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This chapter argues that initial conditions associated with trade and agriculture shaped the occupational distributions of early state elites who, in turn, influenced the subsequent evolution of state political competition. It provides a summary of the relationships among initial conditions, occupational homogeneity of the elite, and state political competition. The chapter thus shows how conditions shaped the early comparative advantage of the state economy and that, moreover, the mix of elite occupations influenced state political competition. When state elites worked largely in the same profession, a single party that reflected the interests of this occupation tended to dominate. When state elites worked in a broader mix of professions, different groups supported different parties, and political competition was stronger from the outset.

This chapter submits the historical institutionalist argument that though past legacies of migration regulation leave an important imprint on national approaches, a critical juncture has now been reached, thus, migration policies are in flux and are being recast. The changing nature of the state and the embrace of competition state priorities lead to an economistic approach that divides migrants into desirable and undesirable categories. Therefore, securitization is increasingly defined not only in narrow societal terms but also in terms of economic vitality and competitiveness. Finally, the regulatory legacies in six European countries, namely, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom, and at the European Union level are then being analyzed.

This chapter investigates the relationship between five initial conditions in states—temperature, precipitation, distance to oceans, distance to rivers and lakes, and colonial legal system—and long-run levels of state political competition. State political competition is measured by examining the division of seats in the legislature between the political parties, although a number of other measures of state political competition are also examined. This chapter sketches some relationships between initial conditions and state political competition. It emphasizes the importance of state political competition, because it is thought to lead to better economic and social outcomes. In fact, there is a strong positive association between the extent of political competition and outcomes.

This chapter analyses the way national capitalisms interact with Global Value Chains (GVCs) / Global Production Networks (GPNs). It surveys the literature in each area and identifies both the weaknesses of each approach and their complementary strengths. The national institutional frameworks which shape the activities of UK, US, and German clothing firms are outlined. The chapter additionally undertakes an analysis of the state as an actor in both the national and international arena, focusing on the concept of ‘competition state’. It concludes with a section which links the discussion of firm capabilities and strategy to the process of value chain fragmentation, as well as outlining a typology of firms in this industry.

This chapter develops a general interpretation of the deeply unstable, crisis-prone formation of state spatiality that has been consolidated through the institutionalization of urban locational policies in post-1980s western Europe. It refers to this new configuration of statehood as a Rescaled Competition State Regime (RCSR), and argues that it contains a number of chronic regulatory deficits and crisis-tendencies. It then considers three alternative forms of state rescaling that have emerged, during the 1990s and early 2000s, in response to these problems — neighborhood-based anti-exclusion initiatives; metropolitan reform initiatives; and interurban networking initiatives. While these rescaled strategies of crisis-management have contributed to the further institutional and scalar differentiation of RCSRs, they have deepened rather than alleviated the political-economic dislocations, regulatory failures, and territorial inequalities that were generated through previous rounds of urban locational policy. In the absence of a broader challenge to global and European neoliberalism, the establishment of an alternative, territorially redistributive framework of state spatial regulation at any geographical scale is likely to be an extremely difficult task.

This chapter explores ‘competitiveness’ as an important object of governance. It asks how competition is integrated into state projects and practices and what are the discursive and material dimensions of competition considered as a social construct and social constraint. It examines the representations of competition in liberalism and neo-liberalism in terms of economic, political, and ideological imaginaries and the limits to their reproduction in terms of the complexities of capitalist social relations. It then explores the complexities of competition and their role in differential accumulation. It considers competition law and the competition state as efforts to steer competition. It identifies limits to competition relative to other modes of governance and ‘metagovernance’ as a response to these limits. Finally, it shows how the fetishization of competition subsumes society under the logic of capitalism.

This chapter highlights Ludwig Erhard's initiatives in the realization of the social market economy in West Germany. Even during the Korean crisis, Erhard pressed ahead with his support for the most rapid possible re-establishment of multilateral trade. The concept of state-protected competition was an indispensable component of the social-market system. The main economic function of the state employed by Erhard was to keep the ring for the competitive market, and ensure that nobody was shut out of it by price rings, monopolies, or unfair trading-practices. He made strenuous efforts in the implementation of the anti-cartel law. Mitbestimmung in the coal and steel industries had been granted to the trade unions by the Allied occupation authorities in the British zone before 1949. It involved the election of worker representatives on to the supervisory boards of large firms. The Social Democrats saw it as a form of workers' control or, more specifically, control by trade unions. Erhard continued to press for a free-trade policy within the EEC and for an agreement with the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), which the British had established as some sort of riposte to the Treaty of Rome.

