The Spectre of State Capitalism

The state is back, and it means business. Since the turn of the 21st century, state-owned enterprises, sovereign funds, and policy banks have vastly expanded their control over assets and markets. Concurrently, governments have experimented with increasingly assertive modalities of statism, from techno-industrial policies and spatial development strategies to economic nationalism and trade and investment restrictions. This book argues that weare currently witnessing a historic arc in the trajectories of state intervention, characterized by a drastic reconfiguration of the state's role as promoter, supervisor, shareholder-investor, anddirect owner of capital across the world economy. It offers a comprehensive analysis of this

In this transformative intervention, Ilias Alami and Adam D. Dixon take debates around “the new” state capitalism to a new place. Rigorous, grounded, and theoretically incisive, The Specter of State Capitalism deserves to be recognized as a signal contribution to geographical political economy. Jamie Peck, Professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia
In this essential book, Alami and Dixon adopt a truly global perspective to illuminate the rationale and contradictions of state-led capital accumulation in the world economy. Mobilizing a rigorously crafted analytical framework, they drive us throughout the rapidly changing forms of the separation/articulation between the economic sphere of private market activity and the political sphere, pointing out the implications of those mutations in terms of crisis-tendencies, international rivalries, and social balance of forces. In the process, they recall us that the institutionalization of the power to allocate social wealth is fragile and contingent on open-ended historical development, and that the rapid contemporary changes in that regard should stimulate our political imagination to look beyond neoliberalism and think beyond capitalism. Cédric Durand, Associate Professor of Political Economy, University of Geneva
Bringing together the insights of two authors central to new state capitalist studies, Alami and Dixon's The Specter of State Capitalism weaves theory and empirics to adeptly specify the global expansion of 'state-capital hybrids' and 'muscular statism' - novel arrangements that suggest the looming possibility (or specter) of fundamental transformation in global capitalism. For everything you need to know about the state of new state capitalism, read this book. Heather Whiteside, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo
Epochal shifts are under way in the global political economy, often captured under the rubric of 'new state capitalism'. Alami and Dixon cut through the jargon and confusion surrounding much of the current debate, providing invaluable insights into the origins, drivers and contours of contemporary transformations in state and capitalism globally. This is an essential text, not only for academic specialists, but for anyone keen to understand the core challenges of our time and how to respond to them. Shahar Hameiri, Professor of Political Science, University of Queensland
Alami and Dixon provide a groundbreaking account of the new era of statism and hybrid control over an ever-greater swathe of global assets, production and banking. Lucidly written, theoretically sophisticated and wide ranging, the Specter of State Capitalism ties together the various threads of the polycrisis to show us that the new state capitalism is epoch-shaping, not only in recasting the edifices of the world economy, but also in unveiling the inseparability of the political and the economic and the opportunities that this provides for progressive change. Liam Campling, Professor of International Business and Development, Queen Mary University of London
Moving beyond a facile binary of “good” versus “bad” state capitalism central to Western liberal discourse, Alami and Dixon instead ask - and answer - why state capitalism takes the spatial and institutional forms that it does, why now, and why it matters. Written in engaging prose, The Specter of State Capitalism offers a compelling and original theoretical approach to this fast-moving field. Readers will gain unique insights into the tectonic geopolitical shifts of our rapidly changing world. Marion Werner, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University at Buffalo, SUNY
"This compelling book is a powerful and highly original contribution to the burgeoning literature on state capitalism. Unlike so much writing on the topic, it is anchored in a sophisticated analytical framework and showcases an impressive command of diverse theoretical traditions, literatures, and geographies. An invaluable resource that does much to illuminate the new dynamics of global capitalism and its multiple crises today." Adam Hanieh, Professor of Political Economy and Global Development, University of Exeter

Dr Ilias Alami is an Assistant Professor in the Political Economy of Development in the Centre of Development Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University. Prior to joining Cambridge, he held research and teaching positions at Uppsala University, Maastricht University, and Manchester University. He also held visiting positions at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, the University of Johannesburg, and Sciences PoParis. He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Manchester.Professor Adam D. Dixon holds the Adam Smith Chair in Sustainable Capitalism at Adam Smith's Panmure House, the last and final home of moral philosopher and father of economics Adam Smith. Previously, he worked at the University of Bristol and Maastricht University in the Netherlands, where he led a large European Research Council project on sovereign wealth funds. He holds a D.Phil. in economic geography from the University of Oxford, a Diplôme (Master) de l'Institut d'Etudes Politiquesde Paris, and a BA in international affairs and Spanish literature from The George Washington University in Washington, DC.

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