How representative are brics?

The five countries known as brics, while not homogeneous in interests, values, and policy preferences, do have a common interest in checking US/Western power and influence through collaboration with non-Western powers. They vary considerably but all are ahead of other developing countries on population, military power, economic weight, geopolitical clout, and global reach and engagement. They are unrepresentative of the typical developing country in terms of interest, capacity, and resources, but they can represent the interests and goals of developing countries as a group on those issues for which the North–South division is salient. The diversity within brics, their differences from other developing countries, and their potential to reflect and represent the global South are explored with respect to climate change, finance, trade, aid, human rights and intervention, and development. It remains unclear whether brics can morph from a countervailing economic grouping to a powerful political alternative.     

More continuity than change? US strategy toward Cuba under Obama and Trump

This article examines the policies implemented by both the Obama and Trump Administrations toward Cuba to evaluate the claim that the ‘Thaw’ of relations between Washington and Havana represents a significant change in US foreign policy toward the island nation. Despite the appearance that the change in policy is a fundamental shift, I argue that the changes in US policy toward Cuba under both Obama and Trump represent changes in the means for pursuing the same historical objectives pursued by the Washington for the past few decades. In other words, the overall strategy and objective of US hegemony in Cuba is the same, with the only change being the means for achieving these ends. The central implication of this is that the ‘Thaw’ in relations between Cuba and the US represents a new, more ‘consensual’ means to instigating the same objective of provoking American-orchestrated political, economic, social and ideological changes in the island nation.     

How Concessional is Aid Lending?

The method used by Development Assistance Committee countries for measuring the concessionality of aid loans has remained unchanged for nearly 20 years. It was designed to measure the net cost of aid to donors not the net benefit to recipients. The discount rate used takes no account of changes in the value of the currency of the loan or of changes in prices for goods traded by recipient countries. Furthermore, it does not consider the implications of tying of aid or of policy conditionality. This paper suggests an alternative measure that shows the real net benefit of aid finance to recipients. It argues that the discount rate used by the Development Assistance Committee is too high and that changes in the value of the currency in which a loan is taken out can be important. Nevertheless, real rates of interest for developing countries remain surprisingly high despite low nominal rates due to falling prices of traded goods. This finding has implications for the future real cost of debt service to recipients.