Exploring the relationship between markets and social policy from a different angle, Dan Horsfall and Sabrina Chai examine the merits of applying the idea of the ‘competition state’ to China. They consider whether this typology fits the case of China and while they locate valuable observations that might illuminate and help to make sense of the relationship between macroeconomic and social policy, they also find that various factors – for example, the rural-urban divide, provincial versus state policies and the continuing development of ‘welfare’ in China, including the growing share of expenditure devoted to social policies – make China a complex case. This is exacerbated by gaps in the literature and gaps in the data. Their conclusion is that the future direction of social policy in China remains unclear, paving the way for more research on these crucial questions in the future.

This chapter discusses the competition state thesis. Globalisation, the decline of the Fordist model of production, and the rise of the global knowledge economy have all played their role in producing a more competitive environment in which welfare states operate. What exactly is the competition state? Where the welfare state seeks to use the tools of the economy to further the public interest and promote social justice, the competition state seeks only economic success, with welfare provisions not only secondary, but offered only when they support the primary goal of economic success. The chapter then summarises and subsequently extends previous empirical work undertaken using the competition state framework in order to assess the extent to which the core thesis is still relevant today.

This chapter first briefly describes the founding and early development of the U.S. antitrust regime, explaining how it came to take the unique form that it did. It also describes how, and how well, the regime works and concludes with lessons for developing countries from the American experience. The primary lessons are (1) a competition law regime should not be established unless a country already has established political and judicial institutions that observe the rule of law, and (2) generalist judges are poorly suited for either the development of competition rules or their enforcement, with the single exception of a per se prohibition of obvious cartels. For everything else, either (1) a single national competition authority with power to both make and enforce policy, reviewed by generalist courts, or (2) a single expert enforcement agency that brings cases to a specialized competition court staffed by experts is far better.

In the UK, the Beveridge-inspired welfare state began to break down in the 1970s under the impact of globalization and was partially replaced with a ‘competition state’, or at least a model that promoted economic efficiency as the principal goal of the welfare effort. Within this paradigm shift, there was a strong emphasis on the ‘financialisation’ of everyday life, in which citizenship became associated with the garnering of personal assets. In a debate between Castles and Kemeny, it became apparent that there was an incentive towards home ownership in many countries as populations aged and pensions spending came under pressure. This ‘Really Big Trade-Off’ debate did not go far enough in exploring the whole of the life-cycle opportunities for homeowners to unlock housing equity through remortgaging so that there has become a ‘Really, Really Big Trade-Off’. Evidence that owner occupiers were using their properties as ‘banks’ to buffer or cushion their welfare needs emerged in path-breaking research. The attitudinal shifts that went with this strongly suggest that asset-based welfare has been commonly practised for several decades.

This concluding chapter highlights key arguments from across the book in order to set out an integrated agenda for future research. Theoretically rooted analyses must be at the core of such an agenda. The inter-pollination/cross-fertilisation of ideas from many disciplines is important in developing an understanding of the complex and multi-faceted ways in which competition is influencing welfare states. However, while theory is central to this agenda, it must also be rooted in detailed empirical analysis. In looking to transcend the competition state/welfare state dichotomy, this interplay between theory and evidence is key, and where theoretically rooted social policy analysts can add particular value to current debates.

Chapter 6 allows Christian Ahlborn, together with Will Leslie, to revisit his earlier analytical critique of market investigations in UK competition law (published in Ten Years of UK Competition Law Reform, Dundee University Press, 2010), in a chapter entitled, ‘ “Jack of All Trades, Master of None”: The Ever-increasing Ambit of the Market Investigation Regime!’ Whereas the beginning of the decade saw the National Audit Office criticizing the market investigation regime’s low profile, market investigations had figured amongst the Competition and Markets Authority’s most high-profile interventions by the end of it. This chapter considers the extent to which this unique UK competition policy instrument has simultaneously undergone significant legislative reform as well as a slew of judicial challenges. These events have undoubtedly matured the regime and put its procedures on a firmer statutory footing. However, the same question posed in 2010 has not yet been fully answered: as set out in this enlightening chapter, in the authors’ view, it still remains unclear just what market investigations are actually for.

Chapter 8 on institutional reform written by Bruce Lyons notes that the period since 1998 has seen major changes in competition law, including: public interest was replaced by promotion of competition as the primary duty; anti-competitive agreements and abuse of a dominant position were prohibited, with significant penalties for breach; and the minister withdrew from case decisions, making the institutions determinative. There were also major organizational changes, including merger of the OFT and the Competition Commission to form the Competition and Markets Authority, and establishment of the Competition Appeal Tribunal as a specialist appeals body. In the chapter, Lyons considers the evolution of these institutions from the perspective of how they frame and influence the quality of first instance determinations. Institutions are hostages to their history, and he traces some of the problems faced by the CMA to its institutional roots. New challenges beyond its control are also identified. Reform is needed. The chapter concludes that some of the CMA’s suggestions for legislation are misguided, particularly in replacing its competition duty with ‘the consumer interest’ and reducing the standard of review by the CAT. Alternative proposals are appraised, including a potential change to a prosecutorial system. Lyons argues convincingly that genuinely independent decision-making within the CMA should be preferred and would permit a more limited standard of review.

