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1 Introduction

The BRICS countries’ role in the global governance system is defined by their increasing weight in the world economy. Since the inception in 2008 the BRICS have gradually matured into a global governance actor. According to Jim O’Neill, who in 2001 introduced this acronym, “all four of the BRIC countries have exceeded the expectations I had of them back in 2001. Looking back, those earliest predictions, shocking to some at the time, now seem rather conservative. The aggregate GDP of the BRIC countries has close to quadrupled since 2001, from around USD 3 trillion to between USD 11 trillion and USD 12 trillion. The world economy has doubled in size since 2001, and a third of that growth has come from the BRICs. Their combined GDP increase was more than twice that of the United States and it was equivalent to the creation of another new Japan plus one Germany, or five United Kingdom, in the space of a single decade” (O’Neil 2011). In spite of the recent deceleration Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa accounted for 29.5 % of global GDP (PPP-based) in 2013, a figure that is forecast to rise to about one-third by the end of the decade.Footnote 1 But the BRICS increasing role in the global governance system is not a function of only one variable, namely, economic growth of BRICS countries. Strengthening cooperation of these countries significantly contributes to the BRICS rising influence. Since BRICS inception at the leaders’ level in the crisis year of 2008 its members have been broadening and deepening their coordination and cooperation in different policy spheres, different formats and at different levels. Similarly to other international institutions, BRICS aims to help member countries address collective problems and ultimately improve their people’s welfare, especially compared to what individual states can achieve alone. If BRICS fulfils the demands placed on it and thus attains the goals that the members have jointly agreed upon, it can be considered as effective (Beisheim and Fuhr 2008).

This chapter aims to explore the BRICS institutionalization contribution towards its effectiveness. The chapter first considers BRICS cooperation (its institutionalization, dynamics of priorities and functions in the discourse and engagement with other international institutions) across different areas of the agenda. It then looks into BRICS effectiveness measured by the number of commitments adopted and the level of compliance with them. In conclusion, it asserts that BRICS decision-making and compliance are the key factors for enhancing BRICS effectiveness to its members and the global governance. However, both consensus decision-making and compliance performance depend on solidarity of members’ interests and political will to address common challenges.

2 Methodology

The methodology used in this chapter draws on quantitative and qualitative analysis of the full set of the BRICS documents produced since the first meeting at the leaders’ level in 2008. The documentary evidence base includes 37 documents adopted at the summits and ministerial meetings. Starting from the first meeting of foreign ministers on 21 September 2006, as of December 2014, there were 11 summits, 45 ministerials and 30 meetings in other formats. The data accumulated were analyzed across several parameters.

2.1 BRICS Institutionalization

First, to study the overall dynamics of institutionalization, the data on the number of meetings and documents adopted on the ever expanding BRICS agenda were compared. Analysis aimed to differentiate between standalone meetings and meetings taking place on the sidelines of other events, meetings which adopted a final document and not, meetings where decisions on further agenda deepening or expanding the forum were taken and not.

Second, to compare the relative significance and dynamics of priorities, content analysis was carried out on 12 broad policy areas of the BRICS agenda. In the framework of this analysis, a text unit from a BRICS document could be counted as implementing only one priority or marked as uncategorized. Absolute data on the number of characters denoting a particular priority were translated into relative data. These were calculated as the share of characters denoting the priority in the total length of all texts and expressed in percentages. The comparative assessment was based on the relative data of each priority share in the total or annual BRICS discourse.

Third, to assess BRICS capability for global governance, the institutional performance of the global governance functions of deliberation, direction-setting, decision-making, delivery and global governance development has been traced. Deliberation was defined as face-to-face discussions among the BRICS members reflected in the collective documents. Direction-setting was understood as the collective affirmation of mutually shared principles, norms and prescriptions. Decision-making was defined as the adoption of credible and clear collective commitments with sufficient precision, obligation and delegation. Delivery was regarded as stated compliance with collective commitments. The development of global governance was understood as the capability of the BRICS to use other international institutions for implementing its goals and create its own institutions as global governance mechanisms (Kirton 2013: 37–39).

