ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters in this volume have demonstrated that whilst competitiveness is a broad, nebulous and somewhat chaotic discourse, it is an innately powerful one that commands widespread support. Indeed, it has become a hegemonic discourse shaping economic development thinking, policy and strategic action in regions around the globe. Its position is such that whilst it can be moulded and shaped to fit different circumstances as it spreads across different regions with their different constituent interests and powers of agency, it nonetheless appears to retain a seemingly unshakeable hold over policy thinking and practice. In fact, the ability of the discourse to ‘mutate’ in this way perhaps makes it more robust and embedded in regional thinking and policy practice. In turn, the particular conception of competitiveness that dominates provides a clear focus to policy intervention and action. The pre-eminent conception of regional competitiveness as equivalent to ‘attractiveness’, or the capacity of the region to compete with other places for mobile capital, leads to a strategic emphasis on the ability of the region to attract and retain innovative firms, skilled labour, mobile investment and central and supranational government subsidies and funds, and an overriding focus on the pursuit and measurement of their success in doing so relative to other places or ‘rivals’. There is, however, growing awareness of the shortcomings of competitiveness
thinking and its implications for strategic policy choices and outcomes in practice. Krugman (1994; 1997a) has famously derided place competitiveness as a ‘dangerous obsession’. This, in part, reflects his concerns regarding the validity and relevance of the concept itself in relation to cities and regions for which, unlike for business, poor economic performance has no bottom line – places do not ultimately go out of business. However, Krugman also points to the dangers of the corollary of competitiveness in terms of the nature and form of policy intervention which ultimately ensues, which he regards as presenting unnecessary and ineffectual ‘meddling’ by governments in the concerns of business. Krugman’s belief is that regions initially develop, grow and prosper as a consequence of particular path-dependent processes, citing the Silicon Valley
cluster in California as owing its existence to ‘small and historical accidents that, occurring at the right time, set in motion a cumulative process of selfreinforcing growth’ (Krugman, 1997b: p. 237). Following his lead, other critiques have emerged, with Kitson et al. (2004:
p. 997) asserting that ‘it is at best misleading and at worst positively dangerous to view regions and cities as competing over market shares, as if they are in some sort of global race in which there are only “winners” and “losers” ’. Similarly, Unwin (2006) criticizes the obsession with competitiveness for obscuring the broader elements impacting on city and regional economic performance, whilst Malecki (2004) warns that the dynamics of competition between places are necessarily fraught with negative rather than with positive connotations (see also Peck and Tickell, 1994 who refer to ‘jungle law’ breaking out). The purpose of this chapter is to consolidate and extend the existing
debate on the limits to regional competitiveness. In particular, it aims to examine in detail the limitations to competitiveness thinking, specifically in relation to its implications for economic development and the nature of policy outcomes in practice. It tells the tale of competitiveness as exemplifying a theory led by policy approach, and examines the limiting implications of this for policy. The focus is on the role of competitiveness thinking in narrowing policy approaches and foreclosing wider analysis and understanding about how regions develop, grow and prosper. This, it is argued, has significant potential to constrain the development of a broader, more radical regional development agenda and politics. Thus, in identifying the need to rethink the merits of the competitiveness imperative for regions, this chapter paves the way for Chapter 7 to consider the potential scope for new approaches to regional development and policy to emerge and flourish in the future.
