International Cleavage: From Third Worldism to BRICS

• In Event: The Political Economy of the Global Financial System

Abstract

During the 2000s, on various areas of international engagement, it appeared that developing countries, led by emerging powers like Brazil, India, Russia, and China, took positions at odds with major powers in the international system. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Non-Aligned Movement had seemed to articulate an even more forceful North-South cleavage, broadly defined. Such periods suggest that there are moments, even extended periods, when developing countries ally to pursue autonomous policy space within the international system. Yet, in other moments, developing countries seemingly accept existing hierarchies of Western and Northern design. What explains shifting patterns of cleavage and alliance in the international system? When are developing countries more willing to diverge from Northern- and Western-dominated arrangements, and how is this divergence expressed?
In contrast to those perspectives that emphasize the anarchic nature of the international system or its liberal institutionalist orientation, the current project emphasizes the changing nature of hierarchy. In particular, the project argues that developing countries pursue institutional and normative alternatives to existing hierarchies, but only under certain circumstances and not always with the same degree of challenge to existing institutions and norms.
The project characterizes periods of cleavage and alignment in the international system. In particular, the project conceptualizes international cleavage and alignment for developing countries in terms of relative proximity or distance from each other or from Northern countries. To characterize proximity, the project explores changing dyadic relationships over time in items such as diplomatic representation, treaties, security arrangements, trade agreements, trade relations, investment, and UN General Assembly votes. Linear mixed effects models separate those effects that are relatively constant across subgroups of countries, those effects that are time dependent, and those that are due to other exogenous variables. In addition, network analysis explores changing clusters of countries over time, as well as the structure of nodes within those networks.
The project hypothesizes that there are measureable shifts in dyadic relations among countries over time, with particular attention to the position of key categories of states, such as developed/undeveloped, emerging powers, commodity producers, and regions. Further, the project hypothesizes that there are measureable and distinguishable periods demarcated by post-WWII decolonization through 1960s-1970s Non-Alignment, 1980s-1990s debt crisis and neoliberalism, and 2000s commodity boom and BRICS.
To complement this statistical analysis, the project also explores qualitative observations to characterize the leadership, norms, and institutions shaping South-South relations. Leadership summits, international organizations, and proclamations by those representing developing countries indicate the intensity of South-South ties as well as the underlying ideas orienting these ties.
Together, this quantitative and qualitative analysis offers insights into the changing nature of hierarchy and resistance in the international system. In a critical moment in which accepted international institutions and hierarchies are undercut and collapsing, it is worth considering the nature of cleavages and alignments within and across the global South, their change over time, and their potential to contribute to an alternative international order.

Authors

• Aaron Schneider, University of Denver

• Amaleia Kolovos, University of Denver