In the framework of content analysis, a text unit was counted as implementing only one of the abovementioned functions. Similarly to the analysis of priorities’ dynamics, absolute data on the number of characters denoting a certain function in the text were translated into relative data calculated as the share of the function in the total of all texts and expressed in percentages. The comparative analysis of the performance of the global governance functions used the relative data of each function share in the overall or annual BRICS discourse. The analysis of the function of global governance development was substantiated by the data on BRICS engagement with other international institutions, such as the number of references and mandates delegated by the BRICS to international multilateral institutions and the number of own instruments and institutions established by the BRICS. The function of domestic political management is usually regarded as an increase in prestige and public opinion support that comes when a country’s actions are publicly acknowledged in the collective documents (Kirton 2013). In the framework of the analysis carried out to examine the dynamics of BRICS institutionalization, however, another parameter was examined, namely, BRICS actions that respond to the long-term priorities of its particular members and may result in social and economic benefits for them.

2.2 Compliance Assessment

While analyzing BRICS effectiveness, particular attention was paid to implementation of decisions agreed by its members. Given that collective commitments made at the BRICS summits by its members reflect their shared goals, increase in the number of concrete decisions and, more importantly, in the level of compliance with the adopted commitments can be considered as an evidence of strengthening BRICS effectiveness. BRICS compliance studies use the methodology developed by the G8 Research Group, which has been monitoring G8 compliance since 1996. It was adopted for monitoring BRICS since its summit in Sanya in 2011. This methodology aims to provide consistency across members, commitments and presidencies.

Commitments are defined as discrete, specific, publicly expressed, collectively agreed to statements of intent; ‘promises’ or ‘undertakings’ by institution’s members that they will undertake future actions to move toward, meet or adjust to meet an identified welfare target. Compliance is understood as national government action aimed towards formal legislative and administrative measures designed to implement summit commitments (Kirton et al. 2014).

Compliance assessment deals with priority commitments selected from the BRICS summits documents. Priority commitments are those that best capture what the summit as a whole did on the decision-making dimension of its global governance. Due to the increasingly large number of commitments that appear in the leaders’ documents (for instance, 47 commitments were adopted at the Durban summit in 2013, and at the Fortaleza summit this figure rose to 68) and some technical limitations, only commitments that reflect the essence of the summit documents in a reasonably representative way are chosen for compliance analysis. Thus, the sample used for assessing compliance represents the priorities of each BRICS summit and reflects the breakdown of issue areas, i.e. priorities commitments refer to. The selection is also made to allow for comparison with past and future BRICS summits. Commitments selected for monitoring compliance should also meet some additional criteria, such as performance measurability and significance as identified by the research team and relevant experts (Kirton et al. 2014).

A three-level measurement scale is used to assess compliance. Full or almost full compliance with a specific commitment is indicated with a score of +1. A score of −1 means complete or nearly complete failure to implement a commitment. A score of 0 is given for ‘inability to commit’ or ‘work in progress’. An ‘inability to commit’ is a hypothetical situation referring to factors that undermine implementation and cannot be controlled by the government of the respective BRICS member. A ‘work in progress’ describes initiatives launched by a government which have not yet been completed by the time of the next summit, and whose results therefore cannot be measured and assessed. Compliance scores of −1 and 0 do not necessarily indicate member’s unwillingness to comply. In some cases policy measures need multiple compliance cycles to be fully implemented and subsequently assessed. After getting individual compliance scores, average scores for each commitment and member, as well as an average score for the summit are calculated. These scores can range between −1 and +1.

Compliance analysis draws on the data from the BRICS compliance reports prepared by the University of Toronto and the International Organizations Research Institute of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (IORI HSE) for 2011–2013 summits.

3 Evolution of BRICS Institutionalization

3.1 Dynamics of BRICS Meetings

Since the first BRIC leaders’ meeting on the sidelines of the G8 Hokkaido summit in 2008 when they agreed on further cooperation to address major global economic challenges and deal with financial sphere and food security issues, the institution’s collaborative dynamics has been increasing steadily.

Meetings of BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors have become the most frequent and regular cooperation format. At the first meeting in Brazil on 7 November 2008, before the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting, finance ministers of the four countries (South Africa has become the fifth member of the institution in 2012) discussed their policy responses to the financial crisis and proposals on reforming the global financial architecture. They also committed “to continue to undertake all necessary steps to lessen the impact of the recent turmoil on economic activity, aiming to preserve medium and long-term growth” (BRIC finance ministers 2008).

