Description
Despite some support for cynical and bigoted predictions that given the politico-economic growth of the countries in the ‘Global South’, growing influence in developmental aid governance and the consequent decline of Western monetary institutions, these developing nations may try to change the established global economic order (Golub, 2013). It can be observed that the concept of the ‘Rise of Global South’ (RoS) was not initially highlighted by academics but commercially-motivated private institutions. In this paper, it will be demonstrated that these emerging powers (such as China, Japan, India, Brazil or Korea) will not strive towards greater multilateralism, regional cooperation in developmental politics, or state capital integration, but further solidly the existing hierarchies and praxis.
Theories favouring RoS often conflate temporary increases in income and productivity of a few nations, and increased South-South trade (Stephen, 2014). However, the application of specific aspects of South-South developmental aid and trade, domestic politics and regional geopolitical rivalries, to the existing theories and norms of neoliberalism, will illustrate how heavily the rising powers are invested in neoliberal institutions and mechanisms. This paper will endeavour to move beyond the methodological constrains of traditional neoliberalism, neorealism or neo-Gramscian theories. And it will present a holistic approach which rejects the premise that these developing economies are inherently opposed to institutionalized economic governance and the hegemonic theories of Global North-South divide.
Moreover, through this nuanced and multi-causal approach of critiquing the existing literature on the subject and referencing current geopolitics and domestic economic policies of these developing nations, especially China, India and Japan. It will be argued that instead of changing the existing structures, it is merely attempting to change its position in it, by modifying the more liberal aspects of free-market economics and promoting national capital integration through international trade and aid governance (Saad-Filho, 2014).
