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My new book The Spectre of State Capitalism is out and free to read!
About
About
I'm a political economist. I work as an Assistant Professor in the Political Economy of Development the Centre of Development Studies, Department of Politics and International Studies, at the University of Cambridge.
Prior to that, I worked as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow at Uppsala University (January 2022 to December 2023). My research project STASIS (Transformations of STate cApitalism in a poSt coronavIruS world) aimed at investigating the geography, economics, and politics of adaptive state transformations in Europe (and beyond) in the post COVID-19 environment. The project focused in particular on the reconfiguration of what academics, policymakers, and business commentators increasingly refer to as state capitalism, that is, the increasing reliance of governments on state enterprises, state-owned banks, state-sponsored investment funds, and other forms of state-controlled corporate entities, often in conjunction with techno-industrial policies, in order to achieve political and economic goals. Some of the key outputs are listed below. The project was generously funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska- Curie grant agreement No 101024448.
Before this research project, I held a postdoctoral researcher position at Maastricht University in the Netherlands (where I worked on the ERC-funded SWFsEUROPE project - September 2018 to December 2021) and a lectureship in International Politics at the University of Manchester (2018).
I also held visiting positions at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo (June-Sept 2016), the University of Johannesburg (Oct-Dec 2016), and Sciences Po Paris (May-June 2022).
I'm an Editor of Developing Economics, a brilliant blog which features critical perspectives on development economics and political economy (+26,000 monthly visitors).
I'm also a member of the recently created Second Cold War Observatory, a collective of scholars committed to developing nuanced understandings of how great power rivalry influences and shapes societies, economies, and ecologies worldwide.
My research and teaching interests are in the areas of global political economy, political ecology, the political economy of money and finance, state capitalism, economic geography, development and international capital flows, North-South relations, financialisation, the geographies of global finance, theories of the state, and the articulations between race/class/coloniality.
Some of my recent work has been published in peer-reviewed outlets such as New Political Economy, Review of African Political Economy, Review of Radical Political Economics, Geoforum, Development and Change, Human Geography, Competition and Change, Political Geography, Science and Society, Geopolitics, Antipode, EPA: Economy and Space, Contemporary Politics, Economic Geography, Review of International Political Economy, Global Political Economy, and the European Journal of International Relations.
I am an editor of the journal Economy and Society. I'm also on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Business, Finance & International Development book series (Bristol University Press), of the journal Global Political Economy, and of the journal Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space.
I teach courses on the political economy of development, global finance, and international political economy.
Most of my articles are available on my Academia profile.
Here's my University profile.
I enjoy tweeting stuff about politics, economics, international development, and music here: @IliasAlami
Education
Education
PhD in Politics - The University of Manchester, UK
MSc Development Administration and Planning - UCL, UK
MSc Management - Toulouse Business School, FR
Books
Books
Money Power and Financial Capital in EM
Money Power and Financial Capital in EM
My first book Money Power and Financial Capital in Emerging Markets (published in the RIPE series in Global Political Economy/Routledge) has been shortlisted by the British International Studies - IPEG association for the best 2019 book in IPE.
Here are some nice words about it:
"Theoretically sophisticated, historically grounded and politically alive, Alami’s study of the ongoing struggles of Brazil, South Africa and other Global South states to manage volatile cross-border flows of financial capital in the face of fractured local class relations is a razor-sharp contribution to the burgeoning critical literature on relations of money, power and space." - Brett Christophers, Professor of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University, Sweden.
The Spectre of State Capitalism
The Spectre of State Capitalism
Our new book "The Specter of State Capitalism" (co-authored with Prof Adam Dixon) is out! The book brings together 5+ years of research on the so-called "new state capitalism." The book is free and open access and available here
This hotly-debated notion refers to the drastic reconfiguration – and in many cases, the enlargement – of the state's role as promoter, supervisor, investor-shareholder, and owner of capital across the world economy over the past fifteen years or so.
