Theorizing competition: An interdisciplinary framework

This paper introduces a framework to facilitate an interdisciplinary analysis of "competition." While such an interdisciplinary analysis can be justified by referencing the various fields of social and economic life in which "competition" is important, three challenges are found to aggravate such endeavor: First, a challenge of scope, which refers to the generality of the concept of "competition" and the fact that contributions differ with regard to the competing actors, the objects of competition, as well as the institutional specificities of competition; second, a challenge of methodology, which exists because different scientific disciplines study competition with distinct methods and epistemological orientations, and, third, a challenge of normativity, which refers to the fact that debates about competition have been closely linked to controversial political debates. To mitigate these challenges, and to explicate the often implicit meta-theoretical assumptions in the scope, methodological, and normative dimension, this paper introduces a meta-theoretical framework. Its usefulness is illustrated via a comparative description of selected contributions from the social sciences and humanities. Despite its limited scope, it yields some preliminary conjectures that may inspire future research: first, there are sufficient common elements across different concepts of competition that justify an interdisciplinary approach to study competition; second, apart from differences between disciplines, there are remarkable differences within disciplines that are at least of similar importance. Finally, there are important interdependencies between the meta-theoretical dimensions considered in the framework.