Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance

301 Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance CHAPTER 16 Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance MARKO JUUTINEN Takeaways for Leading Change The chapter discusses change on the macro level of the emerging world order through an analysis of BRICS development finance. It discusses BRICS as a new agent in global affairs, which responds to the leadership demands of a changing world order. Defined by pluralism and dispersion of power, the emerging world order necessitates a form of agency with a higher tolerance for difference. The focus of this chapter is on development. It seeks to assess BRICS agency particularly in this context through two competing hypotheses – BRICS as a challenger and BRICS as a constructive leader of change. The chapter first presents a critical perspective to development, then reviews scholarly perceptions and empirical evidence on BRICS. It concludes with a discussion on the hypotheses. Adopting a linear perspective to change, the chapter discusses the challenge of the BRICS to orthodox development finance, and sees no evidence of a challenge. However, the non-linear approach to change provides more nuanced insights into the agency and leadership role of the BRICS. 302 Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance I nternational affairs are undergoing significant changes. On one hand, the US has lost its predominant position in global governance. While still powerful, it is unable to influence decisively international organisations. At the same time, the influence of rising powers and the long-excluded majorities of the Global South has increased. Because of this ensuing cacophony of a growingly pluralistic world order, global governance on multilateral level, like the World Trade Organization (WTO), has been crippled with international cooperation shifting to regional and intra-regional groupings. Consequently, international affairs are increasingly characterised by fragmentation, pluralism, and competition. As a new institution of intra-regional and emerging power cooperation, BRICS presents us with a case study into these transformations. Are these changes making the world less governable and more conflict-prone? Or is governance just taking new forms to better reflect the inherent pluralism of the world? According to Amitav Acharya (2016), fragmentation of governance does not necessarily imply the end of governability and cooperation. In fact, he argues that fragmentation and pluralism might be a means for better leadership, more creative and responsive to particular contexts and special needs. This chapter presents a case study on BRICS, founded in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China and joined by South Africa in 2011. The purpose of this chapter is to examine how this new initiative relates to global governance and leadership. This boils down to the question about BRICS’ agency: what kind of agent is it? Two competing hypotheses frame this work: 1. BRICS is a challenger 2. BRICS is a constructive leader of change? The first hypothesis derives from the BRICS challenge theory, which proposes that BRICS seeks to challenge the current system and therefore promotes instability in global governance. This hypothesis defines the relation of new international organisations to global governance in terms of linear change. The alternative hypothesis is based on a non-linear understanding of change, a key theme explored in this book. From a non-linear perspective, change may be conceived of as an inherently open process more akin to The purpose of this chapter is to examine how the BRICS initiative relates to global governance and leadership. 303 Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance creative chaos than planned harmony. Change is not merely a reaction to something or a logical outcome of preceding causes. Instead, changes occur in contexts where input factors are uncontrollable, unknown and random. In an increasingly pluralistic world order, where dispersion and multiplication of political agency, authority and knowledge have broken linear continuities between them, the non-linear perspective offers a complementary way to understand change. Indeed, linear perspectives presuppose continuity where it does not necessarily exist. This makes it difficult to recognise changes that come, so to speak, from outside the box. The second hypothesis is that BRICS is a constructive force in global affairs. From this perspective, BRICS is a response to or reflective of the emerging pluralistic world order. It can be analysed as a space maker for new alternatives of governance, promotion of pluralism as well as leadership in diffused power system. The particular focus of this chapter is on BRICS development finance initiatives. It sheds light on BRICS’s relation to development both as a paradigm and practice. To the extent that BRICS creates space for new development practices and paradigm, and to the extent it takes leadership in solving development issues, it deserves the label of a constructive leader of change. The chapter is organised as follows. The first section discusses development as a paradigm applied by international financial institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The second section discusses current debates and perceptions of BRICS and details the two hypotheses of the case study. The third section presents an empirical analysis of BRICS development finance initiatives, establishing the differences between BRICS institutions and the dominant multilateral financial institutions. It argues that while BRICS can only with difficulty be seen as a promoter of alternative development finance, it is nonetheless opening up a space for rethinking and unthinking the predominant ideas and practices of development finance. Problematising the Orthodoxy of Development The concept of development means evolution in a state of being or a gradual rise from being underdeveloped to being developed. The concept 304 Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance is descriptive in the sense that it refers to a process of becoming something. While there is no strict classification of developed countries, this group of countries includes the usual suspects: the US, Canada, most of Western and all of Northern Europe, Australia, South Korea, Switzerland, and Israel. All these countries are liberal democracies. According to some scholars (e.g., Ferguson, 2011; Fukuyama, 1992), it is the practice of free markets, competition and individuality that defines liberal democracies and explains their advancement. Liberal democracies, according to this view, have found the paradigm and the formula for development. In this sense, development can be framed as a normative concept. From an epistemological standpoint, development is like any other normative concept: it is of a fundamentally subjective nature. There is no God of development – seen and heard by all of humanity – who could lay