Here are some nice words about it:
"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, University of British Columbia
and some equally generous endorsements by Cédric Durand, Heather Whiteside, Shahar Hameiri, Liam Campling, Marion Werner, Adam Hanieh, here
Research
Research
Peer-reviewed publications
Peer-reviewed publications
2024
Foreign investment screening mechanisms and emergent geographies of (post)globalization, Dialogues in Human Geography
Quo vadis neoliberalism in an age of resurgent state capitalism? Finance and Space
State property, venture capital, and the urbanisation of state capitalism, Dialogues in Human Geography
A partial conversion: how the 'Unholy Trinity' of Global Goverance adapts to State Capitalism, European Journal of International Relations, [co-authored with Jack Taggart]
2023
"Racial capitalism, uneven development, and the abstractive powers of race and money" Environment and Planning A
"The Second Cold War: US-China Competition for Centrality in Infrastructure, Digital, Production, and Finance Networks" Geopolitics [co-authored with members of the Second Cold War Observatory].
"The ‘wicked trinity' of late capitalism: governing in an era of stagnation, surplus humanity, and environmental breakdown", Geoforum, [co-authored with Jack Copley and Alexis Moraitis].
"Ten theses on the new state capitalism and its futures" Environment and Planning A
"Making space for the new state capitalism part III: Thinking conjuncturally", Environment and Planning A, [co-authored with Heather Whiteside, Adam Dixon, and Jamie Peck].
"Making space for the new state capitalism part II: Relational spatiotemporality and uneven development", Environment and Planning A, [co-authored with Heather Whiteside, Adam Dixon, and Jamie Peck].
"Making space for the new state capitalism part I: Working with a troublesome category", Environment and Planning A, [co-authored with Heather Whiteside, Adam Dixon, and Jamie Peck].
2022
"The spiral of state capitalism: labour transformations or the 'whip of external necessity'?", Global Political Economy.
"Goodbye Washington Confusion, hello Wall Street Consensus: contemporary state capitalism and the spatialisation of industrial strategy", New Political Economy, [co-authored with Seth Schindler and Nick Jepson].
"International financial subordination: a critical research agenda", Review of International Political Economy [co-authored with Nina Kaltenbrunner et al.].
"The color of money at the financial frontier", Review of International Political Economy [co-authored with Vincent Guermond].
"Expropriation of capitalist by state capitalist: Organizational change and the centralization of capital as state property", Economic Geography, online first [co-authored with Adam Dixon].
"Special Issue introduction: what is the new state capitalism?", Contemporary Politics, online first, [co-authored with Milan Babic, Adam Dixon, and Imogen T. Liu].
2021
"Uneven and combined state capitalism", Environment and Planning A, online first, [co-authored Adam Dixon].
"Die Geopolitik von Finanzialisierung und Entwicklungspolitik. Interview mit Ilias Alami," Journal PERIPHERIE – Politik • Ökonomie • Kultur 162 (2-2021), 298-317.
"State capitalism and the global D/development regime", Antipode, 53(5), 1294–1318 [co-authored with Adam Dixon and Emma Mawdsley].
"Geopolitics and the 'new' state capitalism", Geopolitics, online first [co-authored with Adam Dixon, Nana de Graaf, Milan Babic, Ruben Gonzalez-Vicente, Ingrid Medby, and S-O Lee]
"State theory in the age of state capitalism 3.0?", Science and Society, Vol. 85, 2, (2021), 162–170.
