For Competitiveness' Sake?

Based on neoliberal ideologies of market-led economic integration and the intensification of global commodity flows, national governments strive to increase the international competitiveness of their economic sectors as a means to generate revenue. ¹ In the agricultural sector, the quest to create or strengthen agro-export industries has intensified apace with globalization. Within this global context, developing country agro-industries in world markets often compete based on low-cost, increased productivity and the flexibilization of employment practices. In developed countries, competitiveness often rests on a combination of increased productivity, innovation, and product differentiation. Since the 1990s, the rapid incorporation of national economic sectors into world markets increased competitive pressures whereby the low-cost and differentiation strategies practiced by economic actors have become increasingly insufficient for gaining or maintaining competitiveness internationally. While economic actors respond to rising competitive pressures by reorganizing their economic activities, competitiveness as a national project requires governments to deploy their functions and resources to advance the position of domestic industries in world markets. Here, the notion of competitiveness goes beyond the habitual interactions among rival firms or industries to become a national project in which competitiveness is equated with national economic well-being. Within a neoliberal regime characterized by the so-called retreat of the state, national governments often rely on the creation of mobilizing mechanisms to justify and legitimize active intervention in economic matters and the marketization of their economies. “Competitiveness” is one such mechanism.