The Global South should not be evaluated from ideologized threatening perspectives. To build a multipolar world order based on dialogue between the Global North and the Global South, certain postures are detrimental. Hegemonic or militaristic discourses surround interactions between regions like Latin America & the Caribbean with China, Iran, and Russia. Instead, what motivates the Global South in forging a horizontal and multiregional structure, crystallized into BRICS, are political, economic, and social issues. None of them implies excluding the Global North; it is rather an attempt to counter worldwide challenges that the post-Cold War liberal order was unable to address.
When, in 1989, Francis Fukuyama envisioned the «End of History,» the world was assumed to be unifiable under Western liberalism. Therefore, there was no need for any divide between the Global North and the Global South. Globalization would have been the vector to defy cleavages and striking differences proper of blocs as experienced during the Cold War. Even though persistent wars, golpes, and economic crises have demonstrated how history did not end at all, this post-Cold War approach is still applied to the Global South.
The 2000s gave space to the ongoing decline of the United States hegemony, which, as pointed out by Ikenberry (2018), is intertwined with the crisis of liberal order. In this context, and almost simultaneously, the Global South raised its voice under the label of BRIC, becoming BRICS with the entry of South Africa. All sorts of critiques and a general skepticism have been directed toward attempts at integration by the Global South. One of the reiterated narratives to counter the existence of the Global South concerns the lack of common features across the majority of the world’s population, including in fora like BRICS, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the G77.
However, the absence of understanding about the Global South should not imply its inexistence. Countries from Latin America & the Caribbean to Africa and Asia are forging a horizontal scope of international relations. This trend is not just a reaction or counterattack to Western colonialism, imperialism, or US hegemony since self-interests, contrary to what realists argue, are not the only drivers for this change. Global South actors find consensus in political values such as sovereignty, auto-determination, and the binding to the United Nations system. Moreover, specific economic analogies explain the rationale behind Global South’s interactions.
Legacies of foreign debt, dependency on the US dollar, high inequality, and extractive economies are bounds for the Global South. In other words, it is simply incorrect to sentence that Global South’s diversity invalidates its existence, since there are indeed shared challenges. We could affirm that Global South countries, socially and economically, are reacting to the imposition of Global North’s liberalism.
This is not to say, as an example, that Latin American states are willing to emulate the Chinese, Iranian, or Russian model. Instead, among all the differences existing within the Global South, there is a common ground and necessity of diversification-emancipation from hegemonic liberalism, which had the United States at the head of international relations. If we compare the Global South to its Northern counterparts, namely the G7, we see that the latter offers unanimous consensus only around a few values, like liberal democracy, partly Christianism (exceptions like Japan), and the international order based on some sort of rules.
The paradox is that the liberal order has shown deficiencies already well-known and directly faced by the Global South. To clarify, most Global South countries have tried receipts from international financial institutions and multilateral bodies of the West, just think about the Washington Consensus. Still, the results were not efficient or appropriate to local contexts. History is proof for the Global South of missed opportunities, partially due to Western impositions.
Dependency theory asserts that the peripheries traced by Immanuel Wallerstein (1974) could not reach the center’s development because of the servility of the back then-known as Third World economies to the consumption and refining of the North. BRICS, being the multiregional and multilateral organization of the Global South, aims precisely to leave the dependent mechanisms of Global South economies forever.
Edward Said (1978) warned about the mistaken application of Western values for defining and describing the rest of the world, specifically the Orient in that case. Pairing the words alliance or bloc to the Global South is indeed misleading. The actions of China, Iran, Russia, or Türkiye in, for instance, Latin America & the Caribbean, are not sought to forge any anti-Western coalition with military strategies à la NATO. That is a perception of threat and interference, which, being dominant in the West, undermines rapprochements and North-South dialogues.
Latin America is diversifying its exchanges with countries that belong to the Global South through a horizontal agenda where proposals and limitations are voluntarily agreed upon. Middle Eastern and Asian countries are obtaining positive outcomes in Latin America regarding financial assistance (China in the Caribbean Islands), energetic cooperation (Iran in Bolivia), and media-related projects undertaken by Russia’s broadcasts in the region. Those instances are the result of a comprehensive Global South interaction. In this context, individual powers, not hegemons, of the Global South as China, Iran, and Russia, with Türkiye in between, are simply reacting to Western opposition with attractive proposals for the Global South.
Geopolitical events, specifically the Israel-Gaza conflict and the Ukraine War, are partially legitimizing Global South’s standings in denouncing, through international organizations, Western double standards. It is inherently logical to perceive a multipolar world order growing up as a counterstrategy and not a strategy. The Global South is motivated by accusations, stigmatization, and militaristic discourses that are affecting the relationship between North and South. The cause relies on advocates of a new Cold War who express Manichean postures. Disappointed by a history that did not end, some Western policymakers would love to repeat a dichotomic international order based on blocs, given the victorious result championed after the US-USSR contention.
BRICS serves to avoid such a scenario. A Global South grouped in this multiregional and multilateral organization, not to design a military alliance but aim at reducing dependency on the US dollar, understandable given the effects of the 2008 crisis on Global South economies, needs to be viewed as insightful. The future path of BRICS and the Global South is related to agency[JG1] [AM2], which is the capacity of a state to act independently in international relations. Wishfully, agency should be a key factor in this multipolar world order. The agency of the Global South will determine coordination or hostility in world affairs, where liberal democracy does not appear as a priority. Simultaneously, the Global North has the agency for establishing its position toward the Global South, debating on a conversational or confrontational attitude. The latter has already proven its negativities, outlined in the Global South’s voting at the UN on sanctions, the Israeli-Gaza conflict, and the Russian-Ukrainian War.
The opportunities for Latin America, Africa, and Asia are not detrimental to the West. Fighting inequality and poverty, reforming the international financial system, and building longstanding peace processes in volatile regions like the Middle East represent shared challenges for the Global North and the Global South. Trying to impose hegemony to give history another end will instead augment political, economic, and social gaps in the current multipolar world.
Autor
Political scientist with a Master's Degree in Diplomacy and International Relations from the Diplomatic School of Spain. He is a Master's student in Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, where he is a Teaching and Research Assistant.
