De Carvalho, GustavoAnand, JaimalNaidu, Sanusha2025-10-242025-10-242025Gustavo de Carvalho, Jaimal Anand & Sanusha Naidu (2025) BRICS expansion: Adaptive response or proactive restructuring of global governance?, South African Journal of International Affairs, 32:1-2, 9-32, DOI: 10.1080/10220461.2025.2523507.1022-0461 (print)1938-0275 (online)10.1080/10220461.2025.2523507http://hdl.handle.net/2263/104967This article examines whether BRICS’ recent expansion represents a proactive restructuring of global governance or an adaptive response to existing constraints. By integrating Amitav Acharya’s multiplexity and Susan Strange’s structural power framework, it analyses BRICS across systemic, institutional, and networked levels. The analysis reveals that BRICS expansion constitutes a strategic adaptation with limited transformative potential. While enlargement broadens BRICS’ geopolitical and economic footprint, the bloc remains embedded within Western-dominated financial structures. Its institutional innovations function as parallel mechanisms rather than as disruptive alternatives, illustrating a tempered form of incremental revisionism. At the networked level, BRICS’ influence manifests through issue-specific cooperation in energy, trade, and climate governance. However, internal divergences and structural dependencies constrain its transformative capacity. Ultimately, the research finds, BRICS pursues a sophisticated middle path – working within the system while incrementally transforming it – representing a measured evolution rather than a fundamental overhaul of global governance.en© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).BRICSInternational relations theoryEmerging powersGlobal governanceStructural powerMultiplex global orderArticle