In 2009 finance ministers organized two standalone meetings to coordinate their positions in G20 and met twice on the IMF sidelines. At the meeting in March 2009 they supported the G20’s position as the premier institution to lead international efforts responding to the global financial crisis, called for adequate regulation and supervision of systemically important financial institutions, shadow banks and rating agencies, and considered the reforms of the international financial institutions, including the IMF, World Bank, Financial Stability Forum and Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Half a year later at the meeting in London BRIC finance ministers and central bank governors set a target of 7 and 6 % for redistribution of quotas and shares in favor of developing countries in the IMF and World Bank, respectively. Thereafter, BRICS established a practice of regular meetings of finance ministers aimed at preparation to the BRICS summits and coordination of individual positions in the G20 and other international financial institutions has been established. Finance ministers and central bank governors traditionally consult in standalone meetings and on the sidelines of the spring and annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank. As a result, by the end of 2014, 17 meetings had taken place and five documents had been adopted.

Finance ministers meetings have became the most important component of coordination on the BRICS broadening and deepening agenda along with the summits and the meetings between ministers and deputy ministers of foreign affairs launched in 2006. BRICS foreign ministers traditionally meet on the margins of the UN General Assembly sessions. They constantly reflect on challenges to global peace and security, support the transformation process towards a new and more equitable global order. They share common position that political challenges that exist in the world should be addressed within the United Nations in a peaceful manner.

Cooperation between ministers of trade has also been strengthening since its beginning in 2010. Seven meetings have taken place so far, including two joint meetings with economy ministers. The ministers have established the Contact Group for Economic and Trade Issues. The contact group has developed an institutional framework and proposed measures to expand economic cooperation within the BRICS and between the BRICS and other developing countries. It has also prepared a Joint Trade Study containing recommendations for promoting value-added exports among BRICS countries, and developed the BRICS Trade and Investment Facilitation Action Plan. These documents build on the BRICS Trade and Investment Cooperation Framework adopted prior to the 2013 Durban summit. BRICS Economic Cooperation Strategy and Framework of BRICS Closer Economic Partnership have been drafted under the Russian and Chinese experts’ lead and are currently subject to consultations. At the 2014 Fortaleza summit BRICS leaders committed to raise their economic cooperation to a “qualitatively new level” through establishing a road map for intra-BRICS economic cooperation based on these two documents (BRICS 2014).

Regarding agriculture and food security, directions for cooperation set at the first summit in the joint statement on global food security made by the leaders at the Yekaterinburg Summit in 2009, were elaborated in the Moscow declaration of the agriculture ministers adopted in 2010. Given that only three agriculture ministers meetings have taken place so far, the establishment of the working group, the launch of the BRICS Strategic Alliance for Agricultural Research and Technology Cooperation, and the adoption of the Action Plan for cooperation in 2012–2016, which strengthened delivery and accountability in this sphere, can be considered as major steps towards further institutionalization of the BRICS dialogue.

The same tendency for rapid institutionalization of the dialogue is also observed on the health agenda. Seven BRICS meetings focused on health have been organized so far, including four standalone ministerials and three meetings of BRICS permanent representatives in Geneva on the sidelines of the annual World Health Assembly, each issuing a communiqué. BRICS health ministers have organized the work on thematic areas through the technical working group and the BRICS technological cooperation network. Overall, the number of meetings on health issues is the fifth highest among all the BRICS formats, after, the finance ministers and central bank governors, the foreign ministers, the trade ministers, and the leaders themselves.

BRICS have recently established their dialogue on education at the ministerial level (the first meeting took place on 5 November 2013) and science, technology and innovation ministers who met for the first time on 10 February 2014 in Cape Town. Russia is planning to organize the first meeting of BRICS environment ministers during its 2015 presidency. BRICS cooperation is also pursued in non-ministerial formats. These include representatives from competition and customs authorities, export credit insurance agencies, development banks, intellectual property offices, national statistical services, supreme courts, officials responsible for population issues and national security advisers.

Thus, the dynamics of BRICS cooperation institutionalization has been high. 88 meetings have taken place so far. Alongside with the summits, foreign and finance ministers meetings, there are 14 cooperation formats. The BRICS members have produced almost 40 documents on their constantly broadening agenda. There is a clear trend of increasing the number of standalone meetings, releasing more documents, and creating more working groups and other mechanisms of coordination.

