QEH Working Paper Series – QEHWPS199 page 1 ODID Working Paper Series: Focus on IBSA An Introduction Co-Editors: Sarah-Jane Cooper-Knock, Cintia Kulzer Sacilotto and Indrajit Roy 1 In recent years, emerging powers have received increasing attention, both in the media and in academic circles. In 2001, Jim O’Neil famously wrote a report for Goldman Sachs entitled ‘Building Better Global Economic BRICs’, which focused on the rising economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. 2 This nifty acronym quickly slipped into common usage, shaping perceptions across the globe and also encouraging an alliance of sorts between the countries themselves, who gathered for their first BRICs summit in 2009. One year later, South Africa slipped into the acronym and the group have been keen to demonstrate their collective and individual political-economic power, recently re-stating their intent to launch a development bank and a currency stabilisation fund to cater to the needs of Southern states. Meanwhile, analysts have continued to play ‘geo-political boggle’ (Cooper-Knock and Jain 2013) penning acronyms like CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) and MIST (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey) in an attempt to predict and describe other rising economic blocs (UNDP 2013:44). Comparative work on these emerging powers has been fruitful, and research into BRICS in particular has expanded greatly in recent years (Becker 2013; Budd 2012; Brutsch and Papa 2013; Graham 2013; Muller 2011). Ultimately, though, the latter has been limited by the vast 1 Sarah-Jane Cooper-Knock is a DPhil candidate in International Development at the University of Oxford and a Teaching Fellow at the London School of Economic and Political Science; Cintia Kulzer Sacilotto is a DPhil Candidate in International Development at the University of Oxford; Indrajit Roy is a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Names have been arranged in alphabetical order. 2 http://www.content.gs.com/japan/ideas/brics/building-better-pdf.pdf last accessed, 15 th November 2013.