Integration in the Global South: What Role for IBSA Dialogue Forum?

Recently we have seen that the middle-sized states are coming together inseveral forums. The WTO meetings and India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) dialogueforum are among those to be cited. Such groupings are mainly economyorientedand whether they will have political output needs to be seen, however,in the future if globalization goes in a similar way as today, we might see moregroupings. Those groupings should be seen as reactions to unjust and exclusiveglobalization. The IBSA Dialogue Forum members have enhanced their relationseconomically by signing bilateral trade agreements and acting together oneconomic issues in global forums. If they can hold together, they are creating amarket more than of global population and, if successful, it has a chance tobe the engine of growth in the South. Moreover if they can create the biggestmarket in the South, they would also be influential in the being of the voiceof the South. In that sense, this paper addresses the possible ways to developrelations between the IBSA members and economic development in the South,furthermore, implication of the IBSA on global governance and developmentcan be as critical as its contribution to economic development, since the globalgoverning bodies have legitimacy crisis.