Papers by Dimitar Anguelov
Development and Change, 2024
The need for emerging economies to develop infrastructure in order to drive catch-up growth has b... more The need for emerging economies to develop infrastructure in order to drive catch-up growth has become a common refrain in policy circuits. The dominant norm promulgated and disseminated by global development institutions to countries facing infrastructure deficits is the public-private partnership (PPP) model of project finance, a market-based model that seeks to transform infrastructure into a financial asset. Institutionalizing this model requires the deepening of market rationality in governance and the establishment of markets for infrastructure projects and infrastructure debt, underpinned by regulatory and institutional changes aimed at de-risking global investments. However, this model is neither overriding nor monolithic. It is contested, modified and augmented by alternative state-led models, rationalities and practices, animated by developmental politics. The article examines the embeddedness of the PPP model in Indonesia, where it is selectively appropriated by politicians and bureaucrats in line with state development objectives by mobilizing state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as developers, insurers and financiers of infrastructure projects. Beyond establishing the conditions for market exchange and de-risking capital, the state, through SOEs, is an active market participant, competing and partnering with private sector actors, while advancing state-led alternatives where the market-based model fails to address development needs. This case highlights the potential for developmental politics to shape the broad use of capital in the face of disciplinary pressure from global finance. The author would like to thank Eric Sheppard, Clare Beer, Sam Nowak, Jamie Peck and Chris Meulbroek for feedback on earlier drafts of this article, and the anonymous referees for their constructive critiques and helpful suggestions, while retaining responsibility for any remaining errors. In its long gestation, this article also benefited from discussions with participants at the 2017 Critical Finance Workshop at the University of Warwick, and the 2018 meeting of the American Association of Geographers in New Orleans, where early formulations of the work were presented.
Regional Studies, 2023
During China's reform era, dominant narratives described a transition away from centralised plann... more During China's reform era, dominant narratives described a transition away from centralised planning in favour of mutually reinforcing processes of liberalisation and decentralisation. Under Xi Jinping, the talk has increasingly been of the recentralisation of authoritarian-state powers and party discipline. Questioning both reform-era transition narratives and equally simplifying claims about their recent reversal, the paper argues for an enriched treatment of party-state spatiality, understood as a polymorphic and multi-scalar process, rather than simply a more complex one. In the emergent Greater Bay Area megaregion, 'new era' zoning strategies are being repurposed as drivers of pathfinding reforms animated by the party-state, in contrast to received readings of zones as single-purpose instruments of liberalisation.
Environment and Planning A, 2022
Mega city-regions in the global South facing challenges posed by rapid urbanization have turned t... more Mega city-regions in the global South facing challenges posed by rapid urbanization have turned to infrastructural solutions, steeped in speculative 'global-city' imaginaries and national developmental aspirations, in order to unclog catch-up growth. This infrastructural imperative for growth reflects a broader infrastructure fix, as creditor states and development banks with geopolitical and geoeconomic interests advance competing market-based and state-led models to finance and develop infrastructure. In Jakarta, Indonesia, I examine the coming together of these models as they articulate with the political-economies of city and state, and their path-dependent restructuring following the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. In Jakarta's speculative state-space political interests and developmental objectives of state and city governments are entangled with the capital accumulation strategies of State-Owned Enterprises. With a number of rail transit projects in the cityregion driving a boom in Transit-Oriented Development, State-Owned Enterprises speculate on market conditions and the 'world-class city' dreams of middle-class residents to leverage their property assets. This financial speculation is equally premised on political speculation around the planning and execution of infrastructure projects, framed by the developmental politics of affordability and accessibility to the city. I examine how these strategies, practices and tensions come together to produce innovative governance arrangements in the provision and management of transport and housing through Public-Public Partnerships.
