The India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) collective and the socio-political construction of security

English: The focus of this thesis is on the formation and functioning of the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) collective. The study aims towards an understanding of whether and to what extent the IBSA collective is socio-politically constructed with respect to its security collaboration. At the outset it should be noted that the concept of ‘security’ as used in this study reflects post-Cold War trends in security thinking and regionalism. As such, IBSA’s security collaboration is placed in the context of evolving debates and practices related to regional security community-building and the fostering of human security. The IBSA collective’s constituted form of security shows the oppositional forces of national needs and the challenges of working towards global equity, all the while providing (contested) leadership positions from within the global South. On one hand this may help to ensure greater equity in world affairs, while on the other hand vested and parochial national interests detract from this effort. These paradoxes highlight the hybrid nature of the IBSA collective’s composition, an enduring theme in the study. This forms the context from which the study embarks. In the debate that surrounds the degree and manner in which IBSA can attempt to shape and enhance the elements of human-centric security, the study conceptually derives an integrated approach that is founded upon critical social constructivism and postcolonialism, compacted in the shape of ‘pillars’ that lay out a conceptual framework diagram. The synthesised theories are empirically applied to three functional areas of cooperation – maritime trade, energy and defence cooperation – through the consistent application of the ‘pillars’ noted above. The qualitative case study design highlights the inclusion of issues that enhance trustworthiness, so that the study can ascertain if associated aspects of human security with sectoral IBSA cooperation have been enhanced. With respect to maritime trade cooperation the study finds minimal yields, although the causal link between increased intra-IBSA trade and IBSA trade cooperation efforts could not be established for certain. In terms of energy cooperation, the study determines that adequate projects have come on stream, and that the complexity of the issues requires time for knowledge transfers. The study finds that the defence cooperation presently effects a minimal enhancement of physical and/or military security, but that its very nature makes long-term dividends probable. All three (of sixteen) IBSA working groups place emphases on constitutive discourse, dialogue, socialisation and identity-formation. They not only symbolise the tenets of social constructivism at work – from the bottom up – but also define trilateral relations and provide continuity and strength to the IBSA socio-political structure. The study thus provides greater understanding of the IBSA collective’s security collaboration. It confirms that – to varying gradations – sectoral cooperation enhances aspects of regional human security, and shows that the IBSA collective has had embryonic successes at international level, where great potential lies.