Reconfiguring Political Alliances and the Role of Swing States: The Strategy of Bolivia and Its Relations with the BRICS

Abstract

In July 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted saying that the BRICS mechanism is now so developed that it “can transform into a political alliance”. The creation of the BRICS bank was an important step, as termed by Vladimir Putin, since it poses a clear challenge to the International Monetary Fund and the “foreign policy decisions made by the United States and their allies” (quoted in Durden, 2014). With these words, Lavrov was making specific reference to the work within the Group of 20 (G-20), where the BRICS has many allies, such as Argentina, Mexico and Indonesia. According to him, these countries “speak in the common voice with BRICS in the G-20 on the reform of the international financial system” (quoted in Xinhua, 2014). Only one month earlier and in a different context (the Group of 77 plus China summit), the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, turned out to be in favor of the disappearance of the Security Council of the United Nations (UN). His argumentation was based on the function he attributes to the Security Council of reproducing asymmetrical power relations between countries. Particularly, he claimed that “instead of assuring peace among nations, it [the Security Council] has fostered war and the invasions of imperial powers in order to expropriate the natural resources of the invaded countries” (quoted in Vicepresidencia, 2014).