Asserting southern agency: the moralistic realism of multiplexity

Abstract This article investigates the moralistic realism of the emerging multiplex world order. It does so by examining the recent expansion of the BRICS alongside the launch of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). Drawing on a critical analysis of official documents complemented by media reportage and secondary assessments by regional experts, synthesized alongside secondary data on key political and economic trends, the article illustrates the ways in which members of the two groupings advance a view of the world that checks efforts at domination of both established and aspiring hegemons. The article makes three contributions to the literature. Empirically, it charts recent developments in the BRICS and the IPEF from the perspective of member countries—such as India—which participate in both groupings. Methodologically, it introduces the moral economy approach to the study of international affairs. Theoretically, it offers insights into ways in which the agency of the global South contributes to producing a multiplex world order. The two groupings analysed in this article help assemble the building blocks of conceptualizing southern agency in advancing multiplexity. Underpinning this agency is a moralistic realism that blends moralpolitik with realpolitik. This moralistic realism in turn draws on a moral economy of international affairs that constrains the concentration of power and resists domination by a single actor. Mobilizing insights from Mandala theorizing, the article demonstrates the ways in which moral considerations and realist calculations combine to render the two groupings as decentred zones of competition, rather than rival blocs that each revolve around a single pole.