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This paper provides a tentative reading of proposed English planning reform under the Labour government elected in July 2024. Key aspects of the agenda are reviewed, together with the proposed extension of an ongoing devolution and decentralisation programme. Labour’s reforms are characterised as the leading-edge of a generally cautious ‘new state capitalism’. Though there are similarities with previous ‘roll-out neoliberal’ arrangements under the New Labour governments from 1997 to 2010, the altered political-economic context will likely reinforce some distinctiveness in terms of the meaning and implementation of reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been theorised as a spatial fix to China's overaccumulation problem, and as such, an implicitly productivist endeavour. This article opens up conceptual space to consider how historically and geographically mediated forms of financialisation have tempered the unfolding of the BRI in peripheral economies. Drawing on the Serbian post-socialist transition context, financialisation has been characterised by underinvestment and a persistent dependency on foreign, market-based capital inflows which have (1) precipitated state transformations to mobilise Chinese financing for BRI projects, strengthening the role of the state in industrial rejuvenation; and (2) created an institutional palimpsest conducive to non-productive forms of surplus value appropriation that demonstrates the hybridity of accumulation imperatives underlying the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions can the state discipline private equity firms into delivering the investment required to meet the coming needs of industrial transformation? States have sought to crowd in private capital to finance industrial development, but the results have so far been less than satisfactory. Prevailing accounts of financial industry power largely characterise an arms-length state-finance relationship that has unfolded in private-led markets where private equity firms have contributed to the secular growth in non-productive economic activity. This article problematises the assumption of private-led markets and argues that state-led markets present a counterfactual in which the disbursement of public money entails strict policy discipline and tight embedding between the state and private equity firms, which provides the conditions for them to emerge as unlikely champions of industrial policy. Two cases of co-investment between Chinese and European sovereign wealth funds demonstrate the power dynamics at play. Where PE firms in the Sino-Irish co-investment facilitated the international scaling of Irish firms in China, the PE firms operating in Europe failed to embed Chinese firms into regional supply chains in the Sino-Belgian co-investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The persistent and increasing domination of the state in China's contemporary capitalist development leads many to apply the vague concept of state capitalism to China's economic model. Comparing China with the earlier Asian developmental states, I discuss the distinctiveness of China's state capitalism, underlined by the state's paternalistic disposition toward capital and the weakness in private property protection. I argue that the subordination of capital to the political imperative of the Communist party-state, as well as the party-state elite's explicit reference to the state's paternalistic discipline of capital in the Qing dynasty, illustrates a connection between today's statist economic model and Qing dynasty's familial statism, under which the Manchu state conceptualized and governed the empire as an imagined hierarchal-communalist patrilineage. Comparing and connecting state-capital relations in China's past and present will help us better understand the nature of economic governance in China today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's state-guaranteed bond market was nearly half the size of its sovereign bond market in 2022, and in the early 2000s, it was nearly twice the size of the latter. What explains the overwhelming prominence of this fixed-income market? This paper finds that the prominence of this market is a path-dependent consequence of developmental legacies and the Asian Financial Crisis. State-guaranteed bonds allowed the state to circumvent conditionalities that limited the state's ability to access domestic savings for policy objectives and helped shield the newly established sovereign bond market from premature supply pressure. This finding demonstrates that the state not only supports or creates markets but also uses markets to maintain its influence against external pressure. It also explains how the South Korean state was able to maintain its developmental policies after market liberalisation by tracking the post-crisis flow of domestic savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'new' state capitalism has garnered increasing attention among scholars due to the emergence of a polymorphism of state interventions in recent years. These interventions are now being examined through a spatial lens, departing from the previously dominant methodological nationalism. In this case, the 'new' Chinese state capitalism is particularly noteworthy. The People's Republic of China (PRC) has adopted a spatial state-led strategy to facilitate the Renminbi (RMB) transnationalization. This strategic approach transcends traditional national boundaries, stretching across different spaces. Our research focuses on the specific case of Luxembourg in relation to this spatial strategy. We assert that the RMB transnationalization represents a distinctive feature of the 'new' Chinese state capitalism, as it is underpinned by explicit Chinese state policies, unlike other currencies whose global use was the result of growing economies. Moreover, we contend that the PRC's explicit policies regarding the RMB do not aim for full convertibility and widespread acceptance like the US-Dollar (USD). Instead, they prioritise its role as a trade currency for international trade settlements, as the main goal is to reduce the dependence on the USD and to create a stable International Monetary System (IMS) that will bring benefits to its trade-oriented economic model. Overall, this paper significantly contributes to the existing literature by offering a novel perspective on the RMB transnationalization within the framework of the 'new' Chinese state capitalism, emphasising China's quest for autonomy