Area Development and Policy, 2020
In the post-2008 global economy, infrastructure development and financing have risen to the top o... more In the post-2008 global economy, infrastructure development and financing have risen to the top of the development agenda, emerging as a contested field for global investments involving seemingly divergent interests, objectives, rationalities and practices. Whereas multilateral development banks such as the World Bank advocate the market-based public–private partnership aimed at attracting private finance and deepening marketized governance, China is forging a state-capitalist alternative through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). These models are far from mutually exclusive. Through a conjunctural approach, the paper examines the broader trade and financial interdependencies in which these models are entangled, and the geopolitical–economic objectives enframing the emergent infrastructure regime. These are explored vis-à-vis Indonesian infrastructure projects, framed by competition between China and Japan.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2020
This editorial introduces a special virtual issue aimed at providing online access to articles th... more This editorial introduces a special virtual issue aimed at providing online access to articles that can contribute to the work of coming to geographical terms with the COVID‐19 pandemic. It outlines seven sub-themes of enquiry and analysis that appear especially useful for contextualizing coronavirus geographically. These are explored in turn as geographies of: (1) infection, (2) vulnerability, (3) resilience, (4) blame, (5) immunization, (6) interdependence and (7) care. In each case, connections are made between publications that are included in the special virtual issue and other more recent writings related specifically to COVID-19. In an effort to make these connections as useful as possible to geographers who have been drafted into online teaching in and about the pandemic, hyperlinks are used throughout to highlight additional online resources and reports.
Urban Studies Inside/Out: Theory, Method, Practice, 2019
Urban Studies Inside/Out: Theory, Method, Practice, 2019
Urban Studies Inside/Out: Theory, Method, Practice, 2019
Urban Studies Inside/Out: Theory, Method, Practice, 2019
Urban Studies, 2018
We analyse dramatic land transformations in the greater Jakarta metropolitan area since 1988:larg... more We analyse dramatic land transformations in the greater Jakarta metropolitan area since 1988:large-scale private-sector development projects in central city and peri-urban locations. These
transformations are shaped both by Jakarta’s shifting conjunctural positionality within global political economic processes and by Indonesia’s hybrid political economy. While influenced by neoliberalisation, Indonesia’s political economy is a hybrid formation, in which neoliberalisation coevolves with long-standing, resilient oligarchic power structures and contestations by the urban majority. Three persistent features shape these transformations: the predominance of large Indonesian conglomerates’ development arms and stand-alone developers; the shaping role of elite informal networks connecting the development industry with state actors; and steadily increasing foreign
involvement and investment in the development industry, accelerating recently. We identify three eras characterised by distinct types of urban transformation. Under autocratic neoliberalising urbanism (1988–1997) peri-urban shopping centre development predominated, with large
Indonesian developers taking advantage of close links with the Suharto family. The increased indebtedness of these firms became debilitating after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Thus post-Suharto democratic neoliberalising urbanism (1998–2005) was a period of minimal investment, except for shopping centres in DKI Jakarta facilitating a consumption-led strategy of recovery from 1997, and the active restructuring of elite informality. Rescaled neoliberalising urbanism
(2006–present) saw the recovery of major developers, renewed access to finance, including foreign capital, and the construction of ever-more spectacular integrated superblock developments
in DKI Jakarta and peri-urban new towns.
Urban Studies
We analyse dramatic land transformations in the greater Jakarta metropolitan area since 1988: lar... more We analyse dramatic land transformations in the greater Jakarta metropolitan area since 1988: large-scale private-sector development projects in central city and peri-urban locations. These transformations are shaped both by Jakarta’s shifting conjunctural positionality within global political economic processes and by Indonesia’s hybrid political economy. While influenced by neoliberalisation, Indonesia’s political economy is a hybrid formation, in which neoliberalisation coevolves with long-standing, resilient oligarchic power structures and contestations by the urban majority. Three persistent features shape these transformations: the predominance of large Indonesian conglomerates’ development arms and stand-alone developers; the shaping role of elite informal networks connecting the development industry with state actors; and steadily increasing foreign involvement and investment in the development industry, accelerating recently. We identify three eras characterised by distinct types of urban transformation. Under autocratic neoliberalising urbanism (1988–1997) peri-urban shopping centre development predominated, with large Indonesian developers taking advantage of close links with the Suharto family. The increased indebtedness of these firms became debilitating after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Thus post-Suharto democratic neoliberalising urbanism (1998–2005) was a period of minimal investment, except for shopping centres in DKI Jakarta facilitating a consumption-led strategy of recovery from 1997, and the active restructuring of elite informality. Rescaled neoliberalising urbanism (2006–present) saw the recovery of major developers, renewed access to finance, including foreign capital, and the construction of ever-more spectacular integrated superblock developments in DKI Jakarta and peri-urban new towns.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2018
Urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberal urban governance are assuming new forms under finance-dom... more Urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberal urban governance are assuming new forms under finance-dominated accumulation. We examine and contribute to theorizing the mechanisms through which urban governance is financialized, taking as a case study JESSICA, one of the European Union's initiatives to implement an 'urban sensitive' policy for sustainable and integrated development. Like other initiatives promoting financialization, JESSICA deploys the logic of finance to select and fund urban social initiatives and development projects on the basis of their potential return on investment (ROI). Understanding this process requires placing questions of political economy––how urban governance is shaped by the broader political-economic context––with questions of governmentality––how stakeholders are enrolled in and come to take for granted new governance initiatives. Following the multi-scalar institutional infrastructure is crucial to understanding how this works. Taking a relational multi-scalar approach, we trace how changes at the supranational scale filter down to shape urban policy selection and performance in Sofia, Bulgaria, where we document how ROI calculations conflict with social welfare priorities. Contrasts between the trajectory of financialization of urban governance in the European Union and the United States demonstrate how this is geographically variegated, shaped by the broader context/conjuncture within which such financialization is embedded.
