Actually existing state entrepreneurialism: From conceptualization to materialization

Abstract

This paper enriches the understanding of actually existing state entrepreneurialism (SE) through politics of scale, regulatory flexibility, and financialization. The emphasis on “actually existing” uncovers how political discourses are materialized into variegated policy outcomes and territorial politics. The central-local relations and their reinforcement through scalar politics are essential to state regulation, revealing power dynamics in SE. SE represents a distinct governance capacity with regulatory flexibility expressed through state-orchestrated processes designed to meet multifaceted goals. Financialization is instrumentalized in revamping state intervention with commercial and financial logic. Finally, the state is seen as polymorphous in nature given its active stewardship in growth agendas.