Author Description

In recent years, the concept of international competitiveness has (re)emerged as a paradigm in public discourse. In this paper I introduce the concept of institutional competitiveness to show how the concept of international competition has been reformulated as part of a political project for initiating economic globalization. It is my intention to show how the concept of institutional competitiveness (CIC) has raised to become important in the last 25 years, moving from a simple conversation among academics into a political discussion with real-world effects. The purpose of the paper is to describe the rise and movement into the realm of practice. The purpose is also to show how the voyage has come to include institutional change as an important policy instrument and the use of institutional analysis as a key utensil for policy makers. It is my claim that discourses and institutions are used with the intention to enhance the competitiveness of nations and enterprises; why discourses and institutions have become a political phenomenon of interest and salience for policy makers and decision takers. It is also my claim that knowledge of institutions is applied to explain economic growth and to assess the potential relevance of institutional reforms; why interpretations of institutions has been become a policy tool for the implementation of globalisation. It is this dual role of discourses and institutions I describe in the following. The whole debate on the CIC will be looked upon as an example of how institutions (as a political phenomenon) and institutional analysis (as a policy tool) have become part of a policy approach. Two caveats are necessary. It is not my ambition to describe the conflicts of interests and the accidents of history involved in moving the process from dawn to mid-day. Neither is it my ambition to explain why the travel has happened in the first place. Even if the process is engulfed in conflicts - at several levels and including multiple.