Health & Place, 2012
This paper examines the lessons learned from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in relation to wider work on ... more This paper examines the lessons learned from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic in relation to wider work on globalization and the epidemiology of inequality. The media attention and economic resources diverted to the threats posed by H1N1 were significant inequalities themselves when contrasted with weaker responses to more lethal threats posed by other diseases associated with global inequality. However, the multiple inequalities revealed by H1N1 itself in 2009 still provide important insights into the future of global health in the context of market-led globalization. These lessons relate to at least four main forms of inequality: (1) inequalities in blame for the outbreak in the media; (2) inequalities in risk management; (3) inequalities in access to medicines; and (4) inequalities encoded in the actual emergence of new flu viruses.
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Papers by Dimitar Anguelov
transformations are shaped both by Jakarta’s shifting conjunctural positionality within global political economic processes and by Indonesia’s hybrid political economy. While influenced by neoliberalisation, Indonesia’s political economy is a hybrid formation, in which neoliberalisation coevolves with long-standing, resilient oligarchic power structures and contestations by the urban majority. Three persistent features shape these transformations: the predominance of large Indonesian conglomerates’ development arms and stand-alone developers; the shaping role of elite informal networks connecting the development industry with state actors; and steadily increasing foreign
involvement and investment in the development industry, accelerating recently. We identify three eras characterised by distinct types of urban transformation. Under autocratic neoliberalising urbanism (1988–1997) peri-urban shopping centre development predominated, with large
Indonesian developers taking advantage of close links with the Suharto family. The increased indebtedness of these firms became debilitating after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Thus post-Suharto democratic neoliberalising urbanism (1998–2005) was a period of minimal investment, except for shopping centres in DKI Jakarta facilitating a consumption-led strategy of recovery from 1997, and the active restructuring of elite informality. Rescaled neoliberalising urbanism
(2006–present) saw the recovery of major developers, renewed access to finance, including foreign capital, and the construction of ever-more spectacular integrated superblock developments
in DKI Jakarta and peri-urban new towns.
transformations are shaped both by Jakarta’s shifting conjunctural positionality within global political economic processes and by Indonesia’s hybrid political economy. While influenced by neoliberalisation, Indonesia’s political economy is a hybrid formation, in which neoliberalisation coevolves with long-standing, resilient oligarchic power structures and contestations by the urban majority. Three persistent features shape these transformations: the predominance of large Indonesian conglomerates’ development arms and stand-alone developers; the shaping role of elite informal networks connecting the development industry with state actors; and steadily increasing foreign
involvement and investment in the development industry, accelerating recently. We identify three eras characterised by distinct types of urban transformation. Under autocratic neoliberalising urbanism (1988–1997) peri-urban shopping centre development predominated, with large
Indonesian developers taking advantage of close links with the Suharto family. The increased indebtedness of these firms became debilitating after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Thus post-Suharto democratic neoliberalising urbanism (1998–2005) was a period of minimal investment, except for shopping centres in DKI Jakarta facilitating a consumption-led strategy of recovery from 1997, and the active restructuring of elite informality. Rescaled neoliberalising urbanism
(2006–present) saw the recovery of major developers, renewed access to finance, including foreign capital, and the construction of ever-more spectacular integrated superblock developments
in DKI Jakarta and peri-urban new towns.