This chapter describes Agrarian states that ran on the energy provided by photosynthesis, so they had a fundamental incentive to replace biodiverse natural ecosystems with agricultural ones. Fossil and nuclear power have vastly increased the energy available, but photosynthesis still feeds and provides most of the raw materials. The chapter refers to the lesson of China's Warring States period, and many other times of intense inter-state competition, which is that the government that most successfully mobilizes resources has an advantage over its rivals. The chapter analyzes the current division of the world into armed rival states, which is a major impediment to building sustainable economies. Strengthening global institutions that reduce competition between states is a necessary step toward building political systems that use resources sustainably.

With this chapter, the book’s major focus shifts from the whole world to Europe, where sustainable capitalist economic development first takes off. After Rome’s disintegration, due to Western Europe’s geography and level of military technology, no European state could gain a hegemony on power. The resulting intense and ever-present state competition fueled an arms race and technological innovation while keeping rulers in need of revenue. They found additional resources in the expanding commerce, manufacturing, and capitalist institutions that accompanied an emerging bourgeoisie. Consequently, uniquely in Europe a bourgeoisie sustainably managed to survive its own self-destructiveness and the hostility of a hereditary landed aristocracy. The growing muscle of the bourgeoisie expressed itself in increasingly successful demands for greater freedoms, privileges, status, and political power commensurable to their wealth. The unique sustainable success of the European bourgeoisie and capitalist institutions constitutes a historical singularity, paving the way for today’s riches and freedoms.

This chapter looks at data on the manifestos of political parties across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries to examine how political actors have reframed their perspectives on welfare in light of the intensification of global economic competition since the 1970s. In particular, it focuses on how — and how far — left- and right-wing parties have converged in terms of their social and economic policy agendas and, relatedly, to what degree perceived intensification of global economic pressures has driven partisan convergence. Analysis of the data suggests that, despite a considerable degree of convergence of party preferences after 1980, the rather broad-brush notion of a general ‘race to the right’ is overstated, as the processes of shifting ideological party positions vary hugely in different countries. More importantly, some of the identified processes of convergence seem to at least qualify key assumptions/statements within the competition state literature. Further exploration and clarification on these different processes of government ideology convergence are clearly warranted.

Chapter 3 describes how, over the past decades, structural changes within the material, ideational, and institutional realms have expanded the opportunities for individuals to become extremely rich and to engage in politics. At the material level, post-1950, globalization has amplified the benefits of those who succeed in “winner-take-all” markets, which is further supported by the peacefulness that developed countries have enjoyed after the Second World War. Neoliberalism is the ideology behind globalizing markets, privatization, and deregulation, and its celebration of entrepreneurship is turning the self-made billionaire into a normative role model. At the institutional level, states have been highly involved in facilitating economic globalization, reducing many barriers that curbed business before. The shift from the welfare to the competition state, which includes the liberalization of trade, the protection of foreign investments, and tax havens, favors capital. Oftentimes, it will be argued, the same structural transformations that promote opportunities for individual wealth accumulation also provide openings in world politics for individuals to exercise power, as private authority has gained legitimacy within global governance.

In Chapter 10, Niamh Dunne tackles a key and developing enforcement issue which had not been dealt with in either of the preceding collections: ‘Concurrency’. The concurrency regime empowers certain sector regulators in the UK to apply the competition rules in tandem with the Competition and Markets Authority. Reflecting a strong ideological preference for the benefits of competition over more prescriptive forms of regulatory supervision, the regime has, however, struggled to deliver effective enforcement in practice. This chapter discusses the evolution of the concurrency framework with particular emphasis on the enhancements introduced by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, which sought both to encourage regulators to make greater use of their concurrent powers, and to give the CMA a more formal leadership role in assisting them to do so. Subsequent enforcement activity is discussed, alongside the future prospects of competition law in the regulated sectors.

In Chapter 12, Barry Rodger retraces his footsteps in relation to his contributions in both earlier collections on the theme of private enforcement in the UK, with a particular slant on the extent to which consumers have benefited, or may benefit, from statutory and case law developments in the area. Accordingly, this chapter assesses how private enforcement of competition law rights has developed in the UK over the last twenty years. Key legislative developments, inter alia the Competition Act 1998, Enterprise Act 2002 and Consumer Rights Act 2015, have transformed the private enforcement architecture, notably with the introduction, and increasingly significant and enhanced role of the specialist tribunal, Competition Appeal Tribunal, and the availability of an opt-out collective redress mechanism. The chapter assesses the key UK statutory and case law developments, in comparison with the US private antitrust enforcement model, to reflect on the disappointing extent to which effective redress for consumers has been provided to date, despite those legal and institutional developments, although the recent Supreme Court ruling in Merricks should be pivotal in this context.