2020
"The strange geographies of the 'new' state capitalism", Political Geography, Vol. 82, October 2020, [co-authored Adam Dixon]
"State Capitalism(s) Redux? Theories, Tensions, Controversies", Competition and Change, Vol. 24(1) 70–94 [co-authored Adam Dixon]
2019
"Marx's Critique of Political Economy in Economic Geography", Human Geography, Vol. 12, Number 2, pp. 65-72
“Taming Foreign Exchange Derivatives Markets? Speculative Finance and Class Relations in Brazil”, Development and Change, Vol. 50, Issue 5, pp. 1310-1341
“Post-crisis Capital Controls in Developing and Emerging Countries: regaining Policy Space? An historical materialist engagement”, Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 51(4) 629–649
2018
“On the Terrorism of Money and National Policy-Making in Emerging Capitalist Economies”, Geoforum, Vol. 96, pp. 21-31
“Capital Accumulation and Capital Controls in South Africa: a class perspective”, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 45, Issue 156, pp. 223-249
“Money-Power of Capital and the Production of New State Spaces: a view from the Global South”, New Political Economy, Vol. 23, Issue 4, pp. 512-529
Book Chapters
Book Chapters
"New States Capitalism(s)", in Krista Nadakavukaren and Thomas Cottier (eds). Elgar Encyclopedia of International Economic Law.
"Afropessimism in Emerging Market Finance", in Bourne, C. Gilbert, P. Haiven, M., Montgomerie, J. (eds) (2022) Images of the Unseen / Colonial Debts, Manchester University Press.
“Global Finance Capital and Third World Debt”, in Cope, Z. & I. Ness (Eds) (2019). The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-imperialism, 2nd Edition, Palgrave Macmillan.
Book review
Book review
Respatialising finance: power, politics and offshore renminbi market making in London, Eurasian Geography and Economics, online first, 2023.
Geofinance between Political and Financial Geographies: A Focus on the Semi-Periphery of the Global Financial System, Economic Geography, Vol 97, 2021, Issue 3.
“Note de Lecture : Nature et Forme de l’Etat Capitaliste”, Actuel Marx, 2016/2, n° 60, pp. 180-181
Blog and media contributions
Blog and media contributions
2024
Podcast interview on The New Books Network: New books in Critical Theory, “The Spectre of State Capitalism,” September 2024, Available here
Financing a green transition: reinforcement or reduction of global inequalities? Public panel organised by Positive Money UK, recording available here.
Podcast episode "The Spectre of State Capitalism" on The New Enlightenment Podcast, available on Spotify and Apple TV
Interview on Mediapart (in French): "Le problème à trois corps du capitalisme moderne qui éclaire la crise politique française", available here
Breaking Taboos? The IMF, World Bank, WTO Meet the New State Capitalism, Global Policy Online, available here
2023
Hard truths about green industrial policy, Project Syndicate, available here
2022
Debating contemporary state capitalism: a reply to Carroll and Jarvis, Antipode blog, available here.
"Who's in control? Wall Street consensus, state capitalism, and spatialised industrial policy", Developing Economics, available here
2021
"Uneven and Combined State Capitalism: towards a research agenda", Progress in Political Economy, available here,
"Petrostates", Phenomenal World, available here
"A new Washington Consensus on the role of the state?", Developing Economics, available here
Podcast Interview: "Uneven and combined state capitalism", Global Development Institute Podcast, [with Adam Dixon], available here
Podcast interview: "State Theory for De-Orientalizing State Capitalism", Poliko: Conversations in Political Economy, available here
2020
"Colonial hangover à la française", Colonial Hangover Magazine, available here
"The Clash of Capitalisms?" (with Adam Dixon), openDemocracy, available here
"The Spectre of State Capitalism" (with Adam Dixon), Developing Economics, available here
"Facing a Liquidity Tsunami? Profit, Risk, and Discipline in Emerging Markets", Progress in Political Economy, available here, and reposted by Monthly Review online here
"Thinking Politically about Capital Controls", Marxist Sociology Blog, available here
2019
"State Capitalism Redux?" (with Adam Dixon), Progress in Political Economy, available here
“Class matters: Global capital mobility and state power in emerging economies”, E-International Relations, available here
“Post-crisis capital controls in developing economies: regaining policy space?” Union for Radical Political Economics blog, available here
2018
“On the terrorism of money in emerging capitalist economies”, Progress in Political Economy, available here
“Revisiting capital controls: a class perspective”, Developing Economics: A critical perspective on Development Economics, available here
2017
“Money-power and the capitalist state in the Global South”, Progress in Political Economy, available here
2016
“Repolitisons la Monnaie !” (with Vincent Guermond and Caroline Metz), Revue Ballast, available here
2015
“Is the world economy about to topple again?”, Manchester Policy Blog, Dec 10th 2015, available here
Conference activities
Conference activities
Keynote lecture in Economic Geography: "Foreign Investment Screening Mechanisms and Emergent Geographies of (post)Globalization", Association of American Geographers Annual meeting, Denver, March 2023.
