Ilias Alami
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iliasalami.bsky.social
Ilias Alami
@iliasalami.bsky.social
7K followers 1.6K following 390 posts
Assistant prof political economy
University of Cambridge
Books: Money Power in Emerging Markets (2020);
The Spectre of State Capitalism (now out and free to download!)
Editor Economy and Society
Member Second Cold War Observatory
Posts Replies Media Videos
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iliasalami.bsky.social
Ilias Alami @iliasalami.bsky.social · Jul 29
The Spectre of State Capitalism is officially out! Just received author copies. Download a pdf for free, or happy to provide discount codes if you want to order a physical copy!
global.oup.com/academic/pro...
Link to free PDF: academic.oup.com/book/57552
Reposted by Ilias Alami
lenorepalladino.bsky.social
ditto, just read this great essay by @iliasalami.bsky.social, this quote pulled it all together ⬇️

"the new state capitalism resonates with a much older phenomenon, the chartered "company-states” which acted as vanguards of global capitalism and European imperialism in the 17th & 18th centuries"
triofrancos.bsky.social Thea Riofrancos @triofrancos.bsky.social · 18h
Essential essay by @iliasalami.bsky.social on new configurations of state ownership + state investment funds being deployed in the race for military, AI, and energy supply chain dominance. The trend rhymes with earlier eras of Great Power conflict but updated for a networked global economy.
November 25, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
triofrancos.bsky.social
Essential essay by @iliasalami.bsky.social on new configurations of state ownership + state investment funds being deployed in the race for military, AI, and energy supply chain dominance. The trend rhymes with earlier eras of Great Power conflict but updated for a networked global economy.
November 25, 2025 at 2:37 PM
iliasalami.bsky.social
Great fun yesterday recording an @amprestigepod.bsky.social podcast episode with @dbessner.bsky.social and @dwdavison.bsky.social!
November 22, 2025 at 11:55 AM
iliasalami.bsky.social
New essay, written for the excellent @transitionsec.bsky.social
Propelled by the climatic and hegemonic transitions, military-imperial forms of state capitalism are confiscating our collective right to a safe, green, tech-powered future.
transitionsecurity.org/imperial-sta...
@campolis.bsky.social
November 20, 2025 at 8:36 AM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
pbresnihan.bsky.social
Excellent as always from @iliasalami.bsky.social and a conclusion that is deeply resonant in Ireland.

'We must categorically reject ever-encompassing notions of national security, which are justified to extend the empire of state and capital over our lives.'

transitionsecurity.org/imperial-sta...
Imperial State Capitalism
A new geopolitics is shaping the development of AI and the energy transition.
transitionsecurity.org
November 18, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
tobitac.bsky.social
"Imperial state capitalism is hijacking the transition and the promise of a decarbonised economy." @iliasalami.bsky.social @transitionsec.bsky.social transitionsecurity.org/imperial-sta...
Imperial State Capitalism
A new geopolitics is shaping the development of AI and the energy transition.
transitionsecurity.org
November 19, 2025 at 5:17 AM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
transitionsec.bsky.social
Our tech and energy systems being transformed. But how & in whose interests?

Read @iliasalami.bsky.social's Imperial State Capitalism to understand how the development of AI & the energy transition are being shaped by profiteering & geopolitical competition.
transitionsecurity.org/imperial-sta...
Imperial State Capitalism
A new geopolitics is shaping the development of AI and the energy transition.
transitionsecurity.org
November 18, 2025 at 2:53 PM
iliasalami.bsky.social
wtf is cloudfare anyway
November 18, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
transitionsec.bsky.social
“[There are] new fusions of state & private capital at the very heart of US empire, where state ownership is harnessed for militarised competition & imperial scrambles over tech & resources.” — @iliasalami.bsky.social

Listen back to our launch via @macrodosepod.bsky.social

🔗 shorturl.at/xfAV6
November 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
campolis.bsky.social
🏆POLIS would like to extend its warmest congratulations to Dr. Alami and his co-author, Professor Adam Dixon, on this achievement.
November 11, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
benbraun.bsky.social
The central argument in this excellent paper & thread is that the open-access turn has neglected profit; indeed, it turbo-charged publishers’ margins. As political economists who know a thing or two about profit and power we should speak up a lot more. As it says below: What we’re doing is crazy.
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 14d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 12, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
mybisa.bsky.social
IPEG-BISA 2025 book prize winner announcement! 🎉

IPEG awarded the 2025 prize to Ilias Alami and Adam Dixon's 'The Spectre of State Capitalism' Oxford University Press 🌟

Find out more 👉 https://ow.ly/zAJz50XpNWe

Development Studies Association @martinhearson.bsky.social Pedro Perfeito da Silva
November 11, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
devcomms.bsky.social
Ilias Alami's title in the @oupacademic.bsky.social - DSA book series has just won an award with @mybisa.bsky.social 🏆
November 10, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
emilhth.bsky.social
sunday funday at SOAS with @iliasalami.bsky.social and @ingridhk.bsky.social
November 9, 2025 at 6:18 PM
iliasalami.bsky.social
The Spectre of State Capitalism has won the BISA - International Political Economy working group 2025 book prize! 🙌🏽
www.bisa.ac.uk/members/work...

