Territorial alliances and emerging-market development banking: A view from subimperial South Africa

A new "seat at the world table" is demanded by major emerging market powers, especially the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) bloc. The idea of establishing both a US$50 billion BRICS Bank headquartered in Shanghai and a $100 billion Contingent Reserve Arrangement was articulated and endorsed at the March 2012 New Delhi and 2013 Durban summits of BRICS leaders, as well as at the September 2013 G20 meeting in St. Petersburg. At the latter, BRICS finance ministers expressed dissatisfaction about the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) governance, notwithstanding having collectively spent $75 billion in the IMF’s recapitalization the year before. Yet flaws in the global financial architecture remain vividly apparent and another world crisis is looming. The BRICS strategy-especially in relation to the expedited extraction of Africa’s minerals, petroleum, gas, and cash crops-raises questions about how different the BRICS’ procorporate economic growth model is from the West’s, and whether those nations’ role in world capitalism is limited to assimilation rather than what is needed: a rupture with existing orthodox models, such as a radically new approach to development finance.