# Abstract In this introductory article we examine the recent resurgence of [[South-South Cooperation (SSC)]], which has moved once again onto the centre stage of world politics and economics, leading to a renewed interest in its historic promise to transform world order. We provide an overview of contemporary debates surrounding this resurgence, noting in particular the division between those who are optimistic with regard to the potential of Southern economic development and the project of liberation from Northern domination, and ==the more pessimistic critics, who see this very success of the South as being subsumed within the existing global capitalist development paradigm.== > Countries... which, for reasons of their own, are opposed to the status quo, would be quick to discover the weaknesses of the existing institutional order and to anticipate the creation of institutions better adapted to their interests. Such groups are pushing that which is falling and holding onto that which, under its own steam, is moving their way. It may seem as if they had originated the process of social change, while actually they were merely its beneficiaries, and may even be perverting the trend to make it serve their own aims. ([[Karl Polanyi]], The Great Transformation) ^c92583 [[South-South Cooperation (SSC)]] has been a key organising concept and a set of practices in pursuit of these historical changes through a vision of mutual benefit and solidarity among the disadvantaged of the world system. It conveys the hope that development may be achieved by the poor themselves through their mutual assistance to one another, and the whole world order transformed to reflect their mutual interests vis-a-vis the dominant global North. It has now been 60 years since the historic ==Bandung Conference of 1955==, rightly regarded as a milestone in the formation of SSC as a global political movement. SSC as a movement intended to challenge the Northern-dominated political and economic system and, from the 1950s to the present, has been through a series of starts and stops, surges and retreats. ==As expressed at the Asian-African Conference held in Bandung in 1955, the newly decolonised countries of the global South emphasised economic and cultural cooperation, human rights and the promotion of world peace.== The 'Bandung Spirit' henceforth came to encapsulate policies of non-interference and non-alignment, with the [[Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)]] further developing this solidarity to challenge the deepening global inequality while lessening the Third World's economic and political dependence on the global North. While Bandung and the NAM embodied the political dimensions of an emergent SSC, the Group of 77, named after the number of countries present at the founding of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ([[UNCTAD]]), called for the establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO). For a time calls for the NIEO were successful in provoking a considerable degree of debate in the global North, producing a vast literature debating the various pros and cons of the NIEO proposals. By the 1980s, however, ==the Third World debt crisis and the rise of neoliberalism had served to eclipse the NIEO project==. The retreat of Third World solidarity was given no clearer indication than at the 1992 UNCTAD summit in Cartagena, when UNCTAD dropped its demands for the adjustment of the international patent system to the developmental needs of the global South, and adopted a statement expressing the belief that the adoption of adequate and effective International Patent Protections and related efforts in the World Intellectual Property Organization and the [[General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)]] would facilitate technological transfers to developing countries. [[United States and the European Community deliberately shifted negotiations over the intellectual property regime from WIPO to the WTO, and have continued to deploy this strategy with regard to global IPRs]] Henceforth, UNCTAD became increasingly eclipsed by GATT, and its successor, the [[World Trade Organization (WTO)]]. Thus, while [[UNCTAD]] had previously acted as a counter-hegemonic organisation resisting the dominance of the [[Bretton Woods]] institutions, the restructuring of the organisation gave ita less confrontational role in North-South dialogue. > Elites and citizens alike, the world over, now struggle to manage the tension between global capital expansion, global market competition, competing legal and political orders, and the protection of the rights and welfare of people and the environment. The dawning era of the [[Anthropocene]] heralds many profound realisations concerning the future of development on a [[Planetary health|planetary scale]]." The comprehensiveness of the interventions of humanity upon the web of life, the truly global extent of impacts of our specific historical forms of social, economic and political organisation, now compel deep philosophical reflection on the meaning of development and the search for alternative ways of life and human relations with nature. # The debate [[Global norms can change, and engaging in global norm contestation is a political act that happens in a political stage, for example MDGs were able to achieve norm contestation that extreme poverty is morally unacceptable]] In this context debate over the 'decline of the West' and the 'rise of the rest',12 and accompanying debate over the historic role of 'rising powers', take on new meaning. The field is polarised: between those who hold a (conventional) hope in the potential of Southern economic development and the project of liberation from Northern