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New Paradigms and Old Practices: Unpacking the Paradox of the BRICS as Development Actors

New Paradigms and Old Practices: Unpacking the Paradox of the BRICS as Development Actors. Alex Shankland, Lizbeth Navas-Alemán, Jennifer Constantine Rising Powers in International Development Programme Institute of Development Studies, Sussex

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New Paradigms and Old Practices: Unpacking the Paradox of the BRICS as Development Actors

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  1. New Paradigms and Old Practices: Unpacking the Paradox of the BRICS as Development Actors Alex Shankland, Lizbeth Navas-Alemán, Jennifer Constantine Rising Powers in International Development Programme Institute of Development Studies, Sussex Development Studies Association annual conference 2012: Institute of Education, University of London 3rd November 2012

  2. Outline What is it? • Towards a conceptual framework: • Discourse, Policy, Practice... and Power • Discourse: • New paradigm? • Policy: • Why the BRICS? • Practice: • Towards a research agenda

  3. Understanding the impact of the BRICS on international development cooperation What is it?

  4. BRICS and the Balance of Global Power Relations What is it? • BRICS have lost some steam in terms of economic growth, leading to headlines such as ‘Crumbling BRICS’ etc. however, financial crises show the BRICS economies faring better than ‘submerging’ economies (Eyben & Savage 2012) – does not compromise bloc’s legitimacy issues • Marked power shift towards bloc – not quite quantifiable yet, but bigger than sum of its parts (e.g. Busan, SSC, TDC) • Rising inequality compromising social and political stability (e.g. in EU) in stark contrast to developmental gains made by countries such as Brazil, China, and India – S. Africa using bloc membership / ‘brand’ to try and address legitimacy issues domestically and internationally

  5. BRICS Bank – bargaining chip? What is it? • 5 years on, BRICS playing ‘North’ at it’s own game: New Delhi declaration announced focus of BRICS intervention on trade and development finance • Next step? BRICS Development Finance Bank announced: bargaining chip? Snub to IFIs? Way to dodge ‘hoops’ imposed by IFIs? Value-added of being run by ‘local/Southern’ actors? A way of attracting funds / investment and keeping it in the BRICS? • Future research: power and PE analysis of BRICS bloc ministerial meetings

  6. Reimagining development cooperation? What is it? • Old paradigm: Aid and Trade are separate • New paradigm: They are part of the same relationship • Old paradigm: Harmonisation of Aid delivery • New paradigm: “Free market”, the partner decides. Buyer’s market! • Old paradigm: Aid doesn’t require reciprocity but creates inferiority • New paradigm: Aid doesn’t create inferiority but it creates obligation • Old paradigm: Aid creates high transaction costs (compliance costs) • New paradigm: “Zero” conditionality

  7. New paradigms: Aid and the Gift What is it? • Old paradigm: Aid doesn’t require reciprocity but creates inferiority • New paradigm: Aid doesn’t create inferiority but it creates obligation • Aid as the “ruler’s gift”: who is the audience of the gift – recipient or constituency? Or other rulers? • To give is not to have to receive: Russia and the gift as existential necessity? • The knowledge gift: SSC is knowledge-based – how different from the money gift? But if it doesn’t require reciprocity of learning, then it’s constructing inferiority – when has a BRIC learned from a LIC?

  8. Old practices What is it? • South-South Development Cooperation contains much that is paradigm-shifting, but... • The return of tied aid: from knowledge to tractors? • Exporting surplus capital again: HIPC 2.0? • From solidarity back to othering: BRICS stereotypes of Africa? • Back to integrated regional development: IRDP 2.0? • Back to colonisation and resistance: MST in the Nacala Corridor? • Growth rules again: whither rights and voice? • Back to techno-triumphalism: South-South modernisation?

  9. From discourses to practices What is it? Understanding whether or not a new paradigm is emerging requires us to shift focus from discourse to practice... ... but just as in “Old Aidland”, homogeneous discourses can mask heterogenous practices.

  10. Conclusions: the new and the old What is it? Towards a research agenda • Agency: • of the “recipients” (elite and subaltern) • of the actors of Old Aidland • of the front-line practitioners of South-South Cooperation • Development cooperation and the export of contradictions: imaginaries of ‘the other’ • Expertise, practices and power: knowledge encounters in South-South Technical Cooperation

  11. For more information... What is it? RPID mailing list signup: rpid@ids.ac.uk RPID website: http://www.ids.ac.uk/idsresearch/brics-and-rising-powers Associated programmes for sector work: Social Protection: Centre for Social Protection (www.ids.ac.uk/go/csp) Health: Future Health Systems Consortium (www.futurehealthsystems.org) Agriculture: Future Agricultures Consortium (www.future-agricultures.org/research/brics)

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