“State Capitalism and State-led Development before and after COVID-19” mini-conference [co-organised with Adam Dixon, Milan Babic, Imogen Liu, Nana de Graaf] at SASE annual conference, July 2021, online event.
“Uneven and Combined State Capitalism”, International Karl Polanyi Conference, Concordia University, April 2021, online event.
“Uneven and combined state capitalism”, Invited talk at the China In Europe Research Network (COST-Action), March 2021.
"Mini-conference: State Capitalism and State-led development in the 21st century", SASE (with Adam Dixon, Milan Babic, Nana de Graaf), July 2020.
"Theorising Financial subordination" (with fellow project members), Politics of Money network, December 2019, Amsterdam, NL
"State Capitalism redux? Theories, tensions, controversies”, (with Adam Dixon), IIPPE, July 2019, Lille, FR
“Financing Development”, 4 sessions and 1 practitioner panel co-organised (with Adam Dixon and Emma Mawdsley) at the Association of American Geographersannual conference, April 2019, Washington D.C.
“Financialisation in developing and emerging economies”, December 2018, Cambridge, UK
“On the Terrorism of Money in the New Peripheries”, Global Conference on Economic Geography, July 2018, Cologne
Summer Institute in Economic Geography (fully funded, highly competitive summer school for early-career researchers), July 2018, Ghent
Invitation by Dr Sarah-Jane Cooper-Knock to speak on the panel “The Politics of Economic (dis)Connections and Flows in Development”, Political Studies Association conference March 2018, Cardiff (fully funded)
“Uneven forms of financial vulnerability and policy response in post-crisis Brazil and South Africa”, BISA-IPEG Conference, Liverpool University, 1 Oct 2017
“Uneven forms of financial vulnerability and policy response in post-crisis Brazil and South Africa”, IIPPE Conference, Berlin School of Economics, 14 Sept 2017
“Capital Accumulation and Capital Controls in South Africa: a Class perspective”, Association for Heterodox Economics Conference, University of Manchester, 12 July 2017, awarded Best Early Career research paper
“A Marxist analysis of capital controls in Brazil and South Africa: From the 1930s to the post-2008 crisis context”, Research Seminar in Industrial Development and Policy, University of Johannesburg, 11 Nov 2016
“Post-crisis capital controls in emerging capitalist countries: regaining policy space? A critical IPE engagement”, Trans-Pennine Working Group, The University of Manchester, March 2016
“Finance-dominated accumulation and transformations of state power in Brazil: an analysis using the concepts of 'passive revolution' and 'uneven and combined development”, BISA-IPEG conference, The University of Manchester, 16-17 October 2015
“Post-crisis capital controls in emerging capitalist countries: regaining policy space? An historical-materialist engagement”, IIPPE conference, Leeds University, 9-11 September 2015
“Post-crisis capital controls in emerging capitalist countries and policy space”, Association for Heterodox Economics Conference, Southampton University, 2-4 July 2015
“International capital flows to the peripheries and the (re)production of uneven spaces of global finance: a long-run view”, Lancaster University PhD sociology conference, 29-30 June 2015
Teaching
Teaching
I currently teach an MPhil course "Political Economy of Money and Finance in Development" at the University of Cambridge.
