BRICS and the Contemporary Body Politic: Examining a Decade of Normativities in the BRICS Summit Declarations

Abstract

This paper argues that the body politic metaphor requires rethinking and updating in order to represent the evolving realities of global governance. It situates the BRICS within political discourses by offering an alternative analysis on how this international forum recasts the notion of body politic in global politics. Through analysing the materials from the first decade of BRICS Joint Statements (2009–2020), this article offers a critical analysis of how The BRICS challenges the traditional body politic by the shift of sovereignty from the nation-state toward global governance. Particular attention is given to how BRICS norm-making acts serve as symbiotic energy that maintains the political health within the global political ecosystem. This re-imagination takes place in four ways: co-governance, interdependence, balanced gatekeeping, and pragmatic agenda. The BRICS’ vision of interdependence involves acknowledging that cooperation takes place because of diversity, not despite it, reflecting a re-imagined symbiotic body politic. Re-imagining the body politic that does not necessarily weaken the nation-state but rather make nation-states evolve through a symbiotic process coming from a rather small emerging power in the international arena rather than the dominant Global North. The discussions raised in this work speak more broadly to the field of international relations and political sciences to put into dialogue abstract frameworks and contemporary political events.