Biography
Dr. Ilias Alami is Assistant Professor in the Political Economy of Development in the Centre of Development Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies.
Prior to joining Cambridge, he held research and teaching positions at Uppsala University, Maastricht University, and Manchester University. He also held visiting positions visiting positions at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo (June-Sept 2016), the University of Johannesburg (October-Dec 2016), and Sciences Po Paris (May-June 2022).
Research
Research Interests: Ilias Alami's research and teaching interests are in the areas of global political economy, 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, techno-industrial policy, and racial capitalism.
Publications
Books
(2024) The Spectre of State Capitalism (co-authored with Prof Adam Dixon). Oxford University Press.
(2019) Money Power and Financial Capital in Emerging Markets: Facing the Liquidity Tsunami, Routledge (RIPE series in Global Political Economy). Shortlisted for the British International Studies Association’s best book in International Political Economy 2020 award.
Articles
The ‘wicked’ trinity of late capitalism: governing in an era of stagnation, surplus humanity, and environmental breakdown, Geoforum, special issue ‘Political Ecologies of the Future’ (2023). [co-authored with Jack Copley and Alexis Moraitis]
‘Making Space for the New State Capitalism’ Part I: working with a troublesome category. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Vol. 55, 1, (2023), 63-71 [co-authored with Heather Whiteside, Adam Dixon, and Jamie Peck].
The Color of Money at the Financial Frontier, Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 30, no. 3 (2023), 1073-1097 [co-authored with Vincent Guermond].
Goodbye Washington Confusion, hello Wall Street Consensus: Contemporary State Capitalism and the Spatialisation of Industrial Strategy, New Political Economy Vol. 28, 2, (2023), 223-240 [co-authored with Seth Schindler and Nick Jepson]
International Financial Subordination: a critical research agenda, Review of International Political Economy, 30, no. 4 (2023): 1360-1386 [co-authored with Carolina Alves, Bruno Bonizzi, Annina Kaltenbrunner, Kai Koddenbrock, Ingrid Kvangraven, Jeff Powell]
Uneven and Combined State Capitalism, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Vol. 55(1), (2023) 72-99 [co-authored with Adam Dixon].
“Expropriation of capitalist by state capitalist”: organizational change and the centralization of capital as state property, Economic Geography. Vol. 98, 4, (2022), 303-326 [co-authored with Adam Dixon].
Special Issue Introduction: What is the new state capitalism? Contemporary Politics, Vol. 28, 3, (2022), 245–263, [co-authored with Adam Dixon, Imogen Liu, and Milan Babic]
State Capitalism(s) redux? Theories, tensions, controversies, Competition & Change, Vol.24, 1 (2020): 70-94. [co-authored with Adam Dixon].
Taming Foreign Exchange Derivatives Markets? Speculative Finance and Class relations in Brazil, Development & Change, 50: 5 (2019): 1310-1341
Capital Accumulation and Capital Controls in South Africa: a class perspective, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 45: 156 (2018): 223-249
A partial conversion: how the 'Unholy Trinity' of Global Governance adapts to State Capitalism, European Journal of International Relations, 2024. [co-authored with Jack Taggart]
"Racial capitalism, uneven development, and the abstractive powers of race and money" Environment and Planning A, 2024.
Hard truths about green industrial policy, Project Syndicate, 2023.
Teaching and Supervisions
Ilias teaches on the MPhil in Development Studies. He convenes a paper on the political economy of money and finance in development.
Ilias is interested in supervising PhD students whose work touches on one or several of the themes listed in his research interests.
Other Professional Activities
Ilias is a member of the Second Cold War Observatory, and is 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.