3.2 BRICS Discourse Evolution

The shares of different priorities on the BRICS agenda change along with its development and institutionalization. Although BRICS is frequently called a political forum, about 23 % of its total discourse is devoted to economic issues, including the overarching objective of generating strong, sustainable and balanced global growth, whereas more than 21 % is devoted to financial regulation and reforming international financial institutions. Up to the moment (December 2014), these two areas dominate the BRICS agenda. Although the shares of economic and financial issues has been decreasing as BRICS agenda broadens, member states themselves still consider BRICS to be “a major platform for dialogue and cooperation in the economic [and] financial fields” (BRICS 2011).

More than 10 % of the BRICS agenda deal with trade issues. The share of this priority peaked during the Indian presidency at almost 21 % as BRICS leaders expressed their commitment to the rules of multilateral trading system. However, it has consistently declined thereafter.

Since 2011, when the BRICS launched the dialogue on health in the framework of the Chinese presidency, its share in the discourse has become one of the highest among all action areas considered, reaching the average of 9.53 % of the total BRICS discourse.

The average share of the total discourse devoted to political and security issues is less than 9 % (5.4 and 3.4 %, respectively). These areas include coordination of national positions on the UN reform, global challenges and threats of terrorism, crime and piracy, consultations on crisis situations in different regions, including Afghanistan, Syria, the Middle East and North Africa. The share of political issues in the agenda is increasing along with the growing number of crisis situations that need to be addressed.

The dialogue on development within BRICS is strengthening. Substantial contribution towards shaping BRICS agenda on development was made in the framework of the Brazilian presidency in 2010–2011 and South African presidency in 2013–2014. In 2011 BRICS started their dialogue on health-related development issues and consolidated its work on agriculture and food security in poorer countries. At the Sanya Summit the BRICS leaders committed to support infrastructure development in Africa and its industrialization within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). This commitment was reaffirmed at all subsequent BRICS summits (BRICS 2012).

Issues of environmental protection, access to new energy sources, development of clean technologies and renewable energy, measures to ensure energy security and provide economic and social adaptation to climate change are also included in the BRICS agenda, with the shares of respective areas remaining relatively stable related to the overall discourse. BRICS constantly expands its agenda. For instance, at the 2014 Fortaleza summit the dialogue on corruption was launched. The dynamics of BRICS priorities is presented in Table 1. It should be noted that the data for this table are derived from a database containing 37 documents adopted by BRICS in different formats as of December 2014. Thus, the data related to the Brazilian presidency is not final given that the presidency continues at the time of the chapter writing.

Table 1 BRICS priorities 2008–2014, share of characters, %
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3.3 Balance of Global Governance Functions

With BRICS rapid institutionalization and evolution, the distribution of the global governance functions of deliberation, direction-setting, decision-making, delivery and global governance development in its documents has changed. The most obvious trend is that while the share of deliberation in the BRICS documents has been declining, the shares of direction-setting and decision-making, although volatile, have been gradually going up. The foreign ministers communiqué and the three documents produced by finance ministers prior to the summit in Yekaterinburg are dominated by deliberation (28 % of the discourse) and direction-setting (almost 69 % of the discourse), while the share of decision-making amounted to only 2.6 %. During the Russian presidency the share of deliberation remained stable, the share of direction-setting decreased to 49 %, while decision-making rose considerably to stand at 22 %. Later on, the share of decision-making function continued to grow and reached 38.6 % during the Chinese presidency. In 2012–2013, the indicator dropped to 26 %, and fell further to 23 % when South Africa chaired the institution. However, it jumped to over 63 % during the Brazilian presidency in 2014 (here again the data on Brazilian presidency performance is preliminary as Brazil still chairs the forum at the time of the chapter writing). The share of the delivery function increased from 2.02 % during the Russian Presidency to 3.62 % in 2013–2014. However, it dropped to 0.38 % during the current Brazilian BRICS presidency.

