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This introductory chapter identifies the fundamental tension in global economic development: competition can produce enormous economic benefits everywhere, but its benefits are distributed unevenly, and it can also cause harm. An effective global competition law regime can protect this productive process and enhance its benefits, and it can also reduce its potential for harm. This requires a global strategy that takes into account the needs of all participants in global markets — not merely those in developed countries — and embeds competition in society. Constructing such a regime calls for analysis of previous competition law experience on both national and international levels, especially the relationships between national and transnational competition law. This book provides this kind of analysis and relates it to the insights of economics and other social sciences. Together, these two elements provide a basis for developing an effective framework for global competition.

This chapter analyzes transnational efforts to develop a global competition regime during the first half of the 20th century. It reveals that these early experiences were far richer and had far more influence on subsequent developments than is typically assumed. At the International Economic Conference in 1926 there was widespread international concern about the effects of private restraints on global competition, and there was broad support for multilateral agreement to combat these harms. Depression and war submerged the idea, but it acquired even more support after the Second World War, when it was included in the proposals for an International Trade Organization that was part of the post-war plans to create international economic organizations that could foster economic development and deter economic disruptions. The Cold War forced the US to abandon plans for the ITO, but competition law had now become well-known in many countries, and these early experiences would influence not only many national developments, but also European integration.

This chapter explores US anti-trust law experience and its influence on thought, expectations, and interpretations of competition law around the world. US anti-trust law has been at the center of competition law development since the end of World War II, and it continues to play the central role in global competition law development. In particular, the centrality of neo-classical economics in US anti-trust law is a controversial and critically important issue for many. Countries everywhere have looked to US law in shaping their own competition law decisions. Moreover, it is the lens through which US officials, scholars, and practitioners have viewed competition law in other countries and on the global level, and this further enhances the need for others and for the US anti-trust community to understand that lens and its influence.

This book discusses some of the critical strategic issues that impact upon global competition and strategy. The book is organized around a set of strategic management themes that impact the global strategist. Each chapter focuses on a different strategic issue, such as approaches to competitive advantage, managing global knowledge resources, and international corporate governance. The book focuses on strategy issues that arise because the firm is international. While there is obviously some overlap between domestic strategic management and global strategic management, the differences between domestic and global strategy warrant specific attention.

The end of the cold war removed what Acharya (in Ch. 4) has called a 'structural element in the international framework facing the developing countries’, i.e. the global competition between the superpowers and the consequent search for allies/proxies in the developing world. But the end of competition meant a decisive change in Western policy towards developing countries, particularly the poorest of the poor in Africa: they could no longer expect to be able to use their strategic position, mineral resources, or political support in regional conflicts as bargaining chips with the superpowers. Against the background of these structural changes the effects are examined of the end of the cold war on three specific areas, which profoundly effect Africa's current political, economic, and social development: (1) the international environment within which African states operate; (2) the effects of structural change in this environment on the evolution of African political systems; and (3) the consequences of the changes for continental and regional security and the prevention or solution of regional conflicts.

This chapter first explains why post-war internationalization, which was the precursor to globalization, eroded the effectiveness of the managed economy. Globalization rendered the ability of public policy to control the external environment in which large corporations were operating and competing ineffective. When competition was primarily domestic, firms, markets, and industries could be managed to enhance targeted firms. With the emergence of global competition, such management of competition no longer works. The chapter documents the shift in competitiveness of leading developed countries, such as the United States and Europe, away from physical-capital based industries and towards knowledge and ideas. As a result of globalization, Europe, like the United States, lost competitiveness in the traditional manufacturing industries. Globalization made it first possible and then essential to locate new investments in capital, that is in factories, plants and establishments, not only in Eastern and Central Europe, but increasingly in Asia, especially China and India. Unless large western firms increasingly located production outside of high-cost Europe and in low-cost regions such as Asia, they would no longer be able to compete in globally linked markets.

The chapter offers a critical analysis of the call for policy convergence in Competition Law. This merely emanates from the global business community and enables established Competition Law regimes, such as those of the United States and Europe, to influence the convergence point and take ownership of the process. This does not take into account the different patterns of diffusion of Competition Law and consequently the variety of Competition Law systems globally. The chapter castigates the lack of participation in this global deliberative space of emergent and developing economies and the inability of various affected interests, beyond global businesses and to a limited extent consumers, to be considered. Taking a participation-centered approach, the chapter argues that global antitrust governance should not aim to policy convergence as such, but to increasing levels of ‘total trust’. Establishing a BRICS Joint Research Platform in Competition Law could a first step in this process.

