Ward, C. orcid.org/0000-0002-1768-1725, Brill, F. orcid.org/0000-0002-5438-7605 and Raco, M. (2023) State capitalism, capitalist statism: Sovereign wealth funds and the geopolitics of London’s real estate market. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 55 (3). pp. 742-759. ISSN 0308-518X
Abstract
We respond to the special issue’s call for a multiscalar, historicised approach to state capitalism through an exploration of Sovereign Wealth Fund investment into London real estate. We point to how the UK’s ostensibly market-led recovery since the 2008 financial crisis has relied in part on attracting ‘patient’ state capitalist investments. In this, we contextualise the relational regulation of real estate markets as the outcome of intersecting state projects by considering the investment motivations of the single largest owner of London real estate, the Qatari Investment Authority, and the utilisation of their investment by UK governance actors. Focusing on Qatari Investment Authority’s involvement in London’s Olympic Village, we highlight how this strategic coupling in the real estate market realised domestic and geopolitical aims for the Qataris while facilitating the UK government's strategy to ameliorate London’s housing shortage by fostering a ‘build to rent’ asset class. In doing so, we contribute to readings of state capitalism as an ‘uneven and combined’ process beyond the traditional state/market binary by placing sovereign wealth fund investment into the context of city governance, the geopolitics of real estate and resultant relational forms of regulation.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page. |
Keywords: | Human Geography; Human Society |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 20 Sep 2024 09:52 |
Last Modified: | 22 Sep 2024 04:46 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0308518x221102157 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:217433 |