Energy Diplomacy in a Multipolar Order: Argentina’s Multisectoral Asymmetric Interdependence with BRICS (2013–2025)

This article examines Argentina’s energy diplomacy with BRICS countries in 2013–2025 through the lens of asymmetric interdependence. Argentina combines exceptional resource endowments – Vaca Muerta shale gas and globally significant lithium reserves – with chronic macroeconomic instability and recurring debt crises that constrain autonomous development and increase reliance on external partners. While existing scholarship discusses BRICS energy diplomacy and individual sectoral dynamics, fewer studies analyze how a middle-income resource exporter manages simultaneous engagements with multiple emerging powers across several strategic energy domains.

Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative longitudinal design and integrates comparative case analysis, process tracing, and discourse analysis. The empirical base includes Argentina’s Energy Plan 2030, BRICS declarations, EIA and USGS datasets, IMF-related materials, publicly available corporate disclosures and contractual documentation (including Atucha III), as well as expert interviews and triangulated media reporting.
The analysis identifies a pattern of “triple dependency” generated by three sectorspecific mechanisms. First, Chinese investment structures and downstream control in lithium constrain Argentina’s capacity to capture value added and upgrade domestically. Second, cooperation in nuclear power–centered on Rosatom’s involvement in the Atucha III project–creates long-term technological path dependence through fuelcycle and maintenance arrangements, despite Argentina’s residual domestic capabilities (CNEA/INVAP). Third, regional gas integration reinforces Brazil’s positional leverage as Argentina’s principal pipeline export destination, limiting Buenos Aires’ bargaining power over pricing and routing. These mechanisms operate cumulatively, producing what the article conceptualizes as sectoral dependency stacking, whereby overlapping dependencies across strategic sectors amplify structural constraints.
Argentina has pursued “sovereignty hedging” strategies – diversifying partners, inviting Indian participation in lithium, and promoting local content rules–but their effectiveness remains limited under conditions of financial, technological, and infrastructural asymmetry. The article advances debates by adapting Keohane and Nye’s asymmetric interdependence framework to South–South relations and by linking it to dependentdevelopment perspectives to explain how multipolar diversification can reconfigure rather than reduce dependence.

The findings suggest that BRICS engagement offers Argentina tactical options and short-term relief from Western conditionalities, yet does not automatically translate into greater autonomy. Policy implications include the need for more enforceable value-chain and technology-transfer clauses, and for investment models that support industrial upgrading rather than reinforcing extractive specialization.

1. Börzel T.A., Risse T. 2020. Emerging Economies. But Regional Powers? The BRICS and Regionalism. The Political Economy of the Brics Countries: Volume 2: BRICS and the Global Economy. P. 115–138. DOI: 10.1142/11330-vol2

2. Biteniece B., Dūda D. 2024. PRC – Brazil Collaboration in Renewable Wind Energy: a Case Study of Interdependencies through the Lens of Liberal Interdependence Theory. Thematic dossier – Brazil-China relations: The rise of modern International Order. 15(2). DOI: 10.26619/1647-7251.DT0324.11

3. Cardoso F.H., Faletto E. 1979. Dependency and Development in Latin America. University of California Press.

4. Downie C. 2015. Global Energy Governance: Do the BRICs Have the Energy to Drive Reform? International Affairs. 91(4). Р. 799–812. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2346.12338

5. Downie C., Williams M. 2018. After the Paris Agreement: What Role for the BRICS in Global Climate Governance? Global Policy. 9(3). Р. 398–407. DOI: 10.1111/1758-5899.12550

6. Goldthau A., Sitter N. 2018. Conceptualizing the Energy Nexus of Global Public Policy and International Political Economy. Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy and Natural Resources. P. 23–32. Edward Elgar Publishing. DOI: 10.4337/9781783475636.00009 Hernández R., Sampieri R.H., Fernández C., Baptista P. 1997. Research Methodology.

7. Kazelko A., Semeghini U.S. 2024. Expansion of BRICS: Implications for Global Energy Markets. Sheresheva M., Lissovolik Y.D. (Eds) Changing the Global Monetary and Financial Architecture: The Role of BRICS-Plus. BRICS Journal of Economics. 5(1). Р. 53–67. DOI: 10.3897/bricsecon.5.e117048

8. Juste S. 2024. La estrategia multinivel de China y las agendas paradiplómaticas en Argentina en torno a la transición energética (2014–2023). CONfines. №38. Р. 43–64. DOI: 10.46530/cf.vi38/ cnfns.n38.p43-64 (In Spanish)

9. Kalantzakos S. 2020. The Race for Critical Minerals in an Era of Geopolitical Realignments. The International Spectator. 55(3). Р. 1–16. DOI: 10.1080/03932729.2020.1786926

10. Keohane R.O., Nye J.S. 1977. Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition. Little, Brown.

11. Miles R. 2021. Russia in Latin America. External Powers in Latin America. P. 59–74. Routledge.

12. Obaya M.A. 2018. Política tecnológica, innovación y desarrollo productivo en la Argentina. Revista de Economía Crítica. №25. Р. 84–107. URL: https://revistaeconomiacritica.org/sites/default/ files/numero25/5%20Obaya.pdf (accessed 22.02.2026)

13. Ren H., Mu D., Wang C., Yue X., Li Z., Du J., ... & Lim M.K. 2024. Vulnerability to Geopolitical Disruptions of the Global Electric Vehicle Lithium-Ion Battery Supply Chain Network. Computers & Industrial Engineering. №188. 109919. DOI: 10.1016/j.cie.2024.109919

14. Rizwan M., Shehryar R. 2024. Brazil's Foreign Policy in the Emerging Multipolar World: Data-Driven Strategic Positioning within BRICS and Beyond. The Asian Bulletin of Big Data Management. 4(3). Р. 192–203. DOI: 10.62019/abbdm.v4i3.193Li X., Steenhagen P. 2024. Missed Opportunity: Argentina not Joining BRICS is Likely to Prove a Costly Mistake. China Daily. №13. URL: https://vbn.aau.dk/files/645130628/20240130_013_ CNDY_GSECT_GLB-BRO_COM_013_C.pdf (accessed 22.02.2026)

15. Stuenkel O. 2022. The BRICS Grouping. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.505

16. Sussex M. 2012. Strategy, Security and Russian Resource Diplomacy. Russia and its Near Neighbours. P. 203–222. Palgrave Macmillan UK. DOI: 10.1057/9780230390164_10

17. Tokatlian J.G., Fortin C., Heine J., Ominami C. 2023. The State of US – Latin American Relations: The Case for a Diplomacy of Equidistance. Latin American Foreign Policies in the New World Order. The Active Non-Alignment Option. Р. 33–47. DOI:10.2307/jj.766961.7