Lecture by the Society for Security Policy at the Gymnasium Dionysianum
Some readers will not know what the letters BRICS(+) mean. The letters stand for a group of emerging countries that came together in 2011 to form the BRICS group: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The “+” sign stands for an expansion of this group. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined the BRICS group on January 1, 2024.
Overall, this group sees itself as an alternative to a Western-style global economic order. Together, they have founded their own BRICS Development Bank as a supplement or even alternative to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – a move that has gone virtually unnoticed in Europe. The supremacy of the US dollar as the world’s leading means of payment is also to be weakened.
The gross national income of the BRICS(+) countries is higher than that of the G7 countries. With around 3.7 billion people, BRICS(+) represents 41% of the world’s population. Almost half of the world’s gas reserves and around a third of its oil reserves belong to the BRICS(+) states.
Parts of the BRICS(+) states have been largely cautious or critical of Western positions on the war in Ukraine. Some of the BRICS(+), in particular China and Russia, are increasingly presenting themselves as the antithesis of the previous Western/US political constellations and are thus attempting to gain greater weight and recognition in global politics.
What consequences will a BRICS(+) organization have on the global world and economic order? What impact will these global power changes have? Will a new world order emerge that cannot be reconciled with our values of democracy, human rights and freedom?
Dr. Prys-Hansen will comment on these and other questions. She studied political science with a focus on international relations, public law and economics at the Universities of Tübingen and Uppsala (SWE) and completed her doctorate at the University of Oxford. Between 2004 and 2010, she worked as a visiting researcher in Zurich (CH), New Delhi (IND) and Johannesburg (SA), among others. From 2010 to 2020 she worked in various functions at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg, where she has been head of the research focus “Global Orders and Foreign Policies” since 2020.
The lecture begins on Thursday, March 12, 2024 at 1900 hrs in the Forum of the Gymnasium Dionysianum. Admission is free.