Beyond formal membership: Morocco’s Shadow Alignment with core BRICS members
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BRICS; Morocco; Non-Committed Autonomy; Shadow Alignment; Western allies.सार
In the current multipolar international order, navigating amid emerging blocs and traditional alliances becomes a primary concern of middle powers. This study addresses the theoretical gap concerning the explanation of how countries such as Morocco achieve strategic benefits through engagement with BRICS bloc without any formal political commitment by offering a new concept of “Shadow Alignment”. This concept is characterized by three main empirical pillars: Functional Proximity strategy, the effective implementation of the Balancing Act with traditional allies and the maintenance of Non-Committed Autonomy. The main objective of this paper is to define and empirically examine this framework by analysing the engagement of Morocco with selected core BRICS members: China, Russia, India, Brazil, employing both quantitative and qualitative case study methodology that entails process tracing and comparative analysis, drawing on bilateral trade and arms transfers data, technological data, and diplomatic communiqués. The analysis revealed a significant Strategic Depth across economic, technological, security, and soft power dimensions, confirming high Functional Proximity. Concurrently, Morocco successfully managed the Balancing Act with western allies, notably United States (USA) and European Union, while preserving a Non-Committed Autonomy by maintaining institutional distance from the BRICS bloc, exercising diplomatic divergence, and safeguarding its sovereign international cooperation. The results indicate that “Shadow Alignment" provides a superior explanatory framework for such proactive statecraft, offering a strategy that can be replicated by the Global South, and signalling to traditional powers the necessity to adapt according to this subtle type of interaction.##submission.citations##
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