from the USD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As in other countries, regulated savings in France are intricately woven into dense regulatory frameworks driven by explicit governmental objectives. The anticipated marketization of the French economy should have eradicated them; however, a substantial portion of regulated savings has managed to evade this process. Is this phenomenon attributable to the tenacious grip of the French state-led tradition? Not entirely, as another subset of these savings has indeed undergone marketization. The landscape of French regulated savings is notably distinguished by a growing dichotomy: on one side, non-marketized products offered by banks, and on the other, increasingly marketized products provided by insurers. Drawing upon process tracing, we contend that these ostensibly conflicting developments emanate from the distinct and precise institutional dependencies between state and private actors in which these products are enmeshed. The prevailing status quo within the banking sector is owed to banks' engagement in a mutually advantageous, long-term exchange of favors with state actors. Faced with the trade-off between offering less lucrative products and risking the endangerment of this relationship, banks have opted for the former. In contrast, an assertive strategy has gained traction in the insurance industry. Yet, strategies for the marketization of regulated savings aligned with state priorities have been implemented, even when insurers expressed opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two rival visions of Europe's place in the world economy competed for primacy throughout the post-war era. The idea of an 'Atlantic Europe' promoted close economic ties to the United States and integration into the liberal international order. An alternative 'Fortress Europe' vision aimed to carve out a sphere of relative European autonomy backed by trade barriers and industrial protectionism. While many argued that the 'Fortress Europe' vision was defeated during the globalization of the 1990s and 2000s, concepts such as economic sovereignty, industrial strategy and 'strategic autonomy' have returned to EU circles. Is a rebuilding of 'Fortress Europe' taking place in this context? This paper argues that the old tension between 'Atlantic' and 'Fortress' Europe is re-emerging but in a new form and under a new set of international conditions. A 'selective fortification' of European industrial strategy and trade policy is taking shape, as EU policymakers develop targeted instruments and institutional capacities that aim to insulate European firms from new patterns of international competition. The selective refortification of European capitalism has implications for debates within international political economy (IPE) on the future of liberal international order, new patterns of competitive regionalization, and the restructuring of the relation between the state and global capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was created in the early 1990s to promote the transition to a market economy and advance democracy in the post-communist countries of East Central Europe. How and why did this international organization, established for an entirely different purpose, then become an active investor in Egypt? Building on field theory, we explain the EBRD's move to Egypt as an attempt to overcome the hysteresis effect of its anachronistic operational logic (habitus) within a changing field. Once in Egypt, the EBRD aspired to leverage its symbolic capital of technical assistance, democratic commitment and the privileging of the private sector. However, given Egypt's increasingly autocratic and state capitalist evolution, it found delivering on its symbolic capital problematic. Its solution was to adapt to the very active European development finance field's modalities. However, the European field's logic ultimately de-prioritized democracy, human rights promotion, and poverty reduction and instead focused on sustainable investment, migration mitigation and containing Europe's geo-economic rivals. In our case study, we demonstrate that the EBRD operated deftly within this field, while it also gained permission and even reward for its mandate management. It is a problematic finding for the future of the EU development policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores 'territories of accelerated development' (TORs) to reconstruct the economic policy-making, development institutions and macroeconomic framework of late Putinism since the 2010s. It argues that even with Russia's integration into the world economy and the developmental rhetoric of state elites, TORs and the national developmental regime around them reproduce the patronal management and recycling of rents rather than the transformative and state-permeated facilitation of productive investments and capitalist profits. This upscaling of rents has been systemic. The result—rentierism—challenges common understandings of rent-seeking and commodity rents as incidental features of Russian 'state capitalism', and, instead places them at the centre of a non-capitalist order of its own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Londongrad is at once a place, a process and a paradox. As a place, it refers to the manifold ways in which London has acquired a reputation for being a safe harbour for dirty money largely on account of a secure system of property rights, a cluster of professional enablers and a neoliberal politics that actively cultivated it. As a process, it illustrates the premier role that London plays in the global system of secrecy jurisdictions. As a paradox it signals the bizarre alignment of two nominally opposed systems, authoritarian state capitalism in Russia and neoliberal capitalism in the UK. Before the war in Ukraine, it was tacitly assumed that Londongrad was impervious to reform because no single political jurisdiction had the reach or the remit to confront this baroque system. Dismantling Londongrad is therefore a belated attempt to regulate the dark geography of dirty money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of socio-economic underdevelopment in the Arab region has been a perennial theme in development studies. While some scholars highlight the long durée effect of the Ottoman institutional legacy, others place the blame on the legacy of exploitation and expropriation of the colonial practices in the region. The article reaches beyond the two accounts (albeit departing from the colonial economic basis) and