LABRICS — BRICS Laboratory for Global Policy and Governance

LABRICS — BRICS Laboratory for Global Policy and Governance

This research line at BPC examines the BRICS as a space for contestation, negotiation, and the construction of meanings regarding the transforming international order, drawing on a variety of critical perspectives — decolonial, postcolonial, Gramscian, critical geography, and other critical traditions within International Relations and international political economy. It draws on the BRICS’ demands for greater justice in the global order — in development, financing, representation, and sovereignty — to examine how these translate into concrete negotiations, institutional arrangements, instruments of cooperation, and political and financial practices. It devotes attention to the connections between the reconfiguration of the international order and alternative development projects, including agendas for industrialization, productive cooperation, financing, technological innovation, poverty reduction, energy transition, and diverse paths to modernization. It treats the Global South as a contested analytical and political category and analyzes BRICS’s relations with other international groupings, coalitions, and forums. It also examines how different conceptions of redistributive justice and epistemic justice are formulated and mobilized in these spaces. The research line adopts a transnational and multiscalar approach, with a focus on the Brazilian case, to identify limits, ambiguities, and possibilities in the current processes of reconfiguring the global order and development.

Research Areas

BRICS, the Global South, and Reconfigurations of the International Order

BRICS, the Global South, and Reconfigurations of the International Order

Global Governance and Institutional Disputes within BRICS

Global Governance and Institutional Disputes within BRICS  

Development, Inequalities, and Coloniality in the Global South

Development, Inequalities, and Coloniality in the Global South

Publications

Somaliland and the struggle for recognition in the global order:...

The paper examines the impacts of this movement on actors such as China, India, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, highlighting how the case of Somaliland demonstrates...

Report “Brazil in the BRICS (2025)”

The report brings together experts from different institutions to reflect on the challenges and prospects of BRICS in a context of transformations in global governance and the bloc’s expansion. Among...

Opportunities and Challenges of BRICS Cooperation in Artificial Intelligence

The text analyzes the challenges and opportunities for cooperation in artificial intelligence among the BRICS countries, addressing topics such as digital sovereignty, technological infrastructure, data governance, capacity building, and the...

Brazil and China: Building Convergence in the G20 Process

The article “Brazil and China: Building Convergence in the G20 Process,” by researcher Marta Fernández, was published on November 20, 2024, by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The text analyzes the...

Promoting Industrialization in the Global South in a New Global...

The BRICS Policy Center (PUC-Rio) is part of an international research project on industrialization in the Global South, coordinated by the Global South Research Centre (GSRC), affiliated with China’s Center...

G20 in Brazil and South Africa: Priorities, Agendas and Voices...

With the transition to multipolarity accelerating and revealing its contours, fundamental questions about the implications of this shift for multilateral governance are gaining urgent relevance. Although the governance structures of...

Saudi Arabia and the BRICS: Positive Neutrality and Diplomatic Leadership...

Saudi Arabia’s accession to the BRICS remains shrouded in ambiguity. Although the country was invited to join the group during the Johannesburg Summit in 2023, and is listed as a...

Adenauer Notebooks – 2nd Edition: G20 in Brazil

The notebook "Adenauer Notebooks - Special Edition 2: G20 in Brazil" brings together expert analyses on crucial topics on the G20 agenda under the Brazilian presidency, such as the fight...

Team

Ana Elisa Saggioro Garcia

Researcher

Maria Elena Rodriguez

Deputy Director of BRICS Policy Center | Researcher

Marta Fernández

General Coordinator / Researcher

Pablo Ibañez

Collaborator