Ilias Alami
Department of Politics and International Studies
University of Cambridge

If you’ll be attending the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) annual international conference in London, please join us (either in-person or virtually) for the 2026 Antipode RGS-IBG Lecture, “Imperial State Capitalism and the Long Arc of History”, presented by Ilias Alami on Wednesday 2nd September (4:35pm-6:15pm BST) in the Ondaatje Theatre at the Society.

Abstract

We are entering a new age of imperial state capitalism. The concept delineates an emergent social formation, characterised by a new relation between the capitalist economy, the state, and empire. Economic stagnation, technological change, social conflict, geopolitical antagonism and new geographies of accumulation have compelled states to reinvent their roles as industrial policy actors, investors-shareholders, and direct owners of capital and assets over the past couple of decades. What we are now seeing is a new phase in this historical arc of state capitalism. The combination of two disorderly transitions—the decarbonisation of the world economy and the unravelling of US-led hegemony—is currently catalysing new forms of state ownership and intervention oriented toward imperialist scrambles over tech and resources, redefining the stakes and geographies of the world capitalist economy.

The lecture situates the phenomenon within the long historical development of capitalism and imperial expansion. Focusing on two key arenas of competition where imperial state capitalism finds its purest expression, artificial intelligence and energy networks, the lecture shows that the socialisation of capitalist property under the aegis of the state redirects vast resources toward militarised rivalry, speculative investment, and extraction, exacerbating ecological degradation and social inequality. New fusions of state and private capital offer opportunities for profiteering and for fascistic elites to capture the commanding heights of the economy. Imperial state capitalism deepens authoritarian tendencies at home, entrenches corporate power, and heightens risks to human and planetary safety. Finally, the lecture turns to the potential of critical political economy and radical geographical thinking in helping us confront imperial state capitalism, without succumbing to despair. Critical academics must embrace their role as progressive intellectuals, engaging public debate and helping wider audiences make sense of the conjuncture. Critique must also open onto political imagination and the reconstruction of positive visions of the future, including new forms of democratic planning, collective ownership, and social metabolism with nature, beyond capital and the state.

Dr Ilias Alami is Assistant Professor in the Political Economy of Development in the University of Cambridge’s Centre of Development Studies and Department of Politics and International Studies. He is also the Director of the PhD programme in Development Studies. Prior to joining Cambridge, Ilias held research and teaching positions at Uppsala University, Maastricht University, and Manchester University. He also held visiting positions at the University of Sydney, Sciences Po Paris, the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo, and the University of Johannesburg.

Ilias is a fellow of the Transition Security Project, a member of the Second Cold War Observatory, a member of Common Wealth’s Green Planning Commission, and an editor of the journal Economy and Society. He’s authored two books, more than 50 academic articles and book chapters, and dozens of op-eds and magazine articles.

His first book, Money Power and Financial Capital in Emerging Markets (Routledge, 2019), was shortlisted for the 2020 British International Studies Association International Political Economy Working Group book prize (for best book published in the field of IPE in 2019). His second, co-authored with Adam D. Dixon, The Spectre of State Capitalism (Oxford University Press, 2024), was awarded the 2025 BISA IPEG prize (“The committee felt that this is an agenda-setting book across a number of fields, including the rise of China, development and the future of the developmental state, the evolution of neoliberalism and beyond … Alami and Dixon do not fall into the trap of over-claiming, emphasising instead the continued ambiguities about the direction of how, and the extent to which, state capitalism will shape the future and what it means for neoliberalism as the dominant economic imaginary going forward”).

An article written by Ilias and Adam with Emma Mawdsley, “State Capitalism and the New Global D/development Regime”, published in Antipode in 2021, proved to be generative, sparking an insightful debate in the form of a response by Toby Carroll and Darryl Jarvis, “Understanding the State in relation to Late Capitalism: A Response to ‘New’ State Capitalism Contributions”, and a reply from Emma, Adam and Ilias, “Debating Contemporary State Capitalism: A Reply to Carroll and Jarvis”.

Antipode’s Editorial Collective and the Antipode Foundation’s trustees were delighted when Ilias accepted our invitation to present the 2026 Antipode RGS-IBG Lecture, and we hope that you will join us to engage with what promises to be a brilliant lecture.