brings out the agency of the post-colonial elites who altered the socio-economic foundation of the political class and transformed processes of capital accumulation and labour commodification. I argue that the processes of state-building accompanied by social engineering measures represented a 'critical juncture' that impinged on state autonomy and its bureaucratic capacity and left an indelible imprint on development strategies. The article unpacks three mechanisms that proved consequential for economic policy outcomes: (1) the degree of elite autonomy to formulate policies, (2) the power of social classes to contest economic policies, and (3) the capacity of state bureaucracy to implement policies and allocate resources. A critical political economy perspective, that reaches beyond the reification of the state and examines the interaction between 'elite deals' and 'social bargains', offers a nuanced account for varied development records across the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is a contribution to comparative capitalism studies. We begin with a critique of the 'Varieties of Capitalism' school, before presenting the 'variegated' alternative. We note difficulties of both schools in characterising statist challengers to the dominant market order. The rise of China has made this a pressing issue, one that raises questions: Is China capitalist, and since when? And how should one analyse the communist world, which has since the 1920s represented a substantial swathe of the global economy? We next present an account of capitalism that explains étatiste variants as the product of late development, and the 'communist' economies as a state-capitalist model geared to catch-up industrialisation. This obliges us to consider how to account for their differences. In the second half we take up this challenge, via comparative analysis of two state-capitalist economies: the GDR (representing the orthodox Soviet model) and Yugoslavia (a maverick, market-friendly variant). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the special issue 'Socialist Entrepreneurs? Business Histories of the GDR and Yugoslavia'. It starts with a review of the growing literature on the history of business organisation in the Global East, or the Second World in the Cold War. It then argues that mainstream business history struggles to incorporate the findings of this emerging body of work, relying as it does on the traditional view of the Soviet-style firm as primarily a production function. We show that a more nuanced view, exploring a greater variety of experiences in the USSR and beyond it, has now developed, through the use of fresh archival evidence and the combination of business history with other historical and disciplinary approaches. Focusing on the GDR and Yugoslavia, the seven contributions in this special issue showcase new directions in the field and demonstrate how we gain innovative perspectives by taking business history 'eastwards'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bringing the literature on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and state capitalism in conversation with studies on offshore financial centers (OFCs), this paper dissects the post-2000 internationalization of Russian SOE Gazprom via the OFC of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Not adhering to the conventional financial logics of private firms, nor exclusively following political orders of the Kremlin, Gazprom is one of the exemplary state-capital hybrids of the new state capitalism. Where Gazprom steadily increased Russia’s geopolitical leverage over Europe’s energy needs prior to the 2022 military invasion of Ukraine, we stress that “it takes two to tango”, as the internationalization of Gazprom could not have occurred without active and passive help of capitalist states elsewhere. We argue that the Netherlands functions as a transnational capitalist state in the service of foreign capital, including state capital, with Amsterdam’s corporate services providers having long provided the legal stepping stones and corporate respectability enabling Gazprom to expand internationally. In this sense, the prevalent “othering” of SOEs and state capital neglects how the global ascent of state capitalism could not have happened without dedicated assistance orchestrated in leading Western OFCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental state debates focus on the governance and steering functions of politics. Concurrently, many states stand out as large global owners and investors in carbon industries. Via various investment vehicles, states control around half of all global oil and gas reserves as well as other carbon assets. We know very little, however, about where these states are invested; how they conduct their carbon investment; and what possibilities and constraints carbon-owning states have to decarbonise. Yet, these aspects – the geography, investment profiles and domestic state carbon capital dependence – are key to assess the possibilities and limitations of climate action states as carbon owners have. Based on new fine-grained firm-level data, we deliver conceptual and empirical insights into all three issues. Our intervention fills an important gap in our knowledge about the environmental state, while drawing the attention of researchers and policymakers to a blind spot, but also to transformation potentials of the carbon-owning state in the following decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural transformation is widely recognized for being instrumental to the betterment of socio-economic conditions of low and middle-income countries. Yet, its transformative outcome is often conditional on the creation and distribution of surplus value realized by the state. By expanding the understanding of state-led systems of accumulation in Uzbekistan, the article offers a three-fold contribution. First, it strengthens the theoretical linkages between the debate on primitive socialist accumulation and state-led accumulation to understand today’s strategies of structural transformation. Second, it argues for the need to look at the inter-temporal and contextual structures in which social agents and interests interact within the dominant logic of state-led accumulation. Finally, it uses the case of Uzbekistan to show how pre- and neoliberal forms of state-led accumulation led to distinctive social and economic outcomes of structural transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that there are two main roles for the authoritarian