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This paper assesses the role of the BASIC countries — Brazil, South Africa, India, and China — in UN climate change negotiations. The paper explores the formation and evolution of the group, and focuses on how the four major developing countries of China, India, Brazil, and South Africa have coordinated their positions and acted jointly to achieve an agreed outcome with other players in the recent UN Climate Change Conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun, based on an analysis of their country profiles and negotiation positions on a wide range of climate issues. The paper argues that the emergence of the BASIC Group is a reflection of the ongoing power shift from EU–US agreement to BASIC–US compromise in UN climate negotiations since the early 1990s. The rise of BASIC also has its roots in recent global market dynamics and further reflects the power transformation in the economic dimension of the international system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to outline various theoretical approaches used to conceptualize peacekeeping operations (PKO) in International Relations Theory, and compare these general approaches with Indian and Chinese participation and practices. The analysis follows two main trajectories: 1) How is peacekeeping understood in Chinese and Indian conceptions of international relations? 2) How are peacekeeping operations operationalized and carried out? The article carries out a literature analysis additionally informed by a hundred interviews carried out by the authors with policymakers, academics and military in China and India in 2012. There are several core findings of the comparative analysis: While China and India tend to differ at the level of their contributions, there is a commonality of the broad theoretical underpinnings of their participation. Westphalian principles of sovereignty and non-interference remain at the core of engagement for both these actors. At the same time, as demonstrated by Indian support for the UNAMA missions and Chinese voting behavior on Libyan and Syrian missions at the UNSC, both countries have become more pragmatic in their foreign policy approach to peacekeeping as future "responsible powers." Chinese and Indian involvement in different types of missions which go beyond traditional peacekeeping thus point to a change in the international outlook and evolving foreign policy of both these countries, possibly in tandem with their rising global status and the need to utilize peacekeeping as a means of greater participation in the global governance system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]