BRICS, the acronym for a group formed by the counties of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, has been touted as an anti-Western alliance with the power to usher in new world order. Sergei Guriev argues it is nothing of the sort.

He has had one of those lives fit for a Russian novel. Sergei Guriev served as a professor and the Rector of the most elite Russian university, the New Economic School in Moscow, advised the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, sat on numerous Russian government advisory boards, only to find himself being the subject of a “frightening and humiliating interrogation” by government officials in 2013. He fled the country soon after.

Guriev witnesed up close Russia’s shift over the last decade from a Western-friendly regime with democratic aspirations, to an aggressive anti-Western spin-dictatorship – a term he coined to describe the new wave of authoritarian regimes who rule by spin and democratic pretence, rather than explicitly by fear. Though today Guriev believes Russia is rapidly moving back towards the “rule by fear” model. He has gone on to hold numerous prestigious positions, including his current leadership role at Science Po in Paris, one of France’s elite schools of government known for educating future politicians, diplomats and presidents. France's current president, Emanuel Macron is a graduate. So was his predecessor, Francois Hollande.