down, explain and teach the paradigm of development. From a philosophical standpoint, development is a pluralist concept. While its actual form and substance varies from place to place, from people to people, no one can claim universality for their subjective ideas. Nonetheless, development has its high priests and armies, like most other subjective truths of political importance. Indeed, it was not so long ago that the Washingtonbased international financial institutions (IFIs), the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), dominated the politics of development. The orthodoxy which emerged from these institutions was the idea that market forces were the best mechanism for development. This is usually referred to as the Washington Consensus or free market fundamentalism (e.g., Stiglitz, 2002). This orthodoxy of development was based on the idea that private market forces were the best available mechanism for development and that the state of being developed was equivalent to an unfettered market economy. It was not merely an ideology. It was a political practice by international financial institutions financing development projects expected to step in when states need financial assistance (acting, for example, as a lender of last resort). In practice, the Washington Consensus meant that any country in need of financial help from the IMF and the World Bank had to commit itself to political reforms. These included privatizations of public property, cuts in public spending on infrastructure, education and health, 305 Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance trade liberalisation and the deregulation of foreign exchange (Babb, 2013; Glinavos, 2008; Saad-Filho, 2010; Williamson, 2004). There are several instrumental reasons for the rise of a singular paradigm of development above all others, two of which stand out. The first is the former hegemonic position of the USA, which contributed to the universalisation of this singular paradigm. The second is the epistemic foundation in mainstream economics that combines subjective preferences and normative values with universality. One of the leading figures in making this combination was the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. According to Mises (1949, p. 21), the backbone of social and economic development is the individual choices repeated day after day in free markets and mediated by prices and money. For von Mises, this fundamental subjectivism of free markets is the foundation of scientific objectivism: instead of norms and values, objectivist science studies market preferences. This provides the only scientifically verifiable norm for a good society: liberty to choose and free markets. Von Mises (1949, p. 21) writes: [I]t is in this subjectivism that the objectivity of our science lies� Because it is subjectivistic and takes the value judgements of acting man as ultimate data not open to any further critical examination, it is itself above all schools of dogmatism and ethical doctrines, it is free from valuations and preconceived ideas and judgments, it is universally valid and absolutely and plainly human� Sustainable use of natural resources is one of the problems of this perspective to development, particularly that developed countries have polluted the earth so that life-giving radiation from the sun does not escape the earth as it used to. Instead, it shines ever warmer on the plastic garbage islands (larger than some countries) surfing the oceanic streams, which are in jeopardy due to melting polar ice caps. This model of development, as Peruvian diplomat and author Oswaldo de Rivero (2010, p. 2–3) argues, “operates in the same way as a cancerous cell that goes on destroying the organism off which it lives.” The most ardent proponents of free market fundamentalism argue that the rise in our material well-being through the availability of cars, mobile phones, McDonalds and, most importantly, the decline in child mortality, are clear indications of a true 306 Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance global development. However, economic development has been paralleled with ecological disaster. From the only universally applicable perspective, that is, the preservation of our common earth, economic development has also brought about a rapid degeneration of the natural environment. Another set of problems related to the development orthodoxy are social in nature. Only a minority of the global population, even in developed countries, enjoys economic independence, which is a key aspect of free market competition. Without it, market-related choices are less about individual preferences and more about power. Even more importantly, one should not forget the millions of people born to life at a subsistence level, without individual or communitarian control over their living environments and subjected to the force of hunger and the money that serves global markets (Alvaredo, Chancel, Piketty, Saez, & Zucman, 2018, p. 10–14; FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, & WHO, 2017, p. ii). Concern with the social effects of economic development is not new. It was raised by the founders of both liberalism and communism. Karl Marx’s (1887/2010, p. 313) critique of the English factories, where the worker becomes “a living appendage of the machine,” is still applicable to the sweatshops of Indonesia, China, India and other parts of the emerging and developing world. Adam Smith (1776/2005, p. 637–638) worried about the effects of long hours of stationary factory work on the intellectual and emotional abilities of workers. He wrote that the high productivity and economic gains for the owner may come with heavy costs for the worker, “to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues.” It is equally questionable whether it is proper for millions of people in developed societies to live in poverty through both unemployment and minimum wage employment, while a wealthy minority acquires the majority of the income (Ehrenreich, 2001; Shipler, 2005). Thus, the problems of this old paradigm are many, and it has been objected to critique from academia, from developing countries as well as from within multilateral institutions (e.g. Rodrik, 1996; Stiglitz, 2002; Mendes Pereira, 2016). As a result, the international financial institutions have sought to better take into account problems of poverty and social exclusion, employing the concept of inclusive growth to describe shift away from the old orthodoxy (Mendes Pereira, 2016; Saad-Filho, 2010). 