-
CENTRES
Progammes & Centres
Location
Across regions and geographies, the type of government in power, the degree of political instability, and a country’s ‘regional power’ status influence its openness to multilateral cooperation and the choices made within it, which in turn shape how the country is perceived internationally—sometimes rightly, sometimes swayed by rhetoric.
This analysis considers a few top non-Western emerging economies within the BRICS and G20 groupings that are both democracies and pluralist polities — Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, and Mexico — to assess how these factors influence their multilateral cooperation. These countries, as agile middle-power democracies, do not carry political ‘limitations’ of non-democracies, the ‘responsibility’ of being a pole, or the ‘baggage’ of legacy partnerships as an ally, which gives them greater agency in navigating multilateralism.
Some countries are more pluralistic than others, and while a middle power’s approach to multilateralism may shift depending on whether a conservative, nationalist, or liberal government is in power, the extent of that shift varies.
A 2022 Oxford research paper suggests that far-right populist governments promise ruptures, but in pluralist systems, sharp foreign-policy change happens only if they win domestic institutional and bureaucratic battles and face no insurmountable external obstacles; otherwise, outcomes are merely incremental. Some countries are more pluralistic than others, and while a middle power’s approach to multilateralism may shift depending on whether a conservative, nationalist, or liberal government is in power, the extent of that shift varies. The pattern is not as clear as the usual broad-brush claims, suggesting that nationalist or conservative governments tend to retreat from multilateralism while liberal ones embrace it more, especially in the context of middle powers.
Under liberal leaders like Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva (in his previous two terms), Brazil’s official policy was one of ‘Benign Multipolarity,’ which advocated inclusive multilateralism to represent emerging economies — whether through championing reforms to the United Nations Security Council, deepening engagement in the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha Development Round, championing climate diplomacy via UN Climate Change Conference leadership, or helping establish BRICS institutions such as the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement. Au contraire, under the conservative Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil espoused anti-globalism — it politicised foreign policy, tilted towards an ‘automatic’ ideological bilateralism with other conservative governments — the US, Israel, Hungary and Poland — adopted a religion-inflected rights stance (notably at the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly), and antagonised environmental and human-rights agendas. However, these shifts were mostly symbolic and reversible, and Brazil ultimately remained within the influence of core institutions (the UN, WTO and its OECD bid). Lula’s current third term suggests a more pragmatic foreign policy by prioritising environmental issues, revitalising traditional alliances, emphasising multilateral cooperation, and taking a more balanced approach to great-power politics, such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict. For instance, while Brazil was the only BRICS nation to vote in favour of the UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion, it refused the US request to send ammunition to Kyiv and instead criticised NATO for prolonging the war. This renewed approach marks a strategic shift from Lula’s earlier terms, where his pursuit of global influence was criticised as overstretching Brazil’s capacity without sufficient domestic support.
Brazil’s role as a regional power has been under stress since the early 2010s. Post Lula 1.0 and 2.0, and under Rousseff, Brazil’s regional activism declined. Bolsonaro’s fundamental scepticism of and ideological confrontation with Latin American leaders such as Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro further accelerated disengagement from regional forums like the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), and generally led to the dilution of Brazil’s regional priorities. Under the current Lula 3.0 administration, while regional aspirations remain, Brazil’s influence has clearly weakened, as illustrated by its inability to persuade Venezuela's Maduro to respect Venezuela’s 2024 electoral process or resolve the crisis, an event that impacted its regional perception, including in Washington.
In Indonesia, former President Joko Widodo (popularly known as Jokowi), a secular nationalist, pivoted from his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s activist globalism towards an inward-looking and results-driven diplomacy, scaling back ASEAN centrality and multilateral ambition in favour of sovereignty-focused initiatives such as the Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF) — a “middle-power balancing” doctrine intended to position Indonesia as a maritime nexus between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It sought to navigate between China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the US-led Free and Open Indo-Pacific frameworks without overt alignment, and prioritised sovereignty-centred bilateral economic diplomacy, including inking deals with major powers to increase foreign investments and defending maritime boundaries.
While Jokowi’s successor, Prabowo Subianto, a conservative nationalist, has continued to focus on regional security, he has also sidelined the GMF to emphasise defence modernisation and geostrategic ties via transactional bilateralism — a more fragmented approach compared to Jokowi’s holistic approach. Subianto has redefined Jokowi’s pragmatism into a form of transactional realism, but there has been no substantial departure per se. Both leaders downscaled ASEAN centrality and maintained a balanced diplomatic stance on great-power politics such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict. However, it is under Subianto that Indonesia became a full member of the BRICS in January 2025 and deepened ties with Russia, even skipping the 2025 G7 summit to attend Russia’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Indonesia continues to be a de facto leader of ASEAN by virtue of its size and strength, but a weakened and deadlocked ASEAN has led to its further deprioritisation under Subianto, who has also given less attention to pressing regional matters such as the Thailand–Cambodia conflict, the plight of Rohingya refugees, and Myanmar’s escalating instability. Whether all of this will erode Indonesia’s regional influence remains to be seen, but for now, it continues to be perceived as a regional power.
