“One of the more remarkable developments over the last 25 years is that an investment banker’s arbitrary acronym for a quartet of emerging market economies has become the rubric for rebellion,” FP’s Keith Johnson wrote ahead of the high-profile BRICS meeting in Kazan, Russia, last week. It was the first summit since the group—originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and later South Africa—added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates to its ranks.

But can BRICS really create, as some analysts suggest, an alternative to the Western-led international order and the dominance of the U.S. dollar? The essays below offer a primer on the bloc at this pivotal moment in its development and contextualize some of the debates on its potential to disrupt the global balance of power.

“One of the more........

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