The production of hegemonic policy discourses: ‘competitiveness’ as a knowledge brand and its (re-)contextualizations

Abstract

‘Competitiveness’ has become a transnational policy buzzword in a globalized world and this invites us to examine critically ‘competitiveness’ discourses and their manifestations in the policy-consultancy circuit. This article adopts a ‘cultural political economy’ approach to the rise to hegemonic ‘knowledge brand’ status since the mid-1990s of the influential account of Michael E. Porter and his Harvard Business School associates. This account of competitiveness has since been recontextualized from the national to the urban, regional and global scales. The article interweaves theoretical and empirical arguments in five steps. Firstly, it outlines the bases of cultural political economy as a discursive as well as material account of the remaking and reproduction of social relations. Secondly, it presents three stages in the development of ‘competitiveness’ discourses from theoretical paradigm to knowledge brand. Thirdly, it explores how this knowledge brand has been recontextualized through knowledge apparatuses, such as indices and metaphors, as well as through related technologies of power at the global level and the regional-national scale of East Asia. Fourthly, and conversely, it shows how this hegemonic logic of competitiveness is being challenged and negotiated in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Fifthly, it offers some concluding comments on knowledge brands and on how cultural political economy can contribute to a critical understanding of policy-making.

Keywords:

• hegemony
• competitiveness
• knowledge brand
• technologies of power
• Michael Porter

Acknowledgments

This article derives in part from an ESRC seminar series on Changing Cultures of Competitiveness 2007–09 (No. RES-451-26-0439) and from research conducted with a British Academy Research Development Award 2008-2010 (No. BARDA-48854). The author also thanks Frank Fischer, Bob Jessop and two reviewers for their helpful comments and Lo Mo Kwan and Slamet Sawiyah for their domestic support during fieldwork.

Notes

1. For example, whereas Gramsci concentrates on structured inequalities in social relations as the basis for attempts to build hegemony, Foucault focuses on transferable technologies of power and subjectivation in structuring subjectivities and experiences, framing truth regimes, and defining a ‘diagram’ of society.

2. On the three versions of competitiveness, see Harris and Watson (1993).

3. These were Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Korea and Singapore.

4. Clusters are made visible via the technique of ‘cluster charts’ which identify local industries based on export statistics and use the diamond model to test selected cases to establish a pool of unique clusters.

5. For a detailed account of the implications of Porter's model for regional development. Available from http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/core/page.do?pageId=8507296 [Accessed 31 July 2009].

6. Hindle who compiled the Economist Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus (2008) described Porter as the guru on idea of cluster building.

7. Harvard Business school website available from: http://www.isc.hbs.edu/

8. For further information on the diverse objectives, projects and cluster initiatives, see the Competitiveness Institute website (http://www.competitiveness.org/article/archive/1/), the Asia Competitiveness Institute (http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/ACI/home.aspx), the Monitor Group (http://www.monitorgroup.com.cn/en/) and ontheFRONTIER Group (http://www.otfgroup. com/home.html) [All accessed 29 July 2009].

Global Competitiveness Report and Global Competitiveness Index, http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global Competitiveness Report/Index.htm; World Competitiveness Yearbook and World Competitiveness Scoreboard, http://www.imd.ch/research/publications/wcy/index.cfm; The Cluster Initiative Database and the Cluster Initiative Greenbook, http://www.competitiveness.org/article/view/l95; Clusters and Networks Development Programme, http://www.unido.org/index.php?id=04297; Asian Development Outlooks 2003: III Competitiveness in Developing Countries, http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/ADO/2003/part3.asp; Pan African Competitiveness Forum 2008, http://pacfnetwork.com/; Competitiveness of Small Enterprises: Clusters and Local Development, http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docrum=1585032; African Global Competitiveness Initiative, http://www.usaid. gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/initiatives/agci.html; Strategic Investment Action Plan, http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/indonesia/summit0506/joint-4-7.pdf; The Hong Kong Advantage, http://www.enrightscott.com/publications.html; OECD International Conference on City Competitiveness, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/5/47/34291204.pdf; Remaking Singapore, http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/ACI/Research_Output_Singapore.aspx [All accessed 20 July 2009].

9. On an extended discussion on Bernstein and recontextualization of management thinking, see Thomas (2003).

10. Palgrave-Macmillan was the publisher of the Global Competitiveness Report 2004–05. In its website material, the report is described as a ‘unique benchmarking tool’. Available from: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=270902 [Accessed 6 August 2009].

11. Available from: http://www.adb.org/documents/books/ADO/2003/part3_3-7.asp [Accessed 2 August 2009].

12. Available from: http://www.adb.org/documents/books/ADO/2003/part3_3-7.asp [Accessed 2 August 2009].

13. Available from: http://www.adb.org/documents/books/ADO/2003/part3_3-5.asp [Accessed 26 January 2009].

14. For details on the case of Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta, see Sum (2010) and available from the author on request.

15. Information concerning this workshop is no longer available on the Asia Development Bank Institute website. It was originally available from: http://www.abdi.org/conf-seminar-papers/2007/04/04/2226.vietnam.cluster.dev/ [Accessed 8 December 2008].

16. In the case of India, resistance is rampant especially when cluster-building initiatives (e.g., Special Economic Zones) involve the appropriation of land that affects the livelihood of farmers.

17. ‘Green competitiveness’ was first articulated by Porter in 1991 in Scientific America and later, in 1995 in Harvard Business Review (with van der Linde).