This chapter proposes corollaries to basic industrial policy theory, ones based on the outcome of China's telecommunications transformation. It indicates a few points other developing nations should heed if they target key sectors for focused state economic policy intervention. Governments should avoid breeding corrupt practices, limit economic isolation from foreign investment, and encourage some forms of global competition. The chapter argues that if the area chosen for state intervention is well considered, competition is encouraged, and global economic forces are skillfully harnessed, other nations can emulate the equivalent of China's telecommunications revolution in a broad array of economic sectors.

This chapter focuses on the building of cultural capital in policy institutions in an age of increasing global competition. It examines the West Kowloon Cultural District for processes by which the “world city” imagination is translated and pursued as a cultural project by the government. The framework is both a response to the challenges of globalization and a colonial legacy. Grand cultural infrastructure, the discussion argues, remains a product of globalism and institutional paternalism without an organic engagement with the local public. Writers and public intellectuals echo the concerns of an increasingly agitated society whose educated residents are taking their rights of citizenship with remarkable earnestness.

This chapter details how the rise of the international human rights movement as a significant force in world affairs cannot be separated from the Cold War context in which it took place. The Cold War magnified the importance of citizen efforts to promote rights and, though many of those involved in the movement during the Cold War era took significant risks and suffered severe consequences, it was the circumstances of the East–West conflict that attracted many of them to the cause in the first place. Rights activists on both sides of the Iron Curtain became aware that calling attention to abuses of rights by their own governments carried extra weight in an era when a global competition was underway for people's hearts and minds.

The book has shed light on the development and diversity of the Arab media. The historical background has aimed to acquaint the reader with the nature and type of development the Arab media has undergone. The main factors that have impeded the early stages of development of the Arab media have also been examined. An insight into the past history of the Arab media has helped us to understand current Arab media broadcasting. The global and regional competition could be said to have contributed to the emergence of a new Arab media landscape. The transnational media have broken all taboos and crossed all red lines. In a summary, the new transnational media has introduced the Arab public to a new media culture: a culture of accountability, responsibility and respect of other opinions. Such achievements are very modest, however, when compared with the major achievements of the Western media.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how the intensification of global economic competition has influenced the direction of welfare state reform processes across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in recent decades and vice versa. Three broad umbrella terms capture key dimensions of change that connect the arguments made across the book as a whole: competition, conditionality, and cognition. One of the ways in which welfare states have been reconfigured in response to perceived competition pressures is through a rewriting of social contracts in order to de-emphasise social rights and place a stronger emphasis on individual responsibilities. Not only have such interventions been used in an attempt to scale back welfare state expenditures, they have also been deployed in order to underline the prioritisation of work obligations over social rights. Arguably the most profound impact of the rise of both conditionality and neoliberal competition discourses has been on how the social role of the state is conceived and understood.

The rise of global competition marked by the expansion of the private military and security industry has pushed companies to gain a competitive edge. To secure capital and, occasionally, to signal commitment to accountability in response to competition, some companies have changed their corporate structure and become publicly traded corporations. Publicly traded companies have more stakeholders than private companies; this makes them accountable not only to the clients but also to the public and the media. As publicly traded PMSCs face greater reputational costs for engaging in criminal behavior, they are less likely to commit fraud and human rights abuses and be more military effective than private PMSCs. Data on fraud and human rights abuses in Iraq (2003–2019) show that publicly traded PMSCs exhibit higher levels of corporate professionalism. Greater professionalism by publicly traded PMSCs should help tilt the balance of power in favor of the government and contribute to shorter conflicts.

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.

This chapter draws on institutional field theories in discussing the institutional work done by international rankings in the global competition for world-class universities. Rankings provide an arena for contestation between actors about who the legitimate players in the field are: they socially construct standards for comparison, success and legitimacy. How these standards are constructed is to a large extent dictated by the international reputational hierarchies that already prevail, biased towards research reputation. This framework is further used for investigating a growing number of governmental policies and organizational strategies that buy into the ranking game. Potentially detrimental effects of the ranking explosion are discussed: financial costs in a zero-sum game, organizational isomorphism, and the reduction of diversity in higher education. The conclusion discusses the role of international rankings for field dynamics and provides a sketch of a forward-looking research agenda.