Stealing Time, Banking Like a State: Sovereign Wealth Funds in Malaysia and Beyond

• In Event: 231. Democracy and Development at Risk: The Monetization of Politics in Malaysia. Sponsored by the Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei Studies Group

Abstract

A decade ago, Jane Guyer argued that in both secular and pious tales of business and politics we find a double movement toward both very short and very long sightedness in market performance, together with an evacuation of the near past and the near future as terrains of political engagement. In Malaysia this double movement, evacuating the near past and the near future, has enabled a thrice-told tale of market piety acclaiming the Islamization of the state as socially just, increasingly efficient, and reshuffling global hierarchies. Interrogating this thrice-told tale, I build on Guyer’s argument by examining the role of Sovereign Wealth Funds as primary vehicles entwining business and politics in Malaysia. Examining both Khazanah Nasional and 1MDB – as Sovereign Wealth Funds which reshape the economic and political landscape while evading most of the scrutiny that applies to other categories on institutional investors – I show how these highly leveraged, offshore proprietary investment vehicles constrict politics to short-term corporate goals. Further, by examining fresh evidence of the coordination between Sovereign Wealth Funds in China, Gulf Cooperation Council, and Malaysian regimes, I show how this short and long-sightedness is generative of an opaque, kleptocratic, Asia-centered regime of accumulation. Indeed, as instruments of political leverage within global and local financial terrain, Sovereign Wealth Funds provoke us to examine how, when, and for whom states are “seeing like banks.”

Author

• Laura Elder, Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame