By Andrés Serbin*

The BRICS countries’ efforts to expand the group’s influence in the Global South is giving momentum to Argentina’s bid for membership, but the timeline and outcome of the admission process is far from certain. During a virtual summit hosted by Beijing in June, the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – continued efforts to revitalize the group and follow up on expansion proposals initially agreed to in 2017.

• Conceived as an alternative to the G7 when launched in 2009, the BRICS represent 42 percent of the planet’s population, 24 percent of world GDP, and more than 16 percent of global growth, according to 2019 World Bank estimates. Each member plays a significantly different role in international affairs, but the group is moving in a unified fashion to position themselves as a decisive factor in the global governance architecture and as a voice of the “Global South” that advocates an economic and political alternative for emerging economies. Brazilian analyst Oliver Stuenkel notes that the five “share a profound skepticism of the U.S. international liberal order and perceived danger that unipolarity represents to their interests.”
• The June summit reviewed initiatives to increase economic cooperation and development, promote multilateralism and world peace, and create a vaccine research and development center. As a reaction to Western economic sanctions, Russia proposed the development of a “de-dollarized” financial space for trade between the group’s economies – a proposal already introduced in the discussions of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the main Eurasian cooperation institution. The group also took up China’s 2017 proposal for a “BRICS Plus” – expansion to incorporate new members of the Global South, including Argentina.

The Argentina proposal faces obstacles within the BRICS even though Russia, China, and India (whose foreign minister visited Buenos Aires last week) support it and Celso Amorim, former and likely future foreign minister if Brazilian President Lula da Silva is reelected, has said Brazil will support as well.

• Political and geopolitical challenges within the group include differences in how members relate to the international liberal order. Ties to the West vary from Russia’s more belligerent position to China’s more cautious one and India’s ambiguity. There are marked differences in their foreign policies that potential new members could aggravate.
• Members also have different viewpoints on whether to incorporate regional integration blocs such MERCOSUR, whose own heterogeneities, tensions, and conflicts can hinder the expansion process and bloc effectiveness. At a MERCOSUR Summit in July, key leaders’ absences and a divisive debate about the signing of an FTA between Uruguay and China revealed differences. While Paraguay keeps diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the other three full members of the group have close diplomatic and economic ties with the PRC.

Argentina’s application has also given rise to divided views and opinions in the country itself. Despite the fact that all sectors of the ruling coalition can be considered “Peronists,” the current government has pursued an erratic and at times contradictory foreign policy, including conflicting positions regarding international relations, alignments, and alliances. Argentine sinologists disagree on the feasibility of membership, and many more Argentines object because it would hurt relations with the United States, Europe, and the IMF, which has recently helped the country avoid defaulting on $44 billion the Fund previously loaned it. A simultaneous application by Iran – some of whose government officials Argentine justice blames for several terrorist acts in Argentina, including the bombing of Israel’s Embassy and the Jewish local organization AMIA – doesn’t help to build consensus on the issue.

Notwithstanding the divergent opinions in Argentina and among the BRICS, interest on both sides has been persistent and shows signs of growing – even if not necessarily resulting in admission in the near future. Argentina’s interest in pursuing a relationship with the BRICS has continued through governments of different political persuasions since 2014. The need to maintain good relations with traditional partners is key, and the agreement with the IMF presents another reason for caution. It is not clear if Argentina’s incorporation could complicate its geopolitical position without yielding tangible benefits.

• For the BRICS, the shared interest – a desire to curtail U.S. and Western influence and create a counterweight to it – helps them overcome their differences and seems unlikely to change soon, but obstacles to the evolution of the global transition they seek will also remain in the short term. However, in the context of the current debate in Latin America, BRICS expansion fits the increasing regional aspiration to promote active non-alignment amid an increasingly turbulent international order.

September 7, 2022

*Andrés Serbin is an international analyst and president of the Regional Coordinator of Economic and Social Research (CRIES), a regional think tank and network focused on Latin America and the Caribbean. He is also co-chair of the Asia and the Americas section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) and author of Guerra y transición global (War and Global Transition), recently published.

By Carina Cione*

Incarcerated young women in El Salvador face immense obstacles to creating new lives for themselves after release from detention, but programs to empower them offer a glimmer of hope. Interviews conducted as part of the CLALS-FLACSO Vidas Sitiadas (Besieged Lives) project have documented the challenges facing young Salvadoran women and provide strong evidence that others throughout Latin America face similar situations.

• The stigma of a criminal past compounds the systemic exclusion young Salvadoran women often face before arrest just for being from high-crime neighborhoods. Previous offenders who lack support face dismal job prospects. The Vidas Sitiadas reports, which also examined conditions in four other countries, indicate that access to the formal job market is extremely limited; employers turn down job applicants with criminal records. Becoming a student can be just as difficult since universities have the right to refuse admission based on criminal histories. The period of “re-entry” is stressful and lonely as women strive to re-build healthy relationships, establish and maintain financial independence, secure healthcare, and recover from their potentially traumatic incarceration experiences.
• The problem has surged over the last two decades, as rates of imprisonment in Latin America have risen dramatically, with mass incarceration increasingly impacting women. In El Salvador, since President Nayib Bukele launched a crackdown on gangs in 2019, the number of inmates has since skyrocketed (50,000 just since late March), according to UN experts, human rights agencies, and press reports. The government provides free tattoo removal services for former gang members seeking to break ties with their past, but attention to reintegration programs and post-release services to equip previous offenders with coping skills has been negligible. 

Nonetheless, Vidas Sitiadas and other studies have identified programs for released prisoners that, while still in relatively early phases, appear promising. Two examples in El Salvador:

• Glasswing International runs the Club de Niñas, in collaboration with prison authorities in San Salvador, for young women in detention facilities or those who are recently released who want to overcome sociocultural barriers to independence. The three-year-old program teaches strategies for surviving traditional gender roles and expectations, healing trauma in a safe space, and breaking out of the conditions and mindsets that led them to criminality. Researchers working with Glasswing found that all of the women serving criminal sentences had suffered repeated episodes of violence beginning in childhood – neglect, abuse, sexual violence, exposure to community violence, parental alcohol abuse, and parental fighting. Many had fled their dangerous home environments at a young age and joined gangs, which provided them with basic necessities, a steady income, and protection – but also subjected them to physical and psychological abuse. The Club encourages them to feel a frisson of optimism for the first time in their young adulthood.
• Yo Cambio, a four-year-old program run at various Salvadoran prisons, teaches craftsmanship skills to hundreds of inmates that they can use to secure a job upon release. It builds “peaceful co-living” in prison and offers free tattoo removal services for former gang members seeking to break ties with their past. To join the initiative, the inmates have to demonstrate that they practice “positive mindsets” and exhibit wanting to change before joining. 

Programs like these can point to preliminary indicators of success in at least some facilities. Young women interviewed by Vidas Sitiadas valued the safe place that Club de Niñas gave them for honest conversation and building stronger senses of community and self-worth. They underwent skills training to strengthen their likelihood of securing employment post-release, which in turn also helps secure their safety from past abusers. The interviews also show that participants are embarking on a process of developing new prosocial identities, reflecting a desire to engage in positive relationships, and trying to break with past attitudes of rebellion. Mothers promised to try to be better for their children.

Adjustment back into society for previously imprisoned people is anything but simple. The UN General Assembly in 2010 approved a resolution on the treatment of women who are in prison and have been released – called “The Bangkok Rules” – that specifies that they must be provided comprehensive re-entry support by social welfare services, local organizations, and probation authorities. Adherence to such guidelines has not been the norm in El Salvador. The systemic barriers to former prisoners becoming successful members of society remain.

• Efforts like those identified by Vidas Sitiadas are premised on the hope that progress is possible even if locally and incrementally, but society-level outcomes will change only after broader obstacles to successful reintegration, such as geographic exclusion, are resolved. Studies show that, when re-entering into unchanged social and economic conditions, most previous offenders resort to familiar criminal behavior and fall back into dangerous social circles to meet their basic needs. They also lack accessible mental healthcare to help them grapple with trauma experienced before and during incarceration. But, while programs like Club de Niñas and Yo Cambio alone can’t solve such deep-rooted problems for everyone, they improve individual lives and are proof of concept that, if embraced by political leaders, could have a broader impact. 

August 25, 2022

*Carina Cione is Program Coordinator at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. For additional information about the project undertaken by FLACSO-Costa Rica and its partners, please consult the Vidas Sitiadas website.