Competitization: the proliferation of competition as a multidimensional process

Abstract

Various scholars have noticed the increase of competition in the last decades and its essential role in contemporary social life. Their studies show the great variety of fields affected and are valuable contributions to understanding this process. However, they also represent a wide range of different conceptualizations and understandings of what exactly the increase of competition is and which aspects of social life it affects. Thus, to allow for a better understanding of this process and the commonalities and differences between the approaches that examine it, this paper presents a framework to grasp different dimensions of competitization, that is, the increase of competition in different social fields. Drawing on the basic elements of competition and the literature on the increase of competition, it discusses four dimensions of competitization: competitization by scarcity, by mechanism, by imaginary and by agency. Three main examples are used to demonstrate these dimensions: competitization in academia, market competitization and competitization in the form of rankings.