Foreign Policy of Emerging Powers

This chapter aims at delineating a new research agenda on rising powers rooted in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) that can create a solid nexus between International Relations (IR) and FPA scholarship. We argue that focusing on individual leaders, on the specificities of political parties and their ideologies, on subnational units (paradiplomacy), and on domestic interest groups has the potential to generate new insights into the drivers of emerging powers' foreign policy decisions and preferences. We also introduce four suggestive themes for a future research agenda on BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). They are status seeking, autonomy, domestic contestation, and international attributions of responsibility. An FPA approach can provide possible explanations for phenomena like the gap between economic growth and foreign policy activism, the lack of open confrontation between states, the multifaceted strategies advanced by emerging powers, and the inconsistencies and ambiguities that BRICS show as international actors.