The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are currently at the crossroads of major structural economic and political changes. This book provides a comparative analysis of the national innovation systems of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the trends in each of their science, technology and innovation policies. It makes use of an analytical framework, the concept 'systems of innovation and competence building' developed within 'Globelics' (the Global Research Network on the Economics of Learning, Innovation and Capacity Building Systems).

The book provides an assessment of BRICS cooperation, focusing on the new financing mechanisms created by the BRICS, the monetary fund and the development bank. It is shown that Brazil, Russia, India and China, joined later by South Africa, share common traits that led them to cooperate in the reform of the international financial architecture, especially the G20 and the IMF. After 2012, in light of the difficulty of having advanced countries agree to move from “tinkering at the margins” to fundamental reform of the Bretton Woods institutions, the BRICS decided to establish their own monetary fund, named the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), and their own development bank, named the New Development Bank (NDB). The book describes the difficult negotiations among the BRICS between 2012 and 2014. Some of these difficulties revealed the weaknesses that would lead the CRA and the NDB to make slow progress in the first years of their existence. The book provides an overview of the strong points and weaknesses of the initial phase of these financing mechanisms. It ends with a discussion of the future of the BRICS, highlighting that joint action by the five countries is likely to remain an important feature of the international landscape in the decades to come.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa represent almost 18 per cent of the world economy, with their contribution to world growth having already exceeded 50 per cent. But what does the emergence of the BRICS mean for global politics? Andrew Cooper discusses the BRICS as a concept and its practice in global politics.

This book analyses key elements of the trade performance of the so-called BRIICS: Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa, in relation to the rest of the world, focusing on trade and other policies influencing that performance. It also presents a separate chapter for each country.

This book presents a systematic collation of the regional and global dimensions of the leadership role of BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). It analyses the rising regional and global leadership of BRICS, using specific benchmarks to gauge the nature of this leadership. The elements examined include willingness to lead, the capacity to do as much, and the degree to which the given actor is accepted as a leader both within and beyond its region. The chapters in the book capture the nature of trends in regional and global leadership within the contexts of a changing international order. It is taken for granted that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are now engineering a unique pool of governance that is seeking alternatives to the current order of global economic and political affairs. The fact that these countries have jointly decided to forge ahead with the BRICS constellation of states that is now taking consequential decisions such as the creation of the BRICS’ New Development Bank, is not to be treated lightly. In this book the majority of papers take a step back and systematically analyse the real state of the leadership that is provided by the BRICS on a litany of regionally and globally relevant issues. While no one doubts the fact that these countries have the capacity to provide leadership especially in their various regions on many issues, what remains moot is whether they are willing and capable to do so at the global level. Even in those cases where there is the willingness and capacity, the book argues that the acceptance of such leadership by potential followers is not always a given.

A critical examination of the contradictory rise to power of emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

This book stems from the CyberBRICS project, which is the first major attempt to produce a comparative analysis of Internet regulations in the BRICS countries – namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The project has three main objectives: 1) to map existing regulations; 2) to identify best practices; and 3) to develop policy recommendations in the various areas that compose cybersecurity governance, with a particular focus on the strategies adopted by the BRICS countries to date. Each study covers five essential dimensions of cybersecurity: data protection, consumer protection, cybercrime, the preservation of public order, and cyberdefense. The BRICS countries were selected not only for their size and growing economic and geopolitical relevance but also because, over the next decade, projected Internet growth is expected to occur predominantly in these countries. Consequently, the technology, policy and governance arrangements defined by the BRICS countries are likely to impact not only the 3.2 billion people living in them, but also the individuals and businesses that choose to utilize increasingly popular applications and services developed in BRICS countries according to BRICS standards. Researchers, regulators, start-up innovators and other Internet stakeholders will find this book a valuable guide to the inner workings of key cyber policies in this rapidly growing region.