Search

In this paper, we propose a theory of emerging powers and apply it to the case of IBSA, a forum of cooperation established in 2004 by India, Brazil and South Africa. We contend that emerging power is a strategic identity that derives from the inability of a hegemon or of a group of core powers to effectively impose their preferred order to the world. That inability creates a strategic position that a small number of countries can fulfill. Fulfillment of that position depends on their ability to contribute significantly to the establishment of a “minimum governance coalition.” The significance of that contribution, in turn, depends on the legitimacy they bring to global governance, the veto power they hold in the functioning of formal or informal governance mechanisms, and the regional balancing power that they bring to the resource mix on which global governance relies.We show that IBSA is a coalition of emerging powers trying to monopolize developing countries access to global governance; and 2) that their internal differences matter less to their alliance than the contribution that they make to each others’ claim to membership in the global governance club. The article is divided in two sections. The first one presents the model. The second proposes an explanation of IBSA’s emergence and of its relative success in terms of that model. This application is not a test but an illustration of the mechanics of emerging power emergence and participation in global governance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of solving locally a global problem has often been associated with the environmental movement. However, as developing countries look towards the first checkpoint in the Millennium Development Goals, there is a growing contingency of sustainable development advocates that are pointing to local solutions as the most successful economic policies. In the aftermath of Yunus and Grameen’s triumphs, governments have been exploring welfare policy alternatives that center on direct and conditional cash transfers and linking them to individual social development goals. The Brazilian government, under the leadership of President Lula da Silva and former president Cardoso, pioneered the Bolsa Familia program whereby families are given small stipends for vaccinating children and sending them to school. World Bank President Wolfowitz has lauded Brazil and Bolsa Familia for helping to improve the conditions for twelve million citizens and for becoming “a highly praised model of effective social policy.” (World Bank Group, 2005) Since the implementation of Bolsa Familia, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras have launched similar programs. First, a comparative content analysis of program structure and goals will be discussed. Second, this paper seeks to evaluate the impact of these recent programs using a version of the Bolsa Familia impact study design provided by the World Bank Group (World Bank Group, 2005). The original study design examined ten different dependent variables based on outcome impacts, including nutrition, household consumption goods, and education. For the examination of Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras, only the variables related to education was used, including attendance, enrollment, and child labor. The goal of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of effective local input economic programs and, hopefully, to help identify a general model of local social development by governments. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the efforts of developing nations to gain access to the economic, security, and political benefits of space. The analysis in this paper compares the efforts of several developing nations and identifies the extent to which developing nations have been successful in gaining access to the many benefits of space. In measuring ?success? the analysis focuses on whether developing countries individually and/or collectively have been able to develop space capabilities and thus the essential elements of national ?space power.? Particular attention is given to the cases of India, Brazil, and China. However, attention is also given to the efforts of several other developing nations in regions such as Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. The paper concludes by identifying several common factors that have constrained the respective efforts of developing nations and ensured that they have remained dependent upon the space capabilities and assistance of more developed nations. This dependency undercuts the ability of these aspiring space powers to improve their respective positions vis-à-vis the more developed nations. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal democracies in the developing world?despite important differences in executive-legislative organization, party systems, and other institutions?may experience similar challenges to centrally-initiated programs of structural economic reform. Regional governments, facing electorates of their own, can reap political benefits from pursuing profligate fiscal policies, while shifting the economic costs of persistent deficit spending to the country as a whole. Central leaders, dependent on regional party-mates and coalition partners for political support, may lack the ability to impose the sub-national reforms needed to consolidate macroeconomic liberalization.In recent years, central leaders in several federal developing countries have consented to allow the World Bank to engage directly with regional governments?effectively thrusting external conditionality downward in hopes that the Bank would impose harder constraints on regional budgets. This paper investigates policy-based lending by the World Bank to sub-national state governments in India and Brazil, the first countries where it implemented such an approach beginning in the mid-1990s. Utilizing data from official interviews and primary document analysis, the paper shows that central authorities in both countries