South Africa is a peculiar case where the same political party has been in power since 1994 (the end of apartheid) — the African National Congress (ANC) — effectively making it a one-party dominant system for over three decades. Both Cyril Ramaphosa and Jacob Zuma before him belonged to the ANC, the key distinction between them being that Zuma’s brand was populist and Ramaphosa’s brand is reformist, given Zuma’s corruption scandals and accusations of state capture. Both have advocated greater South African leadership in Africa and in forums like BRICS and the G20. Zuma’s most notable achievement was South Africa’s BRICS membership in 2011, and his reform approach to multilateralism carried an anti-Western and anti-hegemonic rhetoric — he focused on the Global South, BRICS, and African Union-driven reforms, as well as building closer ties with Russia and China. Ramaphosa’s approach, on the other hand, involves a pragmatic and reformist global engagement strategy, balancing outreach between East and West. Ramaphosa has also emphasised climate cooperation, unlike Zuma. Ramaphosa’s balanced approach could also be attributed to the fact that Zuma’s populist government had discredited South Africa on the international stage.
Ramaphosa’s approach, on the other hand, involves a pragmatic and reformist global engagement strategy, balancing outreach between East and West.
Under Zuma, South Africa’s regional influence weakened — illustrated by its policy reversal on the NATO intervention in Libya (after initially backing the UN resolution), its failure to de-escalate the 2010–2011 electoral crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, and the collapse of the South African-backed Global Political Agreement in Zimbabwe in 2008. Under Ramaphosa, efforts have been made to restore South Africa’s regional standing, as evidenced in its 2023 BRICS chairship under the theme ‘BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism,’ and its 2024-2025 G20 presidency — the first for an African country and coinciding with the inclusion of the African Union in the G20 in 2023. The agendas of the G20 and BRICS are viewed as complementary for South Africa because they mutually reinforce each other.
The peculiarity in South Africa’s multilateral posture lies in the ANC’s enduring political dominance. Despite a coalition government under Ramaphosa — a reflection of the ANC’s waning influence, especially due to Zuma’s corruption scandals — it is still the ANC that ultimately dictates foreign policy, limiting coalition influence and exposing South Africa to the risks of political instability and reduced policy dynamism.
In contrast to his centre-right, pro-globalisation, and multilateralist predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto, the left-wing populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (popularly known as AMLO), who served as Mexico’s president from 2018 to 2024, adopted an anti-imperialist, anti-US rhetoric with limited engagement in multilateral platforms. His foreign policy was widely viewed as being inconsistent, including in Mexico’s pursuit of Latin American regional leadership. For instance, although Mexico led the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2020-2021 and hosted its summit, AMLO did not attend the subsequent summit in Argentina. On great power issues such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, AMLO took a neutral stance by refusing to impose sanctions on Moscow or send weapons to Kyiv, citing the Estrada Doctrine — a Mexican tradition of non-intervention that he revived. AMLO claimed Mexico “marched to its own beat” and preferred aligning with the Global South over close coordination with the US
Current President Claudia Sheinbaum, belonging to the same political party as AMLO, represents continuity in prioritising national interests but has adopted a more balanced and strategic tone. There is increased multilateral engagement — for instance, owing to rising trade tensions with the US, Mexico attended the BRICS summit as an observer in 2025. Sheinbaum has also re-energised Mexico’s G20 engagement by personally re-entering major forums and signalling a more outward-looking multilateral posture — in clear contrast to AMLO’s inward-focused approach, during which he skipped summits, delegated attendance, and prioritised sovereignty over global leadership.
As the only non-BRICS middle power in this list, Mexico is a special case. It sits in the US neighbourhood with a great degree of economic interdependence and shared security concerns, which impose external constraints on its strategic autonomy in multilateral affairs. For instance, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on free trade (USMCA) contains a ‘poison pill’ clause that precludes a free-trade agreement with a “non-market country”, effectively limiting Mexico’s ability to deepen economic ties with China.
Ultimately, the more politically stable, pluralist, and regionally confident a middle power is, the more effectively it can leverage both regional and global platforms and pivot between South-South and North-South multilateralism.
Populist or nationalist governments in middle powers that avoid exporting their ideological rhetoric through their foreign policy and instead adopt pragmatic policies while facing no overwhelming external constraints demonstrate far greater flexibility to pursue dynamic multi-alignment in their multilateral approach, as seen in the case of Indonesia. By contrast, while Mexico is pluralist and now led by a pragmatic nationalist government, its agency is externally constrained by its proximity to the US, particularly its deep economic interdependence with Washington, limiting its ability to be reformist or dynamic in its multilateralism. Brazil is a classic case of how domestic volatility and overreach, despite pluralism and regional potential, produce inconsistent multilateralism. South Africa presents the opposite problem — a stagnant domestic political ecosystem that limits ambition and adaptability even when global opportunities (like BRICS leadership) arise. Ultimately, the more politically stable, pluralist, and regionally confident a middle power is, the more effectively it can leverage both regional and global platforms and pivot between South-South and North-South multilateralism.
Lavanya Mani is a Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Lavanya Mani is a Fellow at ORF, where she plays a key role on the curatorial team, shaping the thematic direction and programming of ORF’s ...
Read More +
PREV
