3 The New Big Players: Emerging Powers in a Reconfigured Geoeconomic Order

The contemporary transformation of the global order cannot be understood solely through the lens of traditional great powers. Alongside established actors, a growing set of emerging states and regional groupings has acquired the capacity to shape economic rules, strategic dependencies, and institutional outcomes. Countries such as India, Brazil, Turkey, and Indonesia, as well as coalitional formations like ASEAN and BRICS, no longer occupy peripheral positions in the world economy. They increasingly act as agenda-setters, brokers, and sometimes veto players in a global system marked by fragmentation, rivalry, and strategic interdependence.

This chapter argues that the rise of these new big players is best interpreted as a geoeconomic phenomenon rather than as a simple redistribution of military or diplomatic power. Their influence stems primarily from their roles within economic networks—trade, production, finance, energy, and technology—through which leverage is exercised and vulnerabilities are managed. While empirical evidence and quantitative indicators are indispensable for tracing these dynamics, the analytical focus remains firmly on geoeconomics: the strategic use of economic position, connectivity, and institutional choice in pursuit of national and regional objectives.

3.1 Emerging Powers and the Logic of Strategic Interdependence

Emerging powers differ from traditional hegemons not only in scale but in strategy. Rather than seeking comprehensive dominance, they often prioritize autonomy, diversification, and bargaining power within existing structures. The literature on rising powers emphasizes that these actors aim to expand their room for maneuver in a system historically shaped by Western preferences, without necessarily overturning it wholesale (Hurrell (2006)). This behavior reflects a broader transition toward a more pluralistic international order, in which influence is dispersed across multiple centers and exercised through overlapping institutional and economic arrangements (Acharya (2014)).

From a geoeconomic perspective, what distinguishes emerging powers is their capacity to exploit asymmetries in interdependence. They may not control global financial infrastructures or security alliances, but they often command critical markets, resources, corridors, or labor pools that others depend upon. Their leverage is therefore relational rather than absolute, rooted in position within networks rather than in unilateral capability.

3.2 Trade, Production, and Value Chain Positioning

Trade and production networks constitute the primary arena through which emerging powers project influence. India’s growing importance, for example, lies not only in its demographic scale or growth rates, but in its evolving position within global value chains. As multinational firms seek to diversify production away from concentrated hubs, India has leveraged its large domestic market, human capital base, and policy initiatives to position itself as both an alternative manufacturing location and a global services provider. This strategy reflects a broader attempt to move up value chains and reduce dependence on external technological and industrial ecosystems (Nayyar and Nayyar (2024)).

Brazil exemplifies a different geoeconomic pathway. Its influence is closely tied to its role as a major supplier of agricultural and mineral commodities, which places it at the intersection of food security, energy transitions, and environmental governance. In a world increasingly shaped by climate constraints and resource competition, commodity exporters with reliable production and logistics capabilities can exert significant influence over global prices and supply conditions. Brazil’s geoeconomic relevance thus derives less from industrial scale than from its position within critical resource networks.

Regional groupings such as ASEAN further illustrate how collective strategies can amplify the influence of individual states. By integrating production systems and presenting a relatively unified investment environment, ASEAN has become a central node in global manufacturing and logistics. Its significance lies in providing firms and states with strategic optionality, reducing overdependence on any single country while maintaining access to dense regional markets.

3.3 Finance, Sanctions, and Economic Autonomy

Financial relations have become a central dimension of geoeconomic contestation. The expanded use of sanctions and financial restrictions by established powers has sharpened the incentives for emerging economies to seek greater autonomy within global monetary and payment systems. Research on sanctions highlights that their effectiveness depends critically on the structure of the targeted country’s external economic ties and its access to alternative partners (Connolly (2018)).

Emerging powers have responded not through wholesale withdrawal from global finance, but through selective diversification. Regional development banks, alternative financing arrangements, and efforts to reduce exposure to specific currencies or settlement systems are all part of a broader strategy to mitigate vulnerability. The emergence of institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank reflects an attempt to complement, rather than immediately replace, Western-dominated financial architectures. From a geoeconomic standpoint, these initiatives signal a gradual rebalancing of influence within global finance, driven by dissatisfaction with existing governance structures rather than outright rejection of globalization.

