1. Introduction

This chapter reviews the global context in which the IBSA Dialogue Forum was founded in 2003 and briefly outlines major debates going on in all three countries concerning the extent and content of the IBSA countries’ global engagement. This discussion leads to the basic argument of the present study: beyond the problem of ensuring common positions on specific issues, e.g. in global trade negotiations, IBSA has to grapple with the compatibility of the general strategies by which its members intend to insert themselves into a changing global order. The issue of alleged like-mindedness amongst IBSA member governments and societies emerges as a key understudied aspect of the initiative. This calls for a constructivist perspective which focusses on convergence and divergence among IBSA countries at the level of national discourses and the foreign policy role conceptions negotiated therein. The research focus of the study is defined in two main research questions: (a) How do India, Brazil and South Africa frame their role(s) in the international system, and (b) to what extent are the three framings compatible with the pursuit of the joint IBSA initiative?