In 2023-2024, 91% of my students were "very satisfied" with this course overall. 91% were "very satisfied" with the course content and lectures. And 100% "strongly agreed" that it was intellectually stimulating.
My teaching at Maastricht University this academic year (2019-2020) was given an average of 9/10 by my students. In 2018/2019, my teaching was given an average of 4.9/5 by my students.
Modules taught at Maastricht University:
2019. GDS4001 "Brokers and Translaters in Development", MA course
2019-2020 GDS4001 “Globalization and Poverty: a connected world”, MA course
2019-2020 GDS4000 “Theories and Histories of Development”, MA course
Modules taught at The University of Manchester:
2018. POLI70422 “Global Governance”, MA course,
2018. POLI32082 “The International Political Economy of Trade”, 3rdyear UG course
2017. POLI20711 “The Politics of Globalisation”, 2ndyear UG course
2017. POLI20722 “The Politics of Development”, 2ndyear UG course
2016. POLI10502 “Politics of the Global Economy”, 1styear UG course
Sample Student Testimonies from Course Unit Surveys
'Dr Alami is brilliant and engaging - top notch all round' – Money and Finance in Development (2023)
'Ilias is clearly not just an excellent researcher, but also a gifted teacher and presenter. His passion for his subject is evident in his enthusiastic delivery and the amount of content he fits into every lecture. His slides are informative, engaging, easy to follow and carefully thought through. He makes it easy to learn and to be a student in his class. It has been a delight to take his paper!' – Money and Finance in Development (2023)
'It was really good! Loved the content and Dr. Alami is a very good lecturer, I would highly recommend this lecture to other students - the quality of the presentations and the delivery has been exquisite' – Money and Finance in Development (2023)
'The topics of each lecture were very well thought out and they flowed adequately (building on knowledge from previous lectures). The course presented a lot of specific financial mechanisms, examples, case studies while presenting a lot of theoretical content as well. One of the best courses I have taken in the course of my academic career (and I have passed through diverse excellent institutions of the global south). Most importantly the course taught me to question the concept and rhetoric of the financial gap, which will have important implications for my career and the policy applications I will seek to put forth back home. ' – Money and Finance in Development (2023)
'This was the best paper I had during my MPhil. Extremely clear, interesting and critical.' – Money and Finance in Development (2023)
'Dr Alami's lectures were excellent, that allowed non expert myself to understand so quickly and easily quite complex financial ideas and terms. I thoroughly enjoyed every pre reading and lecture. The only kind of "class" that Marx would be proud of.' – Money and Finance in Development (2023)
'Ilias, once again, did a great job in the course. He is a tutor that truly enjoys teaching, and as a student you can really see that. His critical insights of the readings make the tutorials highly instructive. I appreciate how he often discusses contemporary examples and personal experiences. Additionally, his friendly, down-to-earth behaviour is appreciated and also clearly energised the other students to participate.' – Globalization and Poverty (2019)
'Ilias is surely one of the best teachers I had in my educational career. He increases the overall teaching quality of GDS. His feedback on assignment is critical, yet, motivating and helpful!' – Globalization and Poverty (2019)
‘His enthusiasm for the subject was unparalleled. Was always eager to provide feedback and really engaged with students. One of the best lecturers I've had at university.’ – The International Political Economy of Trade (2018)
‘The structure of each two-hour seminar was excellent. It kept all students engaged throughout. I don't usually enjoy participating in class discussion, however, Ilias's teaching style really put me at ease. He was friendly, approachable, and provided a critical insight into an interesting subject. This was by far my favourite class.’ Global Governance (2018)
‘Stimulating in seminars and incredibly constructive in my essay feedback that opened up ideas I thought never existed. He knows a lot and was helpful in times of stress. Easy to contact and just an all round nice chap!’ Politics of Globalisation (2017)
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