Second CfP AAG Annual Meeting 2020: Political geographies of the new state capitalism

[Dixon, Adam]

Meeting 2020: Political geographies of the new state capitalism
 
American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting 2020, Denver, Colorado, 6-10 
April

Deadline for abstracts: October 25, 2019

Session Title: Political geographies of the new state capitalism

Organizers: Ilias Alami (Maastricht University), Adam Dixon (Maastricht 
University)

Sponsored by the Economic Geography Specialty group

State capitalism is back. At least that is what we are told. An avalanche of 
books and articles, both in academia and for the broader public, have recently 
argued that the more visible role of the state across the world capitalist 
economy signals theresurgence of state capitalism (e.g. Bremmer 2010; 
Kurlantzick 2016; Musacchio and Lazzarini 2014; MacDonald and Lemco 2015; 
Spechler, Ahrens, and Hoen 2017). Indeed, the new polymorphism of state 
intervention is manifest, from the mass bailouts following the 2008 financial 
crisis to the expansion of marketized state-owned enterprises (SOE), sovereign 
wealth funds (SWF) and other state-sponsored investment funds, national and 
regional development banks, to the renewal ofindustrial policy and various 
forms of economic nationalism in the advanced capitalist economies and the 
consolidation of state-led development in China and elsewhere. For many 
commentators, these developments suggest that state capitalism is once again 
taking center stage in the global political economy.

However, despite the widespread use of the latter term, there is neither 
consensus about what it exactly means and what is qualitatively new about it 
within and across academic disciplines (Alami and Dixon 2019). For instance, 
scholars have deployed the concept (and cognates) to designate a national 
variant of capitalism (Nölke et al 2015); a specific brand of state-owned 
enterprise and/or state-sponsored investment fund (Lyons 2007; Carney 2015); a 
particular type of state-business relation (Zhang & Whitley 2013; Nölke 2014); 
a threat or an alternative to (Western) liberal capitalism (Brenner 2008; 
McNally 2013) ; a reconfiguration of the global ‘state-capital nexus’ (van 
Apeldoorn et a. 2012); and the use of market mechanisms for the promotion 
ofgeo-economic and geopolitical goals (e.g. Kurlantzick 2016).

The session aims to stimulate geographical engagement with this literature, 
which has so far been dominated by other academic communities and disciplines 
(International Political Economy, Varieties of Capitalism/Business Systems, 
Developmental statetheory, Strategic management & International Business). In 
particular, the session aims to enhance our scholarly understanding of the 
recent polymorphism of state intervention by exploring its attendant economic 
and political geographies. In particular, we welcome both theoretical and 
empirical contributions exploring the following topics:

-  Th​e nature of the new state capitalism: Explaining the more visible role of 
thestate in the economy and society at large from a geographical perspective. 
What are the wider geopolitical and geo-economic shifts in which the rise of 
the new statecapitalism is embedded? What is new about the recent ‘wave’ of 
state capitalism across the global economy? What are the strategic, 
structural/epochal, and contingent drivers of its emergence? 
 
-  Variegated state capitalism(s): Explaining the diversity of state capitalism 
across the spaces of the global capitalist economy, from Sino-capitalism and 
its one-party state to the oil-rich Middle Eastern rentier states: where 
isstate capitalismgeographically located? Is there one, or several varieties of 
state capitalism? Are there state capitalisms across regions? What are the 
drivers of diversity in state capitalism, i.e. the common tendencies and the 
continuous reproduction of difference both between state capitalism and other 
forms of capitalism, and between different varieties of state capitalist 
configurations?

 
- Spatializing the new state capitalism: Studying state capitalism beyond 
methodological nationalism. The spatialities and scales at which state 
capitalism is produced, enacted, and imagined. The spatial practices, flows, 
and strategies of the new state capitalism at a variety of scales that cut 
across the national, as well as their interconnection. State capitalist 
strategies and the reconfiguration of economic territory and political 
authority. The changing spaces and scales of state intervention (e.g. Hameiri & 
Jones 2015; Alami 2018). The fragmentation of the state and the question of 
multi-level governance (e.g. Gu et al. 2016; Jones and Zou 2017). The role of 
the local state, the internationalization of the state, the continuous 
importance of the national scale? 

 
- State capitalism and uneven and combined geographical development: 
Scrutinizing the growing integration of state capitalism into transnational 
circuits of capital (including global networks of production, trade, finance, 
infrastructure 

2nd CFP AAG Denver: Critical Geographies of Mobility Using Digital Data

[Tim Schwanen]

Critical Geographies of Mobility Using Digital Data

Second call for papers for special sessions at the AAG meeting in Denver, CO, 
April 6-10.


Organized by:

Mei-Po Kwan, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Tim Schwanen, University of Oxford


As one of the keywords in Geography (Kwan and Schwanen, 2016), mobility is 
attracting widespread attention in the discipline with research sprawling in 
many directions and cutting across epistemic communities. One of the biggest 
changes in mobility research in recent years has been the emergence and uptake 
of new digital data about mobility, including the much touted big data 
assembled from sensors in vehicles, bikes, phones, access gates, payment cards 
and the like. Such data are increasingly used to understand mobility patterns 
and urban structures in innovative and productive ways.


We plan to organise one or more paper sessions looking at how the new digital 
data are used to advance critical analysis of questions of disadvantage, 
inequality and (in)justice in the everyday mobility of people, goods and 
information. Topics that might be considered include, but are not limited to, 
the use of digital data to:

  *   Understand transport-related social exclusion
  *   Analyze motility (Kaufmann, 2002) or access to employment, education, 
social networks and/or healthy living
  *   Examine socially and spatially differentiated exposure to pollution and 
harmful substances
  *   Investigate the socially and spatially uneven patronage of ride-hailing, 
bike-sharing and similar mobility services
  *   Probe inequalities in carbon emission from motorized transportation
  *   Evaluate social and spatial differences in vulnerability to disruption of 
everyday mobilities
  *   Scrutinize social and spatial inequalities in the relationships between 
mobility and wellbeing
  *   Explore potentially exploitative labour relations in the transportation 
sector


Papers that consider how digital data are used by governments and firms to 
monitor and discipline ‘unwanted’ mobilities, including the formalization of 
‘informal’ transport services by minibus, rickshaw, motor taxi, and so forth, 
are also very welcome.


Please submit your abstract (250 words max) plus AAG PIN (Personal 
Identification Number, obtained after registration for the conference at the 
AAG website) to tim.schwa...@ouce.ox.ac.uk 
and mpk...@gmail.com by October 16, 2019.

Tim Schwanen
Professor of Transport Studies and Geography
Director of the Transport Studies Unit
Fellow in Geography, St Anne's College

School of Geography and the Environment
University of Oxford
South Parks Road, Oxford
OX1 3QY, England

PA: Mrs Kirsty Ray, kirsty@ouce.ox.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1865 285503 / 285070
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