Strategic Sovereign Wealth Fund Investment and the New Alliance Capitalism : A Network Mapping Investigation

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have grown rapidly in recent years in both value and number. Despite a great deal of popular debate, very little scholarly attention has centered on the ‘strategic use' of SWFs by states, i.e., as tools to promote national development. Using a ‘network mapping' approach, I investigate two case studies involving extensive strategic SWF investment; Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai's use of SWF to promote the development of their aerospace sectors, and the deployment of China Investment Corporation (CIC) as an instrument of Chinese raw materials and energy policy. Strategically oriented SWF investment can be seen as a state adaptive strategy under contemporary conditions of globalization and financialization. The viability of such a strategy, however, hinges on the manner in which it feeds into the strategies of firms and states at the receiving end of investment