The relatively high share of global governance development function during the Brazilian presidency in 2010–2011 reflects the BRIC efforts to foster the reform of international financial governance and launch of their dialogue on measures to establish new currency arrangements. The documents also contained decisions to create agricultural information data-base and implement several new sectoral initiatives, namely, starting cooperation between development banks, statistical and competition authorities, and establishing special forums for business representatives and think tanks, bringing the share of global governance function to an unprecedented 15.83 %. The dynamics of the global governance functions in the total BRICS discourse is reflected in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
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Dynamics of global governance functions in BRICS documents and commitments adopted by the leaders, 2008–2014 (Source Own elaboration)

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The number of concrete commitments made by the BRICS leaders at their summits has increased steadily. Fifteen commitments were registered in 2009 Joint Statement of BRIC Leaders with one third of them made in the area of energy, and three commitments related to overcoming the food crisis and establishing favorable conditions for agriculture development. At the summit in Brasilia BRICS leaders made 31 commitments. The agenda of the forum has expanded: nine commitments fell under the area of energy, three focused on finance, five dealt with development cooperation, three commitments were made in the area of trade, and two related to global financial architecture reform and further institutionalization of intra-BRICS cooperation. At the summit in Sanya the number of commitments agreed by the BRICS leaders amounted to 38. Six of them addressed the issues of environmental protection and adaptation to climate change, followed by macroeconomic issues, trade and international cooperation (five commitments were made in each of these areas). For the first time BRICS leaders made commitments on public health, human rights, accountability and combating terrorism.

The New Delhi summit resulted in the adoption of 32 commitments with a particular focus on trade (nine commitments), regional security (four commitments) and development assistance (three commitments). At the same time, no commitments were made on financial regulation. The Durban summit again produced no commitments on finance and was dominated by the South African presidency priorities of development, regional security and international institutions reform. At the Fortaleza summit in 2014, the BRICS leaders agreed on the highest number of commitments in the history of the institution. 68 commitments covered all of the priorities addressed by the previous presidency. Moreover, BRICS leaders reiterated commitments on financial regulation, food and agriculture, science, information and communication, and cooperation in cultural area. They also agreed commitments in the new areas of environmental protection and anti-corruption.

Overall, commitments in the areas of development assistance, international and intra-BRICS cooperation and international financial institutions reform were made at each BRICS summit. The BRICS also regularly made commitments on macroeconomic policy, energy and climate change issues, regional security and combating terrorism. One or two commitments have been made so far in the areas that are less conventional for the BRICS agenda, such as nuclear non-proliferation, promoting information and communication technologies, protecting human rights, ensuring BRICS accountability, and cooperating in culture and sport.

The average number of commitments adopted by the BRICS leaders at their 2009–2014 summits equals 38.5. This figure is substantially lower than that for other informal multilateral institutions such as G8 and G20. However, there is a strong upturn trend in the number of commitments made within BRICS.

In the analysis of the global governance development function the data on the share of discourse devoted to this function was complemented by data on the number of references and mandates delegated by the BRICS to other international multilateral institutions. So far BRICS has made references to 42 of them. BRICS cooperation is based on the members’ fundamental support to “the overarching objective and strong-shared desire for peace, security, development and cooperation that brought together BRICS countries with the total population of nearly three billion from different continents. BRICS aims at contributing significantly to the development of humanity and establishing a more equitable and fair world” (BRICS 2011). To achieve this goal, BRICS members have consistently emphasized their commitment to cooperation with international and regional multilateral institutions. The most frequently mentioned institution in BRICS documents is the UN (22 % of all references in 2008–2014 BRICS documents), whose importance for addressing global and regional political challenges has been regularly emphasized by BRICS leaders and foreign ministers. BRICS countries also call for a comprehensive reform of the UN including the Security Council. G20 comes second with almost 13 % of all references in the BRICS documents. BRICS members not only support the G20 as a premier global economic cooperation forum, but also coordinate their positions on the G20 priorities. References to the IMF and the World Bank make up approximately 12 and 6 % of the total, respectively, while the reform of quotas and representation in these institutions remains at the core of the BRICS agenda. More than 9 % of references have been made to the World Health Organization, in line with the growing share of BRICS discourse on health issues. References to the WTO amount to approximately 10 % of the total. Top ten international institutions in terms of BRICS references are presented in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2
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Top references to international institutions in BRICS documents, share of the total, 2008–2014, % (Source Own elaboration)

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The absolute number of references to other international institutions in the BRICS documents varies. However, there is a trend towards its growth. Almost a half of the total of 423 references made in the BRICS documents adopted from 2008 to end-December 2014 were made during the South African and Brazilian presidencies. The figure peaked at 104 during the South African presidency.

