Though initially considered a welcome counterweight to Western interest across Africa, the BRICS are increasingly being viewed as another example of foreign interference and exploitation. BRICS and Resistance in Africa explores the varied forms of African resistance being developed in response to the growing influence of the BRICS. Its case studies cover such instances as the opposition to China's One Belt One Road initiative in East Africa; resistance to the BRICS' oil activities in the Niger Delta; and the role of the BRICS in Zimbabwe's political transition. The contributors expose the contradictions between the group's rhetoric and its real impact, as well as the complicity of local elites in serving as proxies for the BRICS nations. By challenging and expanding the debates surrounding BRICS involvement in Africa, this collection offers new insight into resistance to globalization in the global South.

Though initially considered a welcome counterweight to Western interest across Africa, the BRICS are increasingly being viewed as another example of foreign interference and exploitation. BRICS and Resistance in Africa explores the varied forms of African resistance being developed in response to the growing influence of the BRICS. Its case studies cover such instances as the opposition to China’s One Belt One Road initiative in East Africa; resistance to the BRICS’ oil activities in the Niger Delta; and the role of the BRICS in Zimbabwe’s political transition. The contributors expose the contradictions between the group’s rhetoric and its real impact, as well as the complicity of local elites in serving as proxies for the BRICS nations. By challenging and expanding the debates surrounding BRICS involvement in Africa, this collection offers new insight into resistance to globalization in the global South.

Challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalism BRICS is a grouping of the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Volume five in the Democratic Marxism series, BRICS and the New American Imperialism challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalism. It offers novel analyses of BRICS in the context of increasing US induced imperial chaos, deepening environmental crisis tendencies (such as climate change and water scarcity), contradictory dynamics inside BRICS countries and growing subaltern resistance. The authors revisit contemporary thinking on imperialism and anti-imperialism, drawing on the work of Rosa Luxemburg, one of the leading theorists after Marx, who attempted to understand the expansionary nature of capitalism from the heartlands to the peripheries. The richness of Luxemburg’s pioneering work inspires most of the volume’s contributors in their analyses of the dangerous contradictions of the contemporary world as well as forms of democratic agency advancing resistance. While various forms of resistance are highlighted, among them water protests, mass worker strikes, anti-corporate campaigning and forms of cultural critique, this volume grapples with the challenge of renewing anti-imperialism beyond the NGO-driven World Social Forum and considers the prospects of a new horizontal political vessel to build global convergence. It also explores the prospects of a Fifth International of Peoples and Workers.

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

Once marginalized in the world economy, the past decade has seen Africa emerge as a major global supplier of crucial raw materials like oil, uranium and coltan. With its share of world trade and investment now rising and the availability of natural resources falling, the continent finds itself at the centre of a battle to gain access to and control of its valuable natural assets. China's role in Africa has loomed particularly large in recent years, but there is now a new scramble taking place involving a wider range of established and emerging economic powers from the EU and US to Japan, Brazil and Russia. This book explores the nature of resource and market competition in Africa and the strategies adopted by the different actors involved - be they world powers or small companies. Focusing on key commodities, the book examines the dynamics of the new scramble and the impact of current investment and competition on people, the environment, and political and economic development on the continent. New theories, particularly the idea of Chinese "flexigemony" are developed to explain how resources and markets are accessed. While resource access is often the primary motive for increased engagement, the continent also offers a growing market for low-priced goods from Asia and Asian-owned companies. Individual chapters explore old and new economic power interests in Africa; oil, minerals, timber, biofuels, food and fisheries; and the nature and impacts of Asian investment in manufacturing and other sectors. The New Scramble for Africa will be essential reading for students of African studies, international relations, and resource politics as well as anyone interested in current affairs.

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.

In recent years, China and India have become the most important economic partners of Africa and their footprints are growing by leaps and bounds, transforming Africa's international relations in a dramatic way. Although the overall impact of China and India's engagement in Africa has been positive in the short-term, partly as a result of higher returns from commodity exports fuelled by excessive demands from both countries, little research exists on the actual impact of China and India's growing involvement on Africa's economic transformation. This book examines in detail the opportunities and challenges posed by the increasing presence of China and India in Africa, and proposes critical interventions that African governments must undertake in order to negotiate with China and India from a stronger and more informed platform.

The book critically analyzes the ongoing changes in the regional, intra-regional, and global dynamics of cooperation, from a multi-disciplinary and pluralist perspective. It is based on the insight that in a post-hegemonic world the formation of regions and the process of globalization can be largely disconnected from the orbit of the US, and that a plurality of power and worldviews has replaced US hegemony. In spite of these changes, most existing analyses of current changes in the world order still rely upon Western-centered approaches, and Westphalian thinking. Against this backdrop, the book proposes to advance a truly global IR understanding of the post-hegemonic world, and weaves together the pluralist and multi-disciplinary perspectives of scholars located all around the world.

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