning, contestation by the two sets of actors had focused on different issues. Opposition by rising powers was driven mainly by their own exclusion from the governance club. In contrast, many civil society actors rejected not only the exclusiveness of the G7 on a much more fundamental level but also the idea of liberal macroeconomic coordination as such (policy content). To demonstrate this, the chapter develops a framework for analysis, based on the introductory chapter to this volume. It, then, describes the G7 and its post-Cold War development and analyses the key institutional bones of contention for the BRICS states and for important non-state actors. The analysis shows that rising power governments always had been much closer to business actors and G7 members than to CSOs in their vision for macroeconomic governance. The upgrading of the G20 brought the divergence of positions between the BRICS and CSOs clearly to light as it satisfied the BRICS’ desire for inclusion and left CSOs alone with their more fundamental critique of liberal governance through small groups of powerful states.

Cleavages in World Politics

This chapter systematically examines the potential cleavages that run between the rising and the established powers in international politics. To that end, it analyses and compares the voting behaviour of the BRICS, IBSA, and G7 states in the United Nations General Assembly (GA). GA voting is particularly suited to identify the potential conflict lines between ‘new’ and ‘old’ powers as it runs the gambit of issues confronted in the international system and provides a forum where states can express their preferences relatively freely. Using a spatial model of voting (W-NOMINATE), this chapter analyses more than 500 roll-call votes in the GA over the period 2002–11.

Contestation in the UNFCCC

This chapter analyses contestation surrounding the issue of climate finance and its regulation in global climate regime, within the institutional boundaries of the UNFCCC. It focuses on the BRICS and several pivotal NGO coalitions, including the Climate Action Network and the International Chamber of Commerce. Using techniques of qualitative content analysis, the chapter outlines the shifts on positions and conflict lines over time as a result of a change in status of at least some of the BRICS states. While the chapter shows that the BASIC coalition (formed by Brazil, South Africa, India, and China as part of the Copenhagen summit in 2009) has lost cohesion, the results also present the BRICS states as defenders, rather than challengers, of the institutional status quo, particularly when it comes to the continued relevance of the central norm of the UNFCCC original treaty, the ‘Common But Differentiated Responsibilities’. Particularly the conflict over who should take on the responsibility to pay for mitigation divides the community of transnational NGOs, which has been shown to lower their overall impact.

Transnational Private Authority and Its Contestation

The chapter investigates the preferences of BRICS and NGOs with regard to the exercise of transnational private authority. Three such governance schemes are selected: the Kimberley Process, the Global Compact, and the Social Accountability 8000 (SA8000) certification scheme. Transnational governance schemes are part of the liberal status quo. Yet, preferences of BRICS and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are so diverse that there is rarely joint contestation nor is there an alliance between the two groups of actors. The analysis shows that it is mainly civil society organizations (CSOs) which contest privatized governance schemes. Business-related interest groups are generally supporting such schemes, to little surprise. BRICS also show a remarkable level of support for privatized forms of governance. The clearest differences in preferences exist between CSOs and BRICS: whereas CSOs champion stronger international institutions, the support of BRICS for private governance schemes increases in proportion to the weakness of a given arrangement or to the extent of national discretion it still affords them. In light of BRICS’ and NGOs’ different preferences, on the one hand, and among the members of each of these groups, on the other hand, neither of these two ‘groups’ can be considered close to having a single shared vision of global order. As a result, there is also little potential for strategic cooperation between BRICS and NGOs when it comes to contesting the status quo of transnational private authority.

Negotiating the UN Human Rights Council

This chapter examines the negotiation of the UN Human Rights Council in order to systematically analyse and compare the preferences that rising powers, established powers, and NGOs have expressed with regard to its institutional design. The UN Human Rights Council is the key institution in the human rights regime and one of the few recent cases of institutional reform. The negotiation surrounding its creation offers unique insight into the conflict lines that run between ‘old’ powers, ‘new’ powers, and NGOs in the field of human rights. In this chapter, new data have been collected and analysed consisting of more than 500 written statements in which states and NGOs express their demands about the policy content and the authority structure of the new human rights institution.

Conclusion

The concluding chapter draws together the findings and compares them across chapters, issue areas, and actors. Three findings are most noteworthy. First, the demands of both rising powers and NGOs can be characterized as in some cases status quo oriented and in others reformist. There are only a few signs of revisionism. Second, the challengers do not constitute a coherent group in international politics. There are very few indications of a systemic challenge with similar positions and coalitions in all cases, as power transition theory suggests. Third, the demands for change are issue-area specific and are mostly directed against either unequal representation in the decision-making bodies or strong forms of neo-liberal or human rights-based intrusiveness.

The Contestation of the IMF

Few international organizations wield as much political authority over nation states, and provoke substantial political controversies, as does the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This chapter investigates the extent to which rising powers in the global economy, notably Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS), contest the IMF’s policies and rules. Do they express a general discomfort with its economic policy paradigm, or do they seek to improve their position within the institution and extend their influence over it? In a quantitative analysis of statements during the meetings of the International Monetary and Financial Committee over time, the chapter finds that both rising and established powers contest the IMF to a comparable extent. Yet, the BRICS’ contestation behaviour differs qualitatively from that of the major advanced economies. While the latter demand institutional reforms, the former strongly criticize institutional procedures and rules. The BRICS most strongly contest the issue of their institutional representation in the IMF’s quota-based decision-making system and the Fund’s (neo)-liberal policy paradigm does not seem to play an important role in that behaviour.

Contestation Overshoot

This chapter surveys the demands made towards the WTO during the Doha Round by rising powers and twenty of the most influential trade-related transnational NGOs. It also compares these to the demands of established powers. Using techniques from qualitative content analysis and discourse analysis, it analyses these actors’ substantive policy demands, and the argumentative justifications that they provide for their demands. It finds that while the rising powers are largely satisfied with the institutional status quo, they are strongly dissatisfied with existing policy content. Their demands reveal a social purpose that can be described as developmental liberalism. In this approach they have found allies mostly in market-critical civil society organizations.

The Contestation of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Regime

The nuclear world order, and more specifically the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), represent since their very creation objects of contestation. This chapter argues that it is the institutionalized power inequality between state parties that creates conflict among them over the distribution of security, economic, and developmental benefits. In that respect, states with growing economic importance and heightened security interests are most likely to contest the status quo, but not necessarily the BRICS states as these are not bound by a common interest or agenda within the regime. To analyse the contestation of the NPT, the chapter adopts a mixed method approach. Through a qualitative content analysis of states’ statements at major institutional gatherings, the chapter identifies four central conflict lines and actors’ preferences regarding the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Linear regression analysis is used to assess the relative influence of different actors groups on the intensity and type of contestation. Results show that the majority of state parties actively and constructively engages with the institution by pushing for institutional reform, recognizing in principle the legitimacy of the institution. Voicing criticism and exposing weaknesses of the institution was the least frequent form of contestation.