BRICS countries’ annual intergovernmental declaration: why does it matter for world politics?

Abstract

ABSTRACT At their yearly summit, the bloc of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) countries issues an annual intergovernmental declaration. While these declarations are scrutinised for challenges they allegedly represent for global affairs, how they self-construct a positive representation about their global purpose is little studied. Notably, there is insufficient examination of the political deliberations behind the statements among the five different countries. By conducting a thematic content analysis based on coding content of the first ten intergovernmental declarations from 2009 to 2018, it is found that BRICS countries speak positively of their cooperative role to solve world problems without mentioning any internal disagreement. In parallel, they present Western institutions negatively in their communication strategy. An absence of deliberations does not imply an apolitical discourse. On the contrary, it can be a deliberate political communication strategy especially among the five different countries aiming to showcase alignment about their purpose in world politics.