regime of state capitalism in post-socialist transition: a constructivist one, in which the state moves market-based national economy toward greater equality, democracy, and social justice, and a predatory one, in which a powerful state leverages its control over the national economy to primarily serve the political needs of the state and advance its geopolitical ambitions. Using modern Russia's predatory order of state capitalism as a case in point, the paper situates the analysis of these differing models of state capitalism within traditional institutionalism and demonstrates the need for a careful re-evaluation of some standard institutionalist positions. More specifically, the paper advocates for constraining existing particularistic bias in favour of more robust acknowledgement of what is not culturally specific but rather universal and intrinsic to democratic institutions. Furthermore, it calls for rehabilitation of the much- maligned concept of teleology in heterodox institutionalism in order to accurately situate the analysis of potential associated with a positive vision for state capitalism and its role in constructing socially just, democratic and humanist economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to Sciamma's Bande de filles/Girlhood (2014), little scholarly attention has been accorded to space in Naissance des pieuvres/Water Lilies (2007). Featuring quiet neighbourhoods in the Parisian suburb of Cergy, Naissance's backdrop is unassuming. However, its association with consumerism, capitalism and the French state is a rich and hitherto underexploited topic for analysis. Considering the town's relative novelty, this article interprets Sciamma's on-screen environment as a partial 'non-place' as defined by Marc Augé. Such a town produces superficial social connections characterised by contractual exchanges. Meanwhile, the detached pavillons in Naissance retain a proximity to countryside that suggests freedom and banality, but the tension between nature and state generates oppressive effects. This article argues that Naissance's backdrop is punctuated by an underlying sense of entrapment. Space is a vector for exploring human relationships, extending themes of feminism and sexuality that permeate Sciamma's wider oeuvre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How did geo-economic and technological competition between the United States and China arise? And what is the Chinese perspective on the US-China rivalry? In this forum article, we analyze the conflict from a critical political economy perspective. We argue that the US has mobilized its structural power as the leading high-tech country in global value chains to curtail China's ascent. By elucidating Chinese responses to American structural power, we shed light on the development and complexities of this conflict, thereby contributing to a more profound comprehension of the US-China geo-economic competition. We conclude that the intensifying US-Chinese rivalry has the potential to foster a new era of public policies characterized by global statism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article adopts an analytical framework that prioritises the importance and contingent nature of class power and relations in competitive global capitalism, explaining the ways in which power struggles amongst key interests over material gains have produced volatile relationships between the CCP and Chinese tech conglomerates. In doing so, this article contributes to the literature on Chinese state capitalism and debates around the Chinese state's recent crackdown on private tech capital. In contrast to Chinese state capitalist models, which posit the Party as dominating over market forces, I argue that the actual patterns of collaboration and confrontation between the Party and private tech capital, which oscillate from time to time, can be better understood in relation to the contingent power and leverage exercised by state actors and private capital at particular points in time. Influencing these interactions are important structural forces within and beyond China, which have transformed domestic and international landscapes for development. In this analytical framework, the state–capital relationship in China is understood to be volatile, varied and far from unidirectional; it is subject to changing narratives of national interests and is influenced by dispersed sources of power and contention over the control of essential assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship has narrated the financialization of development, which Gabor (2021) refers to as the Wall Street Consensus (WSC), whose purpose is to facilitate the investment of global capital in Southern infrastructure by institutionalising the distribution of risk, reward and responsibility between investors and states. Gabor's conceptualization of the 'de-risking state' subordinated to global finance capital stands in stark contrast with scholarship on state capitalism, which charts the unprecedented entrepreneurial role played by states as investors and market participants. Our objective in this article is to reconcile the apparent paradox presented by the simultaneous emergence of the WSC and evolution of state capitalism. We argue that the WSC affords de-risking states scope to pursue autonomous strategic visions, and many have responded by embracing infrastructure-led development designed to integrate places within global value chains in ways that foster economic diversification, industrial upgrading and balanced regional growth. We present three examples in which de-risking states have implemented spatialised industrial strategies – Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, Kenya's Vision 2030 and Thailand 4.0. In each of these cases spatialised industrial strategies undertaken by de-risking states have fuelled the proliferation of large-scale infrastructure projects and served to justify political centralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book "African countries and the global scramble for China" by Ngonlardje Kabra Mbaidjol provides an alternative perspective on China's involvement in Africa. The author, drawing on academic debates and personal experience working for the UN, challenges the notion that China is scrambling to gain a foothold in Africa and argues instead that there is a global scramble for China. The book explores topics such as south-south cooperation, state capitalism, and relational regulation, and highlights the impact of China's growing influence on African states. The author also addresses the historical context of China's involvement in Africa and its relationships with neighboring Asian countries. The book contributes to the ongoing discussions and debates surrounding China's role in Africa and its implications for global geopolitics and economic development. [Extracted from the article]

