ABSTRACT
The competition state has beaome a major developmental strategy in the V4 region. Its hegemony, however, is far from unchallenged. Hegemony is not the same as static domination, settlement, or agreement imposed or concluded once and for all. It leaves openings for contention and it must be sustained on a daily basis. Reproduction of hegemony does not take place only in the ‘big games’ of nationallevel politics in which the policy framework is set and high-profile cases are decided; the competition state is regularly challenged and its hegemony is reproduced through processes of attracting particular investors and promoting their projects. The power bloc promoting the externally oriented project is continually reconstituted in a dynamic process of coalition-building that brings together various actors by promoting the project of the competition state in particular places and times. This chapter analyses the dynamic, continuous, and contentious process in which the competition state and its political underpinning are reproduced in the everyday politics. It investigates formation of (and resistance to) what I call the investment-promotion machines. These temporary articulations of the power bloc are mobilized when a locality is promoted to lure an investor during investmentlocation bidding.