At the same time, BRICS engagement with multilateral institutions differs considerably from that of G8 and G20. BRICS cooperation with partners is usually limited to the expression of support to particular international organizations, while G8 and G20 main type of engagement with international institutions is delegation of mandates to implement decisions made at their summits. Up to the end of 2014, no BRICS documents containing mandates to other international organizations had been registered, with only a few documents including leaders’ mandates to other BRICS formats (ministers, sherpas, etc.).

4 BRICS Compliance with the Summit Commitments

The commitments of BRICS as a group of major emerging economies mainly fall into the areas relevant for the five countries (see Table 2). In particular, BRICS members’ interest in implementing joint cooperation projects and stimulating domestic economic recovery is reflected in the large share of trade and development commitments. Decisions on international cooperation and international institutions reform which remain at the core of the BRICS agenda also constitute a substantial share of commitments standing at about 10 % of the total. At the same time, each presidency strives to incorporate its own priorities in the agenda and can thus substantially influence the breakdown of commitments. For instance, decisions made during the Russian presidency in 2009 focused mainly on energy and agriculture. Brasilia retained energy as a top priority and also added development issues to the agenda. 2011 summit in China resulted in the shift towards commitments on climate change. Indian and South African presidencies considered regional security as a priority, and the Durban summit also addressed development issues, including infrastructure development, and regional integration (BRICS 2013).

Table 2 Distribution of BRICS commitments across issue areas, 2009–2014 summits
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BRICS effectiveness is based on its ability to deliver on the commitments made by the leaders. In this regard, compliance performance is a good effectiveness indicator. The average BRICS compliance score derived from the 2011–2013 Compliance Reports data equals 0.41 (see Table 3). However, it should be noted that compliance data is available for only three summits and the results were mixed, which precludes assessment of compliance dynamics. The average compliance score was substantially higher for Sanya and Durban summit commitments (0.48 for both of them), whereas the New Delhi summit figure was almost twice lower at 0.28.

Table 3 BRICS compliance performance, 2011–2013
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What can be asserted is that with the growing number of commitments made by the BRICS leaders, their compliance performance has been improving. This can be explained by the development of institutional culture within BRICS, the growing need to address global challenges, members desire to strengthen the forum legitimacy and enhance returns on the investment made into building the institution. At the same time, the average level of compliance with the commitments made by BRICS leaders remains slightly lower than that of the G20 and substantially lower than the G8 figure.

Delivery on the commitments is considered to be higher in the areas constituting the core of the institutions’ agenda. For BRICS, with its broad and vague agenda, only moderate success was achieved in almost all action areas examined in the framework of compliance assessment, with the highest average scores on development (commitment to stimulate infrastructure investment and industrial development in Africa), energy (in particular, promoting clean technologies) and climate change (two commitments assessed were devoted to the Cancun Agreements). Delivery on macroeconomic policy and regional security commitments was a challenge with the average scores of 0.2 in both areas.

5 Conclusion: Link Between BRICS Institutionalization and Effectiveness

The role of BRICS in the system of global governance is strengthening, and its members realize the value of their cooperation to address common challenges. Analysis shows that the dynamics of BRICS cooperation institutionalization has been positive, and its speed has been high. Six years after the first meeting at the leaders level, BRICS has matured into an important global governance actor, established a number of new formats and mechanisms for cooperation among member states. The institutionalisation helped advance BRICS effectiveness, thus, the balance of global governance functions tilted towards decision-making and the number of commitments increased.

However, the impact of growing institutionalization on BRICS effectiveness as a global governance actor differs across policy areas. The economic, financial and trade issues as a whole constitute more than a half of the total BRICS discourse (see Table 1). The dialogue on economic and financial issues is strongly institutionalized. Financial and trade ministers meetings are held regularly and, although most of them are organized on the margins of other events, they often produce documents containing commitments. Compliance performance on trade and financial regulation is relatively high. The establishment of the New Development Bank and the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement at the Fortaleza summit in 2014 was a major step towards further institutionalization of BRICS and a claim for growing effectiveness.

