BRICS Expansion and the Future of World Order: Perspectives from Member States, Partners, and Aspirants

Stewart Patrick, Erica Hogan, Oliver Stuenkel, Alexander Gabuev, Ashley J. Tellis, Tong Zhao, Gustavo de Carvalho, Steven Gruzd, Amr Hamzawy, Etsehiwot Kebret, Elina Noor, Karim Sadjadpour, Ebtesam Al-Ketbi, Victor Mijares, Ovigwe Eguegu, Abdulaziz Sager, Gilles Yabi, Sinan Ülgen, and Trinh Nguyen

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Introduction

At their October 2024 summit in Kazan, Russia, the original five members of the BRICS coalition—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—welcomed into their fold four new members: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In January 2025, Indonesia became the bloc’s tenth member. Nine other nations have been officially designated as “partner countries,” and some two dozen have either been invited to join (for example, Saudi Arabia) or expressed interest in doing so (for example, Türkiye). BRICS states including Russia have touted the group’s expansion as a defining moment, heralding the dawn of a post-Western world order in which the “global majority” is finally empowered.

Among analysts, the significance of the BRICS expansion remains a matter of debate. On paper, “BRICS+” has the potential to become a major geopolitical and geoeconomic force. The bloc already boasts about 45 percent of the world’s population, generates more than 35 percent of its GDP (as measured in purchasing power parity, or PPP), and produces 30 percent of its oil. BRICS countries have also established an extensive and thickening latticework of intergovernmental cooperation. In addition to founding dedicated institutions such as the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), created in 2014 with an initial funding of $100 billion, and the New Development Bank (NDB) established in 2015 with an initial subscribed capitalization of $50 billion, the coalition has (like the G7 and G20 forums) embraced networked minilateralism, launching transnational partnerships and working groups on topics of shared interest from energy security to health, climate change, sustainable development, and technology transfer. BRICS avowedly seeks to challenge Western-dominated institutions of global economic governance, as well as to displace the U.S. dollar from its entrenched role in the world economy. Many analysts therefore depict BRICS expansion as a watershed moment in the shift to a more egalitarian international system.