domination, reflecting a kind of contemporary [[neo-Third Worldism]], and those radical critics who see this very success of the South as being far too profoundly subsumed within the existing global capitalist development paradigm, which, however, is currently heading for a possible global environmental catastrophe if not dramatically challenged and altered. [[Power in Global Health - who holds it and why?]] Much controversy currently surrounds the question of whether elites of the global South and 'rising powers' genuinely have the intention to challenge the dominant structures of global capitalist development, or seek to support and reproduce these structures, while altering their global position in the system and enhancing their influence within the existing structures. Some may see a third option (reflecting the quotation from [[Karl Polanyi]] above), wherein the present trajectory of increasing economic growth, industrialisation and financial capacity by many countries across the global South will be a step or a stage on the path to an eventual restructuring of global power relations and the reform of global governance institutions and of the norms and rules of the global economy. The terrain of this debate reflects the fact that, while the new SSC has continued the NIEO's calls for a fairer global trading system, such demands are taking place within a radically transformed global context. [[Power asymmetry]] For example, far from rejecting the principles of global free trade, developing countries see themselves as having little choice but to seek membership of the WTO, since to do otherwise would be to risk marginalisation. At the same time, however, the WTO places significant constraints on the policy options of developing countries.18 As such, a feature of the new SSC is that of seeking the reform of the WTO. Presence or absence of WTO or other multilateral institutions has been debated: whether they would only reinforce the North's capacity to extract concessions from weaker states in the South, or how genuinely progressive that claim to be pursued by North countries. “For example, it has been argued that, while mobilising a discourse of social justice and the politics of the North-South divide, Brazil has acted as a key advocate of free market globalisation, a stance that has been driven by the rise of its highly competitive export-oriented agribusiness sector rather than by genuine solidarity with developing countries.” (Gray and Gillsb, 2025, p. 560) There is also tensions between [[South-South Cooperation (SSC)]] and national interest in the case of [[BRICS]] grouping. The BRICS grouping has, like IBSA, sought to address several of the issues originally raised by the NIEO, such as the reform of the international financial institutions (IFIs) to give the rising powers more influence in their operations. A key demand of BRICS has, for example, been the reform of IMF governance to increase the quota allotted to developing countries and to end the arrangement whereby the leadership positions of the [[Unholy Trinity - WB, IMF, WTO|IMF and World Bank]] are limited to Europeans and Americans, respectively. This cause was given added legitimacy in 2012 when the BRICS countries bolstered the IMF by contributing to the organisation's $430 billion bailout. India, Russia and Brazil all contributed $10 billion each, South Africa contributed $2 billion, and China a massive $43 billion, creating a total BRICS contribution of $75 billion. Progress in reform was slow, however. Following the G20 Agreement on Quotas and Governance reached in October 2010, the IMF Board of Governors drew up a reform package that involved a doubling of quotas, with a shift of more than 6% of quota shares from over-represented to under-represented member countries. China was to become the third largest member country in the IMF, with Brazil, India and Russia to become among the 10 largest shareholders in the Fund. [[IMF and World Bank policies have increased poverty and inequality for poor countries due to their neoliberal views on trade, export-oriented growth model, finance and technologies]] However, it is signifcant that [[Contigency Reserve Arrangement (CRA)]] was established to provide an alternative to the IMF. However, CRA may serve to bolster rather than reduce the stature of the IMF. “CRA provides an alternative to the IMF. Much like the Chiang Mai Initiative upon which itappears to be based, the CRA may in fact serve to bolster rather than reduce the stature of the IMF. As Bond argues in his contribution to this special issue, ifa country needs more than 30% of its borrowing quota, itmust first go to the IMF for a structural adjustment loan and meet certain conditions before itis able to access more from the CRA.” (Gray and Gillsb, 2025, p. 562) However, it is also significant that the lending of both the [[New Development Bank (NDB)]] and [[Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA)]] will be in US dollars rather than the currencies of the [[BRICS]] countries themselves. ==This is noteworthy since the dollar's dominance has served as a considerable point of vulnerability for the rising powers.