Geopolitics and the ‘New’ State Capitalism

Ilias Alami, Adam Dixon, Nana de Graaff, Ruben Gonzalez-Vicente, Milan Babic, Seung-Ook Lee, Ingrid Melby

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

We may be witnessing the emergence of a new ‘state capitalist’ normal, a term this Forum proposes to problematise in its geopolitical dimensions. The growing prevalence of state-sponsored entities (encompassing state enterprises, policy banks, and sovereign wealth funds) as leading vehicles of economic activity is a defining feature of our times. This reassertion of state authority is altering configurations of state and corporate power across the world economy while generating a multiplicity of geopolitical tensions. This Forum reflects upon what it means, theoretically, methodologically, and politically, to articulate a geopolitics of contemporary state capitalism. It brings together interventions which draw on various theoretical approaches, including critical political geography, historical materialism, geographical political economy, and power structure research, in order to probe into the multiple spatialities at the core of contemporary state capitalism. The contributions aim to destabilise the assumptions and taken-for-granted ideas which have largely framed the debate thus far, including problematic binaries such as liberal/illiberal, state/market, commercial/geopolitical logics, and realist narratives of interstate power-maximising behaviour. Studying the (geo)political re-organisation of global capitalism requires moving beyond the castigation of a ‘rogue’ state capitalism as well as narratives of a clash between rival political-economic models, and disassembling the category state capitalism.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)995-1023
Number of pages29
JournalGeopolitics
Volume27
Issue number3
Early online date29 Jul 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n° 758430). Thanks are due to the Geopolitics Forum editor Chenchen Zhang and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments and constructive feedback.

FundersFunder number
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme758430
European Research Council

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