"Global Finance, Local Control: Corruption and Wealth in Contemporary Russia" by Igor O. Logvinenko explores the paradox of how Russia remains financially integrated into the global economic system while functioning as an autocracy with weak rule of law. The book provides an economic history of Russia, focusing on key moments in the transition from state socialism to state capitalism. Logvinenko argues that Russia's political and business elites have strategically used financial openness to legitimize their ill-gotten fortunes and avoid domestic political and legal reforms. While the book offers valuable insights, it suffers from conceptual problems and a lack of precision in its analysis. Nonetheless, it is recommended for those seeking an overview of the Russian political economy or an understanding of kleptocratic authoritarianism in Russia. [Extracted from the article]

What are the consequences of the rise of foreign state-led investment for international politics? Existing research oscillates between a 'geopolitical' and a 'commercial' logic driving this type of investment and remains inconclusive about its wider international reverberations. In this paper, I suggest going beyond this dichotomy by analyzing its systemic consequences. To do so, I conceptually delineate a geoeconomic approach that emphasizes the globalized nature of foreign state investment. I argue that foreign state investment creates system-level patterns, which can be studied by observing similar sectoral and geographic investment behavior. I map this phenomenon globally for the first time, drawing on the largest dataset on foreign state investment. Empirically, I show how foreign state investment is highly concentrated in Europe, North America and East Asia, and is owned by a handful of dominant states. It is especially European geo-industrial clusters that represent the hotspots of such concentration. The findings also suggest that three global industries – energy production, high-tech manufacturing, and transportation and logistics – form the key areas for current and future state-led investment concentration. With these contributions, the paper illuminates the increasing presence of states as owners in the global political economy, and facilitates its study as a geoeconomic phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political economists investigating Turkey's turbulent path in recent years predominantly work from within three different characterizations of Turkish capitalism: authoritarian neoliberalism, crony capitalism, and state capitalism. This article critically reviews these competing visions and identifies directions for future research. I argue that, fundamental differences aside, these approaches together illustrate the indispensability of a political economy perspective for comprehending Turkey's current predicament, in particular its authoritarian turn and ongoing systemic crisis. Yet meeting the potential of this research program also requires resisting rigid macro conceptualizations and aiming instead for empirically rich analyses of nuts-and-bolts phenomena such as changes in the class map, sectoral regimes, and challenges of development, with a view to identifying feasible strategies of renewal post-AKP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Fidesz prides itself on breaking with liberalism, and in the realm of political institutions the break is indeed fundamental, the new regime's socio-economic policies have radicalised certain neoliberal tendencies (332) At the beginning of the twenties there's nothing special about states rolling back liberal safeguards and freedoms. Accordingly, Scheiring's claim that "[t]he accumulative state replaced the competition state" (277) might also be too strong, as key economic policies of the accumulative state have not replaced but radicalized those of the pre-existing competition state. The result is a wide-ranging analysis, focusing on domestic and foreign economic actors shaping government policy, and offers an empirically rich and conceptually persuasive account of how and why domestic capital factions lost out under post-socialist neoliberalism, and how Orbán's Fidesz party aimed to alleviate this. [Extracted from the article]

Recent publicity of Chinese feminist activism highlights the urgency for scholarly attention to historically and contextually grounded knowledge about socialism and feminism. This essay explores current Chinese feminism as a contentious and geopolitically mediated subject, introducing critical socialist feminism within the Chinese feminist theorizing that has emerged in the last decade. Specifically, the essay discusses how several scholars reexamine gender, socialist legacy, and community-based socialism and argues that this new terrain of Chinese feminist theory should be read critically while paying attention to recent theoretical developments in East Asia. Grounded in the context of Chinese state capitalism, critical socialist feminism holds potential to challenge certain Eurocentric tendencies in the transnational flow of socialist feminism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State enterprises, sovereign funds, and other state–capital hybrids have become major engines of global capitalism. How can we explain their global rise and organizational transformation into increasingly sophisticated and globally competitive forms? Why do they increasingly emulate the practices and organizational goals of comparable private-sector entities, adopt the techniques of modern finance, resort to mixed ownership, and extend their operations across geographic space? After critically engaging with arguments that emphasize the role of firm strategies, developmentalist logics, financialized norms, and Polanyian double movements, we develop an explanatory model of organizational change grounded in historic–geographic materialism and economic geographies of the firm. We locate the expansion of state ownership (the role of states as owners) in the historic development and geographic remaking of global capitalism and, in particular, the emergence of a new constellation of international divisions of labor. This created the conditions for a massive round of centralization