== Beyond explicit attempts at reforming the institutions of global governance, the emerging powers have in recent years also become significant bilateral donors; in addition, they have established South-South regional trade agreements such as the [[Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP)]]. “Key questions remain, however, as to whether emerging donors should be understood in terms of a mutually beneficial form of SSC or whether this is simply a manifestation of the pursuit of their 'national interest.'41 For some, emerging donor aid programmes are celebrated for their departure from the neoliberal norms of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee and as providing a mutually beneficial form of developmental assistance as an alternative to the dominant aid paradigm.4” (Gray and Gillsb, 2025, p. 563) # Overview of the papers ## Deepak Nayyar - the increasing importance of the rising powers within the global economy “China and India have seen the greatest gains, followed by the rest of what Nayyar terms the 'Next 14' (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa), followed in turn by the rest of the developing world. Even within the BRICS grouping there are considerable inequalities, with Brazil, India and South Africa all running sizeable trade deficits with China.” (Gray and Gillsb, 2025, p. 565) “The rise of China and India as manufacturing powers therefore poses a threat to the future of manufacturing-based industrialisation elsewhere in the developing world, thereby potentially deepening the international division of labour between China and India and regions specialising in primary commodity production and natural resource extraction. As such, Nayyar argues that BRICS will only have a positive impact on other developing countries ifthey serve to improve terms of trade, provide appropriate technologies and create new sources of finance for development.” (Gray and Gillsb, 2025, p. 565) However, Nayyar argues that the collapse of primary commodity prices in mid-2014, which seemed to have underpinned much of the progress made in the developing world, problematises the degree to which this is likely to happen. In terms of their impact on global governance BRICS may have more success in influencing the UN, the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. Yet Nayyar confirms the analysis set out above that the BRICS have failed to coordinate their actions, and that their relationship with each other is characterised more by rivalry, economic or political, and less by unity. Nayyar therefore argues that the spirit of solidarity among developing countries should be preserved and nurtured, and that the approach of BRICS must be to facilitate cooperation among themselves and solidarity with others through consultation and inclusion. ## Fantu Chery - challenging views that relations between African countries and rising powers are necessarily a form of renewed colonialism Fantu argued that such views disregard African agency and fail to examine that agency can transform emerging bilateral relationships into 'win-win' relationships. This is shown through an analysis of trade, investment and aid relations with China and India. Ethiopia's relations with China, for example, show that there are multiple institutional channels through which the Ethiopian state has been able to shape its external relations. These include reciprocal visits by the countries' leaders, the establishment of a [[Joint Ethiopia-China Commission]], and various other mechanisms such as party-to-party relations, underlining the ideological affinity between the Chinese Communist Party and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. “Although Ethiopia has a large trade deficit with China, Cheru argues that it has also gained through widespread Chinese investment. Contrary to popular myth, such investment is not centred around land grabbing, but is focused on manufacturing, construction and real estate.” (Gray and Gillsb, 2025, p. 566) Important piece of information for Indonesia ==Transfer of skills and experience also takes place through Chinese involvement in special economic zones==. Furthermore, Chinese companies are also heavily involved in power generation projects, road building and telecommunications, often as contractors on Western-financed projects. With regard to India cooperation is enshrined in bilateral agreements, reciprocal visits of heads of state and a Joint Trade Committee. Again, Ethiopia has a trade deficit with India, but there exist a wide range of aid and technical assistance programmes focused on capacity building. While there have been criticisms from civil society over ==Indian land grabs==, the Ethiopian government has responded with increased scrutiny of the activities of large investors in agriculture. Cheru concludes that, by being pragmatic, the Ethiopian government has been able to craft its own development roadmap to transform the economy through a meshing of selected development experiences from East Asia with '[[soft neoliberalism]]' from the West under the guidance of a strong developmental state. ## Patrick Bond - adopts a more critical view of the implications of the rising powers for global development Drawing on Rosa Luxemburg's analysis of imperialism as opening up non-capitalist areas to exploitation, he sees new institutions such as the [[New Development Bank (NDB)]] and the [[Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA)]] as forms of sub-imperialist finance. In this sense these institutions do little to provide an alternative to the prevailing world system of sovereign debt, but instead serve as mechanisms for redirecting the world's surplus capital. [[NDB and CRA are a reflection of the BRICS growing frustration with the Bretton Woods institution]]. However, [[BRICS is likely not going to challenge contemporary neoliberal world order, but capitalise it for their own gain]] Although such financial mechanisms can be seen in part as a reflection of the BRICS' growing frustration with the pace of IMF reform, as noted above, both the NDB and CRA serve to shore up the dominant role of the dollar in the world economy. The fact that the BRICS chose not to support the more progressive Bank of the South suggests that they are collaborating actively with imperialist expansion for the advancement of their own regional hegemonic influence strategies. This can clearly be seen through an analysis of the role of ==South Africa's rising investment throughout the African continent and the mobilisation of military force to protect its investments in conflict areas such as in the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo==. Thus South Africa's role can be seen as one of supporting the BRICS'sub-imperialist expansion on the African continent. As Bond concludes, therefore, a ==progressive challenge to the contemporary neoliberal world order is not likely to come from groupings such as the BRICS but through the building of a bottom-up, counter-hegemonic network and then movement against both imperialism and BRICS sub-imperialism.