In this Element, we seek conceptual clarity by drawing on advances made by the literature on the ‘new state capitalism’ (Alami and Dixon, 2024). Much writing broadly conceived ofthe neoliberal period as a ‘retreat ofthe state’ from governing the economy (Konings, 2010). This conceptualization understood economies to existent on a spectrum between ‘liberal’ and ‘coordinated’ market economies – with commentators treating those not fitting the ideal types as state capitalist aberrations, limited to a handful of middle-income and developing economies like Russia, Turkey, and China (e.g., Bremmer, 2009). Such work ignored the considerable support (both financial and in terms of coordination) states offered to their firms right through the neoliberal period (Alami and Dixon, 2020b). It also offered a poor means by which to grasp how or why a dramatic expansion of highly visible and direct statist interventions have proliferated on a global scale – across virtually all varieties of capitalist economy.
By contrast, following Alami and Dixon (2024), we conceptualize state capitalism not as an ideal type or a variety ofcapitalism, but as a set ofprocesses and relationships by which states seek to actively support the process of capital accumulation. Understood in this way, state capitalism is conceived as a perennial feature of real capitalist economies – but also that as a set of practices, it is potentially subject to transformation, evolution, and increases (or decreases) in scale and scope over time. There is indeed both continuity and innovation in contemporary state capitalist practices (Musacchio et al., 2015). They range from what Alami and Dixon (2021, 765) identify as ‘state-capital hybrids’ like sovereign wealth firms, state-owned (or backed) firms and policy banks; to the ‘muscular statism’ of industrial and innovation policies, capital controls, and development and planning strategies. And while many interventions are underpinned by economic nationalism, the new state capitalism is simultaneously transnational in character. Far from acting in ways which fragment the globalized economy, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) and stateowned enterprises (SOEs) are major drivers of transnational economic integration as they pursue expansive overseas investments (Babić et al., 2022).
Understood in this way, it is clear that state capitalist practices have dramatically increased in both scale and scope over the past decade and a half. What drove the emergence of the new state capitalism? The global financial crisis of
State Platform Capitalism
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