of capital as state property (the mass of capital controlled by states) since the early 2000s. The modern, marketized, globally spread state–capital hybrid emerged as an organizational fix to mediate the geographic contradictions and imperatives associated with this process. Purposive organizational adaption consisted in developing new skills, operational capabilities, and mixed-ownership structures in order to leverage the financial system, allow for the development of liquid forms of state property, and facilitate the expansion of the latter into global circuits of capital. As such, the article contributes to debates on the role of the state in global value chains, the firm-state nexus, and state capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 crisis has once again brought the role of the state in the capitalist economy to the fore. Rather than viewing this as a 'return of the state', this article conceptualises the current dynamic in terms of a reconfiguration of the roles the state plays, distinguishing between a market-creating, a market-correcting, a market-intervening, and a market-directing role, with each role having both an internal and an external dimension. This conceptual mapping of the diversity of state-capital configurations is then applied to offer a novel reading of the recent capitalist state trajectories of the US and of China. We conclude that there is – notwithstanding persistent differences – a relative convergence inasmuch as the still strongly market-directing Chinese state also has at the same come to embrace a global market-creating role, while the US is now also showing signs of a stronger emphasis on market-direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State-owned capital investment into so-called illiberal democracies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has risen to become a more significant feature of CEE political economies, although knowledge of the impact of such transnational flows on illiberal capitalist development remains limited. This article analyses this form of capitalist relation by contributing to and consequently fusing two strands of burgeoning academic literature: (1) the political economy of illiberalism and (2) state capitalism. The result is an expansion of the purview of each: the former by focusing on CEE illiberalism's external (state) capitalist dimensions; the latter via an upgrading of the rigour of the term 'state capitalism' through analysis of 'new territorialities'. Empirically, I use a Case Study Analysis of Chinese state-owned capital investment into Serbia with focus on two Sino-Serbian agreements and identify two issues that may come to characterise the broader relationship between CEE illiberalism and Chinese state-owned capital investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces and lays the groundwork for this Contemporary Politics special issue on the 'new' state capitalism. We start by noting that the rubric state capitalism tends to elicit paradoxical responses, from uncritically embracing the term and overstretching its realms of application, to rejecting its validity altogether. We argue that the source of such ambivalence resides in issues of conceptual definition, which have led to a number of analytical impasses. We propose instead to construe state capitalism as a set of critical interrogations concerning the changing role of the state, thereby introducing a degree of plasticity in the use of the category. We call this the problématique of state capitalism. We subsequently identify three major themes that are explored in this dedicated issue, and that warrant further research in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, namely (1) its class underpinnings, (2) its global nature, and (3) its relational character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that state capitalism is not just a developing world phenomenon; a number of high-income economies in Europe and Asia have experienced a notable expansion of state capitalism over the past two decades. By using data on equity and investment fund shares from government balance sheets, this paper compares the strength of state capitalism across more than 30 high-income economies since 2000. This dataset enables the analysis of government ownership of economic entities in totality and over time. By analysing the diverse cases of the United States, Britain, and Norway in depth, this paper also emphasises the importance of the historical, political, and socio-economic contexts in understanding the persistence of and government influence in state capitalism through corporate ownership. Based on these analyses, this paper challenges the analytical value of 'geographical imaginaries' that categorise high-income economies as liberal capitalists and developing economies as statist capitalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 marked the beginning of a new chapter in US–China relations. His administration's imposition of tariffs and high-level trade negotiations captured the most attention and headlines. But these attempts to coerce China into breaking down key pillars of its 'state capitalist' developmental model have been only one, outward-facing element of his administration's response to China's growing economic and military strength. This article focuses on three inward-facing policy areas, the politics of which have been shaped by China's rise and the evolution of the US economy: (1) the governance of inward foreign direct investment; (2) government procurement and local content requirements; and (3) state projects to promote new technologies and domestic productive capabilities. It finds evidence of modest reforms of government regulations and limited expansions in state capacity but that these may prove to be more significant in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergent literature on 'new state capitalism' has offered little in terms of class analysis so far. This stands in contrast with prior twentieth-century writings which had sought to retool Marxist class theory to highlight the ambivalent position of the 'state class' in settings where the state owned large concentrations of productive capital. This article sets out a novel conceptual framework for analyzing the class situation of officials and executives embedded in government and state-owned enterprises. Overseers and managers of state-owned capital should be understood as Janus-faced actors, participating simultaneously in political and economic fields, articulating political hierarchy with power