3.4 Energy, Resources, and Corridor Power

Energy and resource endowments remain foundational to the geoeconomic strategies of many emerging and resurgent powers. Control over production, transit, and pricing of energy resources creates leverage that extends well beyond national borders. Russia’s continued relevance in global energy markets, despite extensive sanctions, underscores how resource-based interdependence constrains the effectiveness of economic coercion. By redirecting energy exports toward Asian markets, Russia has demonstrated how geographic and infrastructural flexibility can sustain influence even under adverse conditions.

Other emerging actors pursue different energy strategies. Brazil’s leadership in biofuels and renewable energy positions it as an important player in the global energy transition, while Middle Eastern producers continue to shape oil markets through coordinated production decisions. In each case, geoeconomic power is exercised through control over critical inputs and the ability to shape expectations about supply, prices, and long-term investment.

3.5 Technology, Standards, and Rule-Shaping

Technological capabilities increasingly shape geoeconomic influence, but their importance lies less in innovation per se than in the capacity to embed technology within markets, standards, and regulatory frameworks. China’s technological rise illustrates this dynamic. Its investments in infrastructure, digital platforms, and industrial ecosystems have allowed it to extend influence across multiple regions, particularly through initiatives that link technology deployment with financing and construction (Huang (2016)).

India’s trajectory highlights a complementary approach, centered on digital public infrastructure and service-based capabilities. Rather than competing directly across all technological domains, India has focused on scalable systems—such as digital identity and payments—that strengthen domestic coordination and enhance its standing in international discussions on digital governance. These strategies reflect a broader shift among emerging powers toward influencing the rules and norms that govern new economic domains, rather than merely adapting to those set elsewhere.

3.6 Conclusion

The new big players of the global economy are not simply ascending replicas of earlier great powers. Their influence is more selective, more networked, and more tightly bound to economic interdependence. Through strategic positioning in trade, finance, energy, and technology, they have expanded their capacity to shape outcomes within a fragmented but deeply interconnected world economy.

This chapter has argued that understanding these actors requires a geoeconomic lens that foregrounds economic structure, connectivity, and institutional choice. Empirical indicators and quantitative evidence serve to illuminate these dynamics, but the core analytical task remains the interpretation of how economic relations are mobilized for strategic ends. As subsequent chapters will show, the rise of these new big players reshapes not only global hierarchies, but also the nature of competition, cooperation, and vulnerability in the international system.