== ## Thomas Muhr - frequent dismissal of claims of [[South-South Cooperation (SSC)]] as mere 'rhetoric' are disingenous The term 'BRICS' itself suggests, discourse production is about constructing [[biopolitics|collective identities]], which is in turn an essential prerequisite for transformative political action. [[Power asymmetry]] - but between countries in a heterogen group, and it does not have to spell problem. “Muhr criticises the dichotomy deployed in the existing literature between 'national interests'and solidarity. The heterogeneity of the global South does mean that, inevitably, one side of the relationship reaps greater monetary gains through trade. Yet, through SSC arrangements, the other party can reap more intangible benefits such as experience, knowledge and cultural exchange, capacity building, diplomatic solidarity, human rights promotion, and the visibility and recognition of the South” (Gray and Gillsb, 2025, p. 567) ## Soyeun Kim and Kevin Gray - challenging the dichotomised debate over whether the engagement of emerging power with the developing world can be seen as emancipatory or as a resurgent form of neo-colonialism While the structural contradictions faced by the South Korean political economy and capital's need for profitable investment opportunities can explain in the first instance the recent emphasis placed by Seoul on developmental assistance to Africa, Seoul's ODA programme in reality reflects a broader range of objectives that cannot simply be reduced to 'the needs of capital'. The multiplicity of objectives underpinning Seoul's ODA programme are analysed through a consideration of the logic of capital and the logic of territory, and their dialectical relationship. Indeed, overlain with economic objectives are the broader geopolitical aims of the South Korean state, including the gaining of political influence within the UN voting system and the promotion of soft power through 'global branding'. > Korea spread its engagement over many posts, such as Ban Ki-Moon's campaign, broader soft strategy through the propagation of 'Korea model of development' and the pursuit of national prestige through membership of the [[OECD]] Development Assistance Committee. The specificities of individual aid programmes should thus be understood as complex and subject to multiple economic and political influences and contradictions. Kim and Gray thereby counter the assumption that all South-to-South capital investment is being driven by profit maximisation and argue that the political-diplomatic logic can be influential in rising powers' SSC strategies. ## James H Mittelman - implications of the rising powers for the existing structures of global governance (thorugh analysis of IMF, G7, G20, and the informal networks of authority that bind them together) USA is the controller, other fora are just the "delivery pipelines" ## Eduardo Gudynas - what is the substantive meaning of the concept of 'development' and its implications for understanding [[South-South Cooperation (SSC)]]? ^f32210 Gudynas argues, even when SSC is presented as an alternative to the traditional developmental programmes of industrialised countries, it remains based on key modernist notions of progress and economic growth. This includes both South America's neo-developmentalism under the auspices of progressivist governments as well as China's state-led development. However, as Gudynas argues, neo-developmentalism has tended to focus on exports, investment and consumerism in the context of the global commodity boom. China's approach similarly shares with Western development an emphasis on growth and industrialisation. As a result, SSC has tended mainly to involve coordination on projects and financing, without discussion of the substantive content of development. [[Insights]] This is where [[Foucault]] perspective comes in about identity. What is [[BRICS]] identity in governing its bloc? What is 'development'? What is progress and what constitutes economic growth? What are the paths to chart to economic growth? [[Type 3 variety of development]] The problem is that debates over development have typically taken place either with regard to the instrumental arrangements within a specific 'variety of development' (Type 1) or indeed on the relative merits of different varieties of development, such as the neo-Keynesian approach or the neoliberal approach (Type 2). ==As Gudynas argues, however, there is a need for a Type 3 debate over alternatives to the Western modernist varieties of development==. Such an alternative, Gudynas argues, can be seen in the concept of Buen Vivir, which focuses on quality of life and an expanded notion of the community to include nature and the delinking of progress from growth. In this sense the resurgence of [[South-South Cooperation (SSC)]] based on extractivism can be seen not as a new alternative form of cooperation but as a major social and environmental threat.