BRICS e o projeto de desdolarização: entre o discurso de cooperação e as assimetrias de poder

Abstract

This paper analyzes the extent to which the de-dollarization proposal promoted by BRICS may constitute a viable alternative to the dollar-centered international financial order, taking into account the foreign policy interests and internal asymmetries of its member countries. Based on a historical and structural analysis of the International Monetary and Financial System (IMFS), the study contextualizes the consolidation of the dollar’s centrality from the collapse of Bretton Woods to the 2008 global financial crisis, a moment in which criticisms of international financial governance intensified. Furthermore, the paper examines BRICS’ actions through an analysis of the national positions of China, Russia, Brazil, India, and South Africa, as well as the main instruments mobilized by the group, including the New Development Bank, the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, and the promotion of local currency use. Throughout the analysis, it becomes evident that, although there is discursive convergence around the need for greater financial autonomy and monetary diversification, national responses are markedly heterogeneous. As a result, economic, financial, geopolitical, and institutional asymmetries among the members limit coordination and the effective reach of de dollarization initiatives in the short term. Consequently, the paper shows that the BRICS operate as a coalition that adopts a contestatory stance toward the prevailing financial order, albeit in a gradual manner, without constituting, in the immediate horizon, a systemic alternative capable of replacing the dollar’s centrality in the IMFS.