# The New Big Players: Emerging Powers in a Reconfigured Geoeconomic Order The contemporary transformation of the global order cannot be understood solely through the lens of traditional great powers. Alongside established actors, a growing set of emerging states and regional groupings has acquired the capacity to shape economic rules, strategic dependencies, and institutional outcomes. Countries such as India, Brazil, Turkey, and Indonesia, as well as coalitional formations like ASEAN and BRICS, no longer occupy peripheral positions in the world economy. They increasingly act as agenda-setters, brokers, and sometimes veto players in a global system marked by fragmentation, rivalry, and strategic interdependence. This chapter argues that the rise of these new big players is best interpreted as a geoeconomic phenomenon rather than as a simple redistribution of military or diplomatic power. Their influence stems primarily from their roles within economic networks—trade, production, finance, energy, and technology—through which leverage is exercised and vulnerabilities are managed. While empirical evidence and quantitative indicators are indispensable for tracing these dynamics, the analytical focus remains firmly on geoeconomics: the strategic use of economic position, connectivity, and institutional choice in pursuit of national and regional objectives. ## Emerging Powers and the Logic of Strategic Interdependence Emerging powers differ from traditional hegemons not only in scale but in strategy. Rather than seeking comprehensive dominance, they often prioritize autonomy, diversification, and bargaining power within existing structures. The literature on rising powers emphasizes that these actors aim to expand their room for maneuver in a system historically shaped by Western preferences, without necessarily overturning it wholesale (@hurrell2006). This behavior reflects a broader transition toward a more pluralistic international order, in which influence is dispersed across multiple centers and exercised through overlapping institutional and economic arrangements (@acharya2014). From a geoeconomic perspective, what distinguishes emerging powers is their capacity to exploit asymmetries in interdependence. They may not control global financial infrastructures or security alliances, but they often command critical markets, resources, corridors, or labor pools that others depend upon. Their leverage is therefore relational rather than absolute, rooted in position within networks rather than in unilateral capability. ## Trade, Production, and Value Chain Positioning Trade and production networks constitute the primary arena through which emerging powers project influence. India’s growing importance, for example, lies not only in its demographic scale or growth rates, but in its evolving position within global value chains. As multinational firms seek to diversify production away from concentrated hubs, India has leveraged its large domestic market, human capital base, and policy initiatives to position itself as both an alternative manufacturing location and a global services provider. This strategy reflects a broader attempt to move up value chains and reduce dependence on external technological and industrial ecosystems (@nayyar_nayyar2024). Brazil exemplifies a different geoeconomic pathway. Its influence is closely tied to its role as a major supplier of agricultural and mineral commodities, which places it at the intersection of food security, energy transitions, and environmental governance. In a world increasingly shaped by climate constraints and resource competition, commodity exporters with reliable production and logistics capabilities can exert significant influence over global prices and supply conditions. Brazil’s geoeconomic relevance thus derives less from industrial scale than from its position within critical resource networks. Regional groupings such as ASEAN further illustrate how collective strategies can amplify the influence of individual states. By integrating production systems and presenting a relatively unified investment environment, ASEAN has become a central node in global manufacturing and logistics. Its significance lies in providing firms and states with strategic optionality, reducing overdependence on any single country while maintaining access to dense regional markets. ## Finance, Sanctions, and Economic Autonomy Financial relations have become a central dimension of geoeconomic contestation. The expanded use of sanctions and financial restrictions by established powers has sharpened the incentives for emerging economies to seek greater autonomy within global monetary and payment systems. Research on sanctions highlights that their effectiveness depends critically on the structure of the targeted country’s external economic ties and its access to alternative partners (@connolly2018). Emerging powers have responded not through wholesale withdrawal from global finance, but through selective diversification. Regional development banks, alternative financing arrangements, and efforts to reduce exposure to specific currencies or settlement systems are all part of a broader strategy to mitigate vulnerability. The emergence of institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank reflects an attempt to complement, rather than immediately replace, Western-dominated financial architectures. From a geoeconomic standpoint, these initiatives signal a gradual rebalancing of influence within global finance, driven by dissatisfaction with existing governance structures rather than outright rejection of globalization. ## Energy, Resources, and Corridor Power Energy and resource endowments remain foundational to the geoeconomic strategies of many emerging and resurgent powers. Control over production, transit, and pricing of energy resources creates leverage that extends well beyond national borders. Russia’s continued relevance in global energy markets, despite extensive sanctions, underscores how resource-based interdependence constrains the effectiveness of economic coercion. By redirecting energy exports toward Asian markets, Russia has demonstrated how geographic and infrastructural flexibility can sustain influence even under adverse conditions. Other emerging actors pursue different energy strategies. Brazil’s leadership in biofuels and renewable energy positions it as an important player in the global energy transition, while Middle Eastern producers continue to shape oil markets through coordinated production decisions. In each case, geoeconomic power is exercised through control over critical inputs and the ability to shape expectations about supply, prices, and long-term investment. ## Technology, Standards, and Rule-Shaping Technological capabilities increasingly shape geoeconomic influence, but their importance lies less in innovation per se than in the capacity to embed technology within markets, standards, and regulatory frameworks. China’s technological rise illustrates this dynamic. Its investments in infrastructure, digital platforms, and industrial ecosystems have allowed it to extend influence across multiple regions, particularly through initiatives that link technology deployment with financing and construction (@huang2016). India’s trajectory highlights a complementary approach, centered on digital public infrastructure and service-based capabilities. Rather than competing directly across all technological domains, India has focused on scalable systems—such as digital identity and payments—that strengthen domestic coordination and enhance its standing in international discussions on digital governance. These strategies reflect a broader shift among emerging powers toward influencing the rules and norms that govern new economic domains, rather than merely adapting to those set elsewhere. ## Conclusion The new big players of the global economy are not simply ascending replicas of earlier great powers. Their influence is more selective, more networked, and more tightly bound to economic interdependence. Through strategic positioning in trade, finance, energy, and technology, they have expanded their capacity to shape outcomes within a fragmented but deeply interconnected world economy. This chapter has argued that understanding these actors requires a geoeconomic lens that foregrounds economic structure, connectivity, and institutional choice. Empirical indicators and quantitative evidence serve to illuminate these dynamics, but the core analytical task remains the interpretation of how economic relations are mobilized for strategic ends. As subsequent chapters will show, the rise of these new big players reshapes not only global hierarchies, but also the nature of competition, cooperation, and vulnerability in the international system.