Please join the Department of International Development at KCL for a book talk with Dr Ilias Alami about his new book with Adam Dixon, "The Spectre of State Capitalism". Dr Ewa Karwowski and Sean Starrs will be joining the event as speakers. 

About the book

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 we are 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, and direct owner of capital across the world economy. It offers a comprehensive analysis of this “new state capitalism”, as commentators increasingly refer to it, and maps out its key empirical manifestations across a range of geographies, cases, and issue areas. Alami and Dixon show that the new state capitalism is rooted in deep geopolitical economic and financial processes pertaining to the secular development of global capitalism, as much as it is the product of the geoeconomic agency of states and the global corporate strategies of leading firms. The book demonstrates that the proliferation of muscular modalities of statist interventionism and the increasing concentration of capital in the hands of states indicate foundational shifts in global capitalism. This includes a growing fusion of private and state capital, and the development of flexible and liquid forms of property that collapse the distinction between state and private ownership, control, and management. This has fundamental implications for the nature and operations of global capitalism and world politics.

Link to book webpage (and freely accessible PDF of the book): https://academic.oup.com/book/57552

About the speakers

Dr Ewa Karwowski

Dr Ewa Karwowski is a Senior Lecturer in Development Economics at King's. She holds a PhD in Economics from SOAS, University of London. Ewa's research focuses on finance and development, financialisation, and comparative political economy across emerging economies and regions. Her specific area of expertise is on South Africa where she worked as a Macroeconomist for the South African National Treasury between 2008 and 2011, including as ODI fellow (2008-2010).

Sean Starrs

Sean Kenji (賢司) Starrs joined the Department of International Development in September 2022. From 2014-2021 he was at the Department of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong. He was also a visiting assistant professor at the Center for International Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received his PhD at York University, Toronto, under the late (and great) Leo Panitch. 

About the Interrogating Development Seminar Series

The 'Interrogating Development' seminar series is organised by the Department of International Development at King's College London. The series examines some of the most pressing issues of development facing global society today, with the authors of new books presenting cutting-edge research on a variety of topics related to development.

The talk will be followed by a wine reception. The event is open to everyone.