The Competition and Competitiveness Project

Current research

• Different conceptions of competition, e.g., competitive games and competitive markets
• The ways in which unfair competition undermines fair equality of opportunity and what institutional changes and other remedies are necessary to address unfair competition
• Problems with so-called “winner-takes-all” competitions, where there are disproportionate rewards for winning in competitions which attract a large number of competitors
• The critique of competition in nineteenth-century political economy
• The rise of the discourse of competitiveness (of nations, cities, individuals) and its historical context
• Cooperatives as alternatives to firms in the competitive market economy
• Experimental research on how individuals behave in unfair competitions
• How changing rules about false starts have changed the behaviours of athletes
• Historical and systematic work on the concepts of competition and competitiveness in the history of philosophy from Adam Smith and Marx, to Nietzsche and T.W. Adorno.

Upcoming events

Competition and Competitiveness workshop, Friday 22 September 2023

• Register on Eventbrite

Articles

• Why Squid Game is actually a critique of Meritocracy
• What the European super league fiasco taught us about fair competition

Contributions

• Professor Timo Jütten contributed to an event called 'The Domestication of Competition', hosted by the Independent Social Research Foundation
• Dr Sean Irving: More Austerity was Always the Plan, Tribune Magazine
• Dr Sean Irving: What the SVB Bailout tells us about Tech and Finance, Labour Hub

Conferences and publications

Visit our staff profiles to see conferences and publications from our members:

Professor Timo Jütten

• publications
• conferences

Dr Sean Irving

• publications

Dr Matt Bennett

• publications