307 Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance Yet, many scholars have argued that these changes do not amount to a change in the paradigm itself and that, in spite of some reforms, the Washington Consensus remains without an alternative. (Babb, 2013; Glinavos, 2008; Saad-Filho, 2010). Against this background, BRICS has elicited debates on how it relates to the Washington Consensus and whether BRICS offers alternatives to the old development paradigm (see e.g., Ban & Blyth, 2013; Gray & Gills, 2016; Bond & Garcia, 2015). This chapter seeks to relate BRICS to global governance through the international financial institutions and in particular through the orthodoxy of development. BRICS: A Challenger or a Constructive Leader? BRICS scholarship has mostly operated within linear or evolutionary perspectives on change. In other words, the focus has been on a potential rupture with the past or a gradual improvement of it. The BRICS challenge theory can be divided into two main hypotheses: a) that BRICS poses a challenge to the hierarchy between states in the current multilateral system or b) that it seeks to challenge the system. Challenging the hierarchy between states is relevant for a state-centric analysis of international relations, and particularly for the US and its allies (e.g., Tammen et al., 2000). From an institutionalist perspective, international relations are mostly understood in terms of rules and norms, whereby decisionmaking takes place in international organisations between many states (e.g. Ikenberry, 2001). From an institutionalist perspective, it is relevant to study BRICS relations in terms of the current institutions, rules and norms. In the global trading and financial system, BRICS has already engendered some changes. In response to the US dominance in international financial institutions, BRICS launched two new financial institutions in 2014: the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA). Three BRICS members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Brazil, India and China, played a crucial role in upsetting the former balance of power at the WTO by increasing the influence of the developing world (Hopewell, 2016). In its summit declarations, BRICS calls for a greater 308 Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance voice for the developing world and demands democratic reforms at the United Nations (UN), World Bank and IMF (see Stuenkel, 2013; Thakur, 2014). What exactly have been the effects and objectives of these changes? Is BRICS promoting a new kind of economic and social development and a new type of multilateralism, or is it simply seeking a greater level of influence; i.e., seeking to change the hierarchy between states? The BRICS are not the best promoters nor appliers of market-oriented regulatory systems, fiscal austerity and comprehensive trade liberalisation (Babb, 2013; Fourcade, 2013; Schmalz & Ebenau, 2012). They have instead retained varying measures of direct or indirect state control over their markets (Nölke, ten Brink, Simone & May, 2014; Stephen, 2014), most notably China (Jiang, 2014; McNally, 2012; van der Pijl, 2012). Moreover, in the UN, China and Russia – both members of the Security Council – have used their veto power in support of either their strategic interest or the fundamental values of national integrity. An example of this is the US-led humanitarian intervention in Syria and regarding the application of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) commitment (Stuenkel, 2014). The fact that the BRICS economies differ from liberalised Western economies does not, however, validate the hypothesis of systemic change. Internally, the BRICS countries are very different in terms of their economic structures implying that they have no shared economic vision or a challenging economic alternative to offer. Russia is heavily dependent on its oil and gas exports and has a poorly diversified economy. India has a booming services sector, but about half of its population survive on small-scale agriculture. There are as many poor Indians as there are Europeans altogether, but there are also as many rich Indians as there are Germans. China, however, is the most important trading partner of all world powers, and while many are dependent on China, China is dependent on only a few. Interestingly, China’s economic ties are much closer to the EU and the US than, for example, to India or other BRICS countries. Moreover, China’s economic (and military) clout in South Asia (India’s neighbourhood) has intensified the already deepseated conflicts between the two. BRICS has no common agenda for change. Indeed, Babb (2013) has shown there is no such thing as a BRICS consensus that opposes the 309 Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance old Washington Consensus. Duggan (2015), in contrast, has argued that BRICS is changing the rules and norms of globalisation with a new agenda of global economic governance. His conclusion was based partly on the antipathy of BRICS towards internal reforms and partly on the discourse of development in BRICS Summit declarations. Nevertheless, Duggan does not prove the existence of an actual agenda. Instead, he simply demonstrates the existence of a discourse that deviates from established views on development. True, as Mielniczuk (2013) has argued, new or alternative discourses can have long-standing effects on the ideational construction of global governance through creation of shared purposes. This, however, is also not the same as an agenda nor does it necessarily lead to a formation of new or alternative agendas. The scholarly debate around BRICS does not render support for the BRICS challenge theory, in the sense that BRICS is actively promoting systemic change. In contrast, the Trump administration clearly views China and Russia in particular as challengers of the US-led international system. These states, according to this view, do not only seek to overturn the hierarchy between states, but also challenge the dominance of the liberal democracies in international affairs. The recent US National Security Strategy (Trump, 2017, p. 25) and the National Defence Strategy (Department of Defense [DoD], 2018, p. 2) declared that great power competition has returned and that challenger states seek “to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model – gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions.” It is indeed true that BRICS countries have used their position to challenge the US and developed country agendas at the UN and WTO. However, that does not mean that they would not have played by the rules. Disagreement is fully acceptable. Moreover, democratic decision-making among peers is much more difficult than managing a hierarchical system. Governance of the UN and WTO is today much less about hierarchy between states that it was during the post-Cold War unipolar moment (e.g., Ikenberry, 2015; Hopewell, 2016). It is much more about democratic decision-making among peers. Thus, governance is bound to be more prone to disagreement, shifting alliances and timely negotiations, but this is something that comes with pluralism and evidences the viability of 316 Leading Change in a Complex World: Transdisciplinary Perspectives Leadership for a Pluralistic Order? Assessing BRICS and Development Finance than any of the Northern countries. As a result, it appears that the structural and ideational continuities of capitalism bind BRICS to the old. 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