over capital. Furthermore, fractions inside the state can be identified in so far as the authority to operate, and to allocate, capital is distributed unevenly within the state's ruling stratum. As an illustration, an examination of the class ramifications of central-level SOEs in China is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new cold war seems to be looming between China and the United States. The escalating China–US rivalry calls for a more dialectical theory of international political economy that captures conflict and disintegration as an integral part of capitalist globalisation. Kees van der Pijl's and William Carroll's critical realist approach towards the study of transnational corporations (TNCs) and transnational capitalist class (TCC) formation has incorporated the classical theory of uneven capitalist development and inter-imperialist rivalry into the scholarship of transnational historical materialism, which I argue is apt for explaining the China–US conflict: One is positioned as a Hobbesian contender and the other as the Lockean hegemon. To provide empirical grounding for my argument, I conduct a corporate network study to examine the interlocking directorates of 40 Chinese TNCs. In concordance with Carroll and colleagues' studies, I find that the globalisation of Chinese TNCs and Chinese corporate elite has been modest and has not undermined or replaced the national base, nor does it signify a homogeneous TCC formation. My findings have also revealed an inextricable relationship between the Chinese TNCs and China's party-state, or a Hobbesian character of state-organised capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most significant case of transnational state capitalism today is China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which seeks to expand/extend the country's geoeconomic and geopolitical integrations globally. We conceptualise the BRI as manifest principally through industrial offshoring, infrastructure investments and exports from China. These vectors articulate with particular places, forming transnational couplings that shape development outcomes. We examine the BRI's couplings and their development implications in the East African countries of Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya where China has engaged significantly. We demonstrate the contingent manner of BRI's variegations; its pragmatism, flexibility, and limitations as a hegemonic or developmental project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States have become active participants in markets in the past decade, precipitating renewed scholarly interest in state capitalism. We contribute to the conceptualization of contemporary state capitalism by bridging it with scholarship on infrastructure-led development and analysing its political rationality. We begin by introducing mid-20th-century high modernism, which coupled spatial planning and social engineering for the purpose of transforming territory and 'improving' populations. Through a comparative historical analysis of development regimes in Tanzania, we demonstrate that contemporary state capitalism tends to decouple these objectives; while there is an emphasis on the transformation of territory, social engineering is virtually absent. Instead, individuals are meant to recognize economic opportunity afforded by infrastructure projects and self-actualize accordingly. Our analysis shows that the political rationality of contemporary state capitalism in Tanzania combines high-modernist spatial planning with orthodox neoliberal assumptions surrounding the inherent entrepreneurialism of individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines emerging financial capitalism in Russia and its recent developments, the rise of collateralised finance and trading in repo markets. The main conclusion is that a combination of sophisticated speculative practices with a strong state presence in financial markets is a distinctive feature of Russia after 2008. The decoupling of the financial system from the credit supply to the real sector is still continuing after the collapse of Communism. The role of the capital markets is restricted to short-term liquidity management in money markets, which rose after 2011 due to an increased provision of state liquidity. The existence of a large monetary overhang accumulated within the Russian banking system and its interconnectedness with collateralised markets are discussed. The development stages of the repo markets and the main collateral types are considered in relation to the expansion of the state liquidity supply. This study provides an additional perspective within the ongoing debate on contemporary state capitalism in emerging markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on the varieties of capitalism in emerging economies underlines the critical role states play in the political economy of development. This research suggests that "state capitalism" or "state-permeated capitalism" is the most common economic development model among large emerging economies. One of the distinguishing features of these emerging economies is that informal state–business ties are the backbone of their development models. However, more needs to be known about the type, nature and evolution of state–business relations that guide emerging economic development trajectories and their implications for varieties of capitalism within state- permeated market economies. This article situates Turkey within the state capitalism debate by examining the historical legacy of "mutually dependent" state–business ties that have characterised the Turkish political economy and how these ties took a different form under the domination of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) since 2002. Related, the article investigates the emergence and evolution of two ideologically distant business groups MÜSİAD and TÜSİAD in the context of changing political economy dynamics, their relations with political authorities and the conflicting positions they have taken for vital economic policies and political reforms during the AKP rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While state-owned enterprises (SOEs) used to be considered obsolete tools for governmental intervention in the economy, in recent years governmental intervention in the business sector has re-emerged as a topic of debate. However, scholarship on the changes in and the modernisation of the SOE model is limited. In this article, we examine how the Finnish state's ownership policy adapted