Author(s): Akshata Mehta

Presentation: oral

In 2001, Jim O'Neill, former chief economist for Goldman Sachs, coined the term "BRIC” to describe the "emerging markets” of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. South Africa was added in 2010 and the acronym became BRICS. Academics, business professionals, elites and more tend to put the BRICS countries into the same paradigm, whereas in reality, these states differ significantly. My paper shows that the use of BRICS as a social construct in political economy is a faulty method of classification, often leading to incorrect analyses by academics, policy makers, business professionals and elites. Using poststructuralist theoretical reasoning through the lens of Alexander Wendt's social constructivism, I explore how the identities and interests of the so-called BRICS countries significantly differ making BRICS a flawed and distorted social construct. The differences and rivalries between these countries are highlighted through the three prisms of economics, politics and geo-strategic preferences. Exploring the resultant fallacies of power and misguided analyses, my paper discusses the very misleading notion of the BRICS construct. A comparative analysis approach is used to conclude that the BRICS social construct should be abandoned.

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