The BRICS: Seeking Privileges by Constructing and Running Multilateral Institutions
How should we think of the decisions made by China and the other BRICS countries to establish a series of new institutions, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS led New Development Bank (NDB) Does such activism show that rising powers are embracing or confronting today's Western led order? This article argues that rather than analyzing emerging powers' beliefs about rules and norms, these new institutions can best be understood as a tool to enhance their capacity to gain privileges of leadership, and slowly reduce the United States' institutional centrality which provides it with a hegemonic privilege. Such privilege is seen to allow states to break the rules without asking for a "permission slip" and without fearing institutional punishment. The proliferation of non Western institutions would appear to complement existing ones and allow rising powers to engage in forum shopping on a trans regional level. Such forum shopping for the BRICS would seem to provide advantages, including reducing their dependence on Western led institutions when they are perceived by the BRICS and others to serve the interests of established powers.