The developmental state is a material metaphor—megaprojects are its vehicles

In The Political Economy of Megaprojects in Asia, megaprojects are deployed as an analytical lens to diagnose the historiography and geography of Asian developmental states. By examining the topography of speculation in the name of megaprojects, these case studies provide a concrete, empirical grounding for unpacking the territorial logic and modus operandi of the developmental state, which are often manifested in the rise of fast urbanism and through certain urban forms associated with the megaprojects at issue. With a series of cases of urban megaprojects, and from the analytical lenses of scales, forms and techniques, this volume reminds us to take the Asian developmental state as a concrete process rather than an abstract concept, always subject to changing imaginations, mentalities, topographies, techniques of accumulation, (geo-)political dynamics and (trans-)scalar patterns. Empirically, these studies examine in detail the multi- and trans-scalar politics involving both state and non-state actors, on the one hand, and, on the other, spatial strategies and techniques of statecraft that led to displacement, violence and social injustice. By tracing these spatio-political dynamics to their political-economic origins, the contributors together illustrate a general pattern of state space production in the contexts of the secondary circuit of capital accumulation and the neoliberal mutations of Asian developmental statecraft.