2nd ITEPE Conference

The role of competition in European and international integration

Copenhagen Business School
Department of Business and Politics
Kilen, Kilevej 14
2000 Frederiksberg (Room K146)
19- 20 June 2014

Outline
Competition and competitiveness have become a catchword which is no longer restricted to the
economy but also related to the provision of public services. Some consider competition as the
panacea in the light of the current economic crisis and public budget constraints. Others fear a
strengthening of the neo-liberal agenda and a further hollowing out of the state. On analytical
grounds, however, little attention has been paid so far to the societal implications of competition
as the most important organizing principle in the capitalist world (Cini and McGowan, 1998: 2).
What is lacking is a sociology of competition. The conference addresses this shortcoming. It
intends to facilitate an interdisciplinary dialogue between legal scholars, sociologists and political
scientists as well as between empirically and theoretically oriented research. Its overall aim is to
set a new research agenda which strengthens a critical and sociological understanding of the role
of competition and comparison in transnationalising society.
For more information (including the list of abstracts) visit www.itepe.eu.
For registration contact Assistant Professor Eva Hartmann (eh.dbp@cbs.dk) before Thursday,
the 11th June 2014.

Programme
Wednesday 18th June
20:00

Welcome gathering at the hotel bar.

Thursday 19th June

9 :00 9 :15
9 :15h -9 :30

Registration & Coffee

Introduction Eva Hartmann
The societal dimension of competition

9:30 10:20

Poul F. Kjaer (Copenhagen Business School)

Context Construction through Competition: The Prerogative of Public Power, Intermediary
Institutions and the Purpose of Competition Policy
Discussant: Dietmar Wetzel

10:20 - 10:50 Coffee Break

10:50 11:40 Bob Jessop (Lancaster University)
The course, contradictions, and consequences of extending competition as a
mode of (meta-) governance
Discussant: Christoph Hermann
11:40 -12:30

Ngai-Ling Sum (Lancaster University)

A Cultural Political Economy of Competitiveness, Competition and
Competition Law
Discussant: Eva Hartmann

12:30 13:30 Lunch

13:30 14:20 Tobias Werron (University of Lucerne)
Why do we believe in competition? A historical-sociological view of
competition as an institutionalized ideology
Discussant: Poul F. Kjaer
Competition and the European Integration
14:20-15.10

Malcolm Ross (University of Sussex)

Promoting solidarity: from public services to a European model of competition?
Discussant: Christiane Mossin

15:10 - 15:40 Coffee Break

15:40 16:30 Wolf Sauter (Tilburg Law School)
EU competition and public services: building blocks or persistent irritant?
Discussant: Malcolm Ross

16:30 17:20 Christoph Hermann (University of Vienna)

Internationalization, liberalization and the precarization of work in European
postal markets
Discussant: Wolf Sauter
17:20-17:40

First conclusions

19 :00

Conference Dinner: Restaurant Frederiks Have Restaurant Smallegade 41 2000

Frederiksberg

Friday 20th June

8 :45
9:00 9:10

Departure from the hotel

Coffee and Registration

9 :10 - 10:00 Eva Hartmann (Copenhagen Business School)

European integration and competition: the professional complex/
project nexus re-visited
Discussant: Bob Jessop
10:00 - 10 :50 Christiane Mossin (Copenhagen Business School)
Competition unfolded as a constellation of heterogenous logics. Tensions
between the economic and the legal subject seen through the prism of EU rights
Discussant: Judith Clifton
10:50 11:10 Coffee Break
11:10 12:00 Dietmar Wetzel (University of Berne)
Academic Education and Power - Competition as a mode of integration
in the EU?
Discussant: Tobias Werron
12 :00 12 :50 Lunch
Consequences for the nation-state: Towards self-debilitation?
12:50-13:40

Judith Clifton (Universidad de Cantabria)

Beyond Hollowing Out: The Self-Debilitating State
Discussant: Ngai-Ling Sum

13:40-14:00

Next steps for the publication

14:00

End of the conference