The Dynamics of Crisis: Brazil, the BRICs and the G-20

Resumo

The aim of the article is to evaluate Brazilian foreign policy priorities since the 2008 financial crisis. Since the beginning of the first decade of the twenty-first century, changes in the economic power balance are becoming more evident. However, they have yet to generate a coalition of new States leadership or demands by these actors for more visibility in the process of decision making due to different reasons. For China, the problem is to incorporate the responsibilities of monetary stability with the management of its currency. Even though these trends still continue, this reality is starting to change because of Brazil´s foreign policy answer to the crisis of 2008. The paper intends to argue that whereas China had internal resources for applying a policy apart from development countries, Brazil needed that these nations to adopt policies that stopped the deepening of the crisis avoiding its spillover for peripheral or emerging nations which led Brazil to articulate the BRICS coalition and strengthen emerging nations stand in the G20. The text will contextualize the 2008 crisis, followed by a study of Brazilian foreign policy towards the “RICS” and a coordinated action in the G20. The G20 declarations will be analyzed in order to evaluate how the emerging nations agenda was put into effect, closing with a balance of G20 ´s prospects and the emergent´s nations stand in the management of the international economic system and Brazil´s role in this process.