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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 ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]