envisioned Bank conditionality as a ?two-level game? strategy for triggering reforms in the states: that is, the Bank?s conditions represented courses of action that the central authorities wanted the states to take anyway, but could not enforce on their own. While the paper argues that the two countries? reasons for authorizing sub-national adjustment lending are essentially analogous, it also shows that there have been important differences in implementation of the approach, which follow both from institutional variations in Indian and Brazilian federalism and from specific tactical decisions by the Bank in both cases. In the Brazilian case, the Bank?s state loans were soon rendered marginal and redundant by broader state debt negotiations and the passage of fiscal responsibility laws, and have receded to a small share of the Bank?s overall lending to the country. In India, state-lending became more fully articulated through two successive coalition governments at the center, and may be helping to catalyze a nascent shift to a more performance-based federal resource allocation regime. Ultimately, the analysis shows that while international institutions can shape sub-national economic governance in significant ways, in at least two of the most important countries in the developing world, such influence is still mediated through institutions of the national state. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil will gain a place as a significant player in the multi-polar international system taking shape since the end of the Cold War simply on the basis of its economic size and material capabilities. However, its potential to influence international outcomes is likely to be determined more by the capacity of the country's elites to identify and harness qualitative assets associated with its stable and democratic governance than by any hard power assets. Brazil is the quintessential soft power BRIC. Among the four BRICs, Brazil is the only one positioned to become a potential environmental power in a world increasingly preoccupied with global warming. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American hegemony has passed its peak. The twenty-first century will see a more multi-polar international system. Yet Western European countries may not be the United States' main foils in decades to come. Four new poles of the international system are now widely known in the business and financial press as the "BRICs economies" (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Does the concept of "the BRICs" have meaning within a rigorous political science framing? From the perspective of an economic liberal employing neoclassical assumptions to understand the world economy, the category's justification is surprisingly weak. In contrast, a political or economic realist's framing instructs us to focus on states that are increasing their relative material capabilities—as each of the four is. Finally, within a liberal institutionalist's mental model, the BRICs countries are a compelling set, yet one with a deep cleavage between two sub-groups: large emerging powers likely to remain authoritarian or revert to that state, and those that are securely democratic. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper tackles the twin challenges for Brazil: (i) securing energy supply; (ii) without at the same time undermining economic growth and distribution. It takes into account recent political trends in Latin America in order to assess potentially increasing risks for the option of buying energy from Brazilian neighbors, and addresses the economic value and limitations of alternative energy sources like biomass or ethanol. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will trace and theorize the changing nature of solidarity vis-à-vis Brazil over the past quarter century, from one characterized largely by a First World to Third World sender-receiver relationship to the contemporary scenario in which Brazil has come to be seen as a potential catalyst and model for progressive social change far beyond its borders. The traditional solidarity groups that supported leftist governments in countries such as Nicaragua or Mozambique in the 1980s had prominent assistentialist tendencies. Transnationally active solidarity groups considered it crucial to help a progressive government of a poor country to survive under neocolonial or imperialist pressures. There were few expectations at that time that the government in question would be able to initiate transformative processes in global politics.But transnational activists? attention to Brazil after the electoral victory of the Workers Party in 2002 has been markedly different. President Lula da Silva?s government is considered an important social force that could help advance movement aims beyond Brazil. Yet this potential to date has been largely unrealized, as the lack of real social transformation in Brazil has led to disillusionment among activists both inside and outside the country. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil, a founder and prominent voice in the Group of 20 that emerged in the 2003 World Trade Organization Ministerial meeting at Cancún, has strongly advocated reform of the global trade regime to take into account the legitimate concerns of developing countries. What motivates Brazilian trade policy? We examine Brazilian negotiating positions in coffee, sugar, intellectual property in pharmaceuticals, and the bilateral US-Brazil relationship, concluding that it is not possible to understand Brazilian trade policies simply by reference to the country’s commercial interests. Brazil’s friendly but competitive trade relations with the US well illustrate Brazil’s intentions to behave as a regional hegemon, while its actions in support of generic alternatives to expensive patented drugs for AIDS suggest that motives of democratically-inspired solidarity also have real implications the country’s trade policy choices. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]