to the requirements of economic globalisation between the 1970s and the 2010s. We show that the attitude towards globalisation was pragmatic and aimed at safeguarding the competitiveness of domestic companies. The state-owned company system was gradually adapted to meet new needs, losing most of its original industrial policy significance. SOEs had to be made competitive and profitable, but company-specific targets depended on the ownership criteria associated with the companies. At the same time, the government paid more attention to supporting research and development in the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ten years after the 2008 global financial meltdown, sufficient experience had been gathered to evaluate the long-term economic policy responses to the crisis. The three defining tendencies of the state capitalist system include (1) its coincidence with political illiberalism; (2) private property remains dominant, though indirect channels of state influence are multiplying; (3) formal and informal state coordination mechanisms are dominant, which alongside corruption leads to significant market distortions. The analysis suggests we should reject the assumption that state intervention crowds out market actors and logics, and instead pay attention to how market-based governance supports state power - and vice versa. From this point of view, one can argue that I all i capitalism is state capitalism, since states create markets and support particular kinds of property rights over others. [Extracted from the article]

Why do state capitalist regimes, while aiming to increase control over the economy, introduce partial privatization and liberalization at their national oil companies (NOCs)? The article presents a case study and discourse analysis of liberalizing reforms to the management of "Health, Safety, and Environment" at the Russian and Brazilian NOCs. Employing a constructivist political economy approach emphasizing the co-constitution of state power and market power, it argues that adopting the practices of effective oil multinationals allows NOCs to represent themselves as capitalist corporations – not state bureaucracies – and thereby better fulfill their coordinating function in state-permeated market economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to conceptualize the contemporary illiberal model of state capitalism with the main focus on emerging economies. State capitalism is understood in a broad sense, as a multifaceted institutional construct, in which increased state interventionism is a steady feature, materializing in diverse forms. It is a first attempt to theorize and systematize the recent version of state capitalism along the Kornai's system paradigm framework in a deductive-positivist way. Acknowledging that national varieties of contemporary statist experiments exist, the article aims at a higher abstraction level to define the operational logic and some common core characteristics of contemporary state-capitalist regimes, as a new type, a steady hybrid regime with its own values. Finally, it is argued that even though some illusionary short-term (economic) success stories have emerged, on the longer run illiberal statist measures aiming at consolidating political power at any costs, might undermine widely defined development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the rise of state capitalism, the paper investigates the relationship between ownership identity and the performance of firms in terms of profitability and solvency. Using cross-sectional data covering over 25,000 firms worldwide and by employing various empirical methods, we find robust evidence that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) tend to be less profitable than private-owned enterprises. However, they appear to use debt for their financial need and are, thus, better leveraged. SOEs are also more labor-intensive and have higher labor costs. In addition, an improvement in institutional quality could benefit both SOEs and POEs. Thus, evidence from this study could be interpreted to mean that privatization could improve the performance of public firms; however, this process should come with several prior-privatization approaches. A study over a more extended period is needed before these results can be considered conclusive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses why on the one hand William Edmundson thinks that market socialism is superior to property-owning democracy, while on the other hand Alan Thomas thinks that an egalitarian version of property-owning democracy is superior to market socialism. For the purpose of this discussion, the concepts of property-owning democracy and market socialism are systematized and it is argued that those concepts, as understood by Rawls, do not exhaust the list of possible alternatives to capitalism and state socialism. Economic democracy, understood as mandatory workplace democracy, will be introduced as a middle ground, somewhat closer to market socialism than property-owning democracy. Against this background, it is argued that questions of transition and stability are important for deciding between these regimes and the importance of two realistic constraints in making this choice, namely egoism of powerful agents and path-dependency in institutional design, is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decade after the global financial turmoil, a new wave of crises is haunting the global South. This pattern is different from previous crisis episodes. Powerful shifts in the international order provide new policy space for emerging powers to manage their economic problems in a heterodox fashion. Key Western-led institutions no longer enjoy a monopoly in dictating the terms of financial assistance for countries in economic difficulty, as non-Western powers increasingly challenge the orthodox Washington Consensus paradigm. The present paper attempts to locate Turkey's ongoing economic crisis in a comparative-historical context. Its central argument posits that the current crisis is the reflection of a fragile and unconsolidated presidential system and its associated mode of economic governance with state capitalist features. Turkey's heterodox crisis allows us to draw attention to the complex interplay of global power transitions in a post-liberal international order and domestic political constellations during an era of growing authoritarian populism, generating a new equilibrium with rather unique features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]