BRICS performance on economic agenda needs further consolidation. Leaders and ministers of the BRICS countries keep reiterating that the current situation in the global economy requires development of new models, principles and mechanisms to strengthen intra-BRICS economic cooperation and, thus, there is a need for BRICS countries to collaborate and build on the respective strengths of their economies. As BRICS trade ministers mentioned at their meeting in 2013, “this could be achieved by identifying complementarities in key growth sectors and to cooperate to build the industrial capacities of their respective economies…and advanced by further exchanges between industries, trade and investment promotion events and enhanced investment and technical cooperation” (BRICS trade ministers 2013). However, economic cooperation between BRICS member countries remains mainly bilateral, as each of them pursues its own national interests determined by domestic economic situation and traditional ties with other countries. To advance economic cooperation Russia initiated the process of drafting the BRICS Economic Cooperation Strategy after the summit in Durban. Simultaneously China proposed the Framework of BRICS Closer Economic Partnership which partially duplicates the Strategy but also reflects some specific national priorities. Although in Fortaleza BRICS leaders instructed their Sherpas to advance discussions on integrating the two documents “with a view to submit their proposal for endorsement by the next BRICS Summit”, the debate is likely to stall until the views of all stakeholders are brought together into a common position (BRICS 2014). Thus, ‘institutionalisation’ or the process of developing a shared economic cooperation document may help push intra-BRICS cooperation.

BRICS dialogue on health has positive institutional dynamics. Members have launched regular cooperation at the ministerial level, adopted a number of documents and established specialized mechanisms and institutions to coordinate their work on health issues. Balance of global governance functions within BRICS discourse on health has been changing from primarily deliberation to decision-making, and its share in the total discourse has been steadily growing. However, commitments in this area are made mainly by ministers, while the leaders have not articulated any concrete decisions on health. Similarly to other areas, the implementation of the function of global governance development is limited to the expression of collective support towards other international organizations activities in the sphere and does not include delegation of mandates.

Despite regular meetings of national security advisors and consultations of foreign ministers on the margins of the UN General Assembly, the effectiveness of BRICS joint efforts to resolve regional conflicts, combat terrorism and ensure other aspects of global peace and security remains low. Relatively poor performance on the Durban summit commitment to assist the emergence of stable democratic Afghanistan supports this assertion. At the same time, along with the institutionalization of the format, BRICS foreign ministers continue consolidate their positions on political issues. Thus a strong stance against sanctions expressed at the foreign ministers meeting in The Hague in March 2013 and a large share of political and security problems in the Fortaleza summit discourse may contribute to increasing effectiveness of the political dialogue.

Some areas lag behind the overall rapid institutionalization of BRICS. For instance, unlike the abovementioned areas, development is a sphere where BRICS engagement is not strongly institutionalized. At the same time, compliance assessment for the decisions in this area made at three consecutive BRICS summits indicates that the members delivered well on their pledge to address development needs. The high compliance scores on the development commitments could be explained by two factors. First, South African presidency in 2013–2014 has strongly contributed to the BRICS debate on development issues, as the country is deeply committed to the continent development and regards BRICS as an important forum to achieve the goal. Second, BRICS countries are re-emerging donors and consider BRICS to be an important mechanism for coordinating their development support efforts, in particular in infrastructure investment, industrial development and poverty eradication in Africa. Moreover, some areas where dialogue within BRICS on ministerial or senior expert level has never been held demonstrate high effectiveness in terms of compliance performance. In particular, this is the case for climate change and energy where average scores for three compliance cycles equal to 0.5 and 0.6 respectively (see Table 3). Thus, BRICS effectiveness understood as its ability to address global issues through implementing collectively agreed decisions and its correlation with the indicators of BRICS institutionalization differs across policy areas.

In some areas, like trade and anti-terrorism, regular meetings of relevant officials and the establishment of new intra-BRICS cooperation mechanisms are in line with a growing number of concrete decisions made and implemented. But in other areas, including, for instance, climate change and energy, low level of institutionalization does not lead to poor performance and effectiveness of the BRICS. Hence though important, institutionalization is only one of the factors impacting BRICS effectiveness. Solidarity of the leaders’ positions on particular issues, their relevance for domestic agendas of member countries and the leaders’ political will are the key drivers of the BRICS evolving cooperation and enhancing effectiveness.