BRICS without mortar

BRICS without mortar

Comment on the 2013 BRICS summit first published in BRICSPOST March 23, 2013, 6:29 am

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Discussions at the upcoming BRICS summit are expected to focus on creating a BRICS development bank, an initiative first mooted at the New Delhi summit last year. If successful, it will not only be the BRICS’s first major collaborative initiative, but would also give ‘an institutional underpinning’ to the group according to a recent report by South Africa’s Standard Bank.

Notwithstanding the expectation of the same report that the bank is not a ‘counterweight’ to the US-dominated Bretton Woods institutions but an ‘auxiliary funding institution’, the BRICS bank will constitute a major step forward in the process of constructing international economic and monetary institutions and kindred bi- and multi-lateral trade and financial arrangements that steer clear of the US dollar, US financial institutions as well as the Bretton Woods institutions. However, these arrangements involved parties with common and complementary interests. The BRICS group is another matter altogether.

About the author

Radhika Desai
Radhika Desai

Radhika Desai is Professor at the Department of Political Studies, and Director, Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. She is the author of Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (2013), Slouching Towards Ayodhya: From Congress to Hindutva in Indian Politics (2nd rev ed, 2004) and Intellectuals and Socialism: 'Social Democrats' and the Labour Party (1994), a New Statesman and Society Book of the Month, and editor or co-editor of Russia, Ukraine and Contemporary Imperialism, a special issue of International Critical Thought (2016), Theoretical Engagements in Geopolitical Economy (2015), Analytical Gains from Geopolitical Economy (2015), Revitalizing Marxist Theory for Today's Capitalism (2010) and Developmental and Cultural Nationalisms (2009). Currently she is working on a three books: Capitalism’s Geopolitical Economy: From Imperialism to Multipolarity, Marx as a Monetary Theorist and The Making of the Indian Capitalist Class. She is also working on co-editing two volumes: The Enduring Legacy of Karl Polanyi, (with Kari Polanyi Levitt) and Revolutions, a special issue of Third World Quarterly. She is also the author of numerous articles in Economic and Political Weekly, International Critical Thought New Left Review, Third World Quarterly, World Review of Political Economy and other journals and in edited collections on parties, political economy, culture and nationalism. With Alan Freeman, she co-edits the Geopolitical Economy book series with Manchester University Press and the Future of Capitalism book series with Pluto Press. She serves on the Editorial Boards of many journals including Canadian Political Science Review, Critique of Political Economy, E-Social Sciences, Global Faultlines, International Critical Thought, Pacific Affairs (2003-2017), Research in Political Economy, Revista de Economía Crítica, Third World Quarterly and World Review of Political Economy.Dr Desai was educated at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India and Queen’s University at Kingston, Canada. Phone: 204-474-9818 Address: Department of Political Studies 451 University College University of Manitoba R3T 2M8 Canada

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