@campolis.bsky.social @devcomms.bsky.social @oxfordacademic.bsky.social
International Political Economy Working Group 2025 book prize winner announced- International Political Economy (IPEG) | BISA
- International Political Economy (IPEG) Working Group
www.bisa.ac.uk
November 8, 2025 at 7:27 AM
iliasalami.bsky.social
On my way to Historical Materialism London. Pumped!
November 7, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
devcomms.bsky.social
The Spectre of State Capitalism in the @oupacademic.bsky.social DSA series is #OpenAccess and especially relevant to understanding current transformations in global capitalism. Read the latest reviews, awards and podcasts on this important piece of scholarly work: buff.ly/3nRNwFb
October 8, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
materialistjew.bsky.social
There is no defense of Syracuse's actions and no excuse to not support Sultana's full exoneration and reinstatement. Proud to have signed this early and easily.
ctemenos.bsky.social Cristina Temenos @ctemenos.bsky.social · 27d
As an alumni of Syracuse University, it's appalling that they are capitulating against a right-wing campaign against Professor Farhana Sultana for exercising her first amendment rights. Do consider signing this letter calling on Syracuse University to reinstate her docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Letter of Support for Professor Farhana Sultana
As scholars within and beyond academia, we write in solidarity with academic freedom of expression with our colleague, Dr. Farhana Sultana, an internationally recognized scholar and tenured Full Profe...
docs.google.com
November 3, 2025 at 12:52 AM
iliasalami.bsky.social
Brilliant book @nicholasbeuret.bsky.social
November 1, 2025 at 5:58 PM
iliasalami.bsky.social
@cmmonwealth.bsky.social's Green Planning Commission launches today!
I'm delighted to join the project as a Commissioner
cmmonwealth.bsky.social Common Wealth @cmmonwealth.bsky.social · 26d
🚨 Today, Common Wealth launches the Green Planning Commission.

A major new initiative to tackle the twin crises of our era: climate breakdown & the affordability crisis.

To meet these challenges, we need a new era of democratic planning.

🧵

https://www.common-wealth.org/green-planning-commission
October 30, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
cmmonwealth.bsky.social
Join us TODAY to launch the Green Planning Commission, rethinking planning to recover a democratic & decarbonised future from the crises of our age.

🎙️ @cacrisalves.bsky.social @brusselermel.bsky.social Richard Kozul-Wright & @mathewlawrence.bsky.social

🔗 www.eventbrite.com/e/launch-the...
October 30, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Reposted by Ilias Alami
bcmerchant.bsky.social
Artists behind some of the most popular films of all time are also forging one of the most powerful organized resistances to AI.

With solidarity, class action lawsuits and strong legislation, they're fighting to protect their livelihoods, and pop culture, from big tech.

My latest:
How artists behind Marvel, Alien, and the Matrix movies are fighting AI
With solidarity, legislation, class action lawsuits, and a little help from Guillermo del Toro. Plus, the Luddite Renaissance continues, and I open the mailbag.
www.bloodinthemachine.com
October 29, 2025 at 5:18 PM
iliasalami.bsky.social
"Ahead of their working lunch, Lee presented Trump with a replica of an ancient golden crown dating back to the Silla kingdom, which ruled much of the Korean peninsula from Gyeongju during the first millennium." lol
www.ft.com/content/3b78...
Donald Trump says he will cut fentanyl tariffs imposed on China
US president is in South Korea for talks on trade and security ahead of Xi Jinping summit
www.ft.com
October 29, 2025 at 9:09 AM
iliasalami.bsky.social
Been listening to At the Gates for 2 hours this morning.
feeling more than ready for teaching later today 😂
October 28, 2025 at 10:58 AM
iliasalami.bsky.social
The podcast recording of last week's "Seeing being the core" event at the LSE is now available!
My remarks (from min 13:38-23:38) focus on the ongoing crisis of global capitalism and Development, and the political visions that emerge from their ruins
www.lse.ac.uk/internationa...
www.lse.ac.uk
October 27, 2025 at 4:14 PM