Competition Law & Policy as an Emerging IPE Issue

Competition policy seeks to constrain market power and safeguard market entry and contestability, mostly through legal and regulatory mechanism. It has traditionally been considered a domestic matter–warranting above all legal and economic analysis. I argue that competition policy is an important and inherently political emerging IPE issue. I identify three recent developments that make competition law and policy an important emerging issue for understanding international political economy: (1) a changing understanding of the political economy of trade as requiring competition law and policy as complements; (2) the rapid global diffusion competition law and policy; and (3) the resulting increased probability of cross-border conflicts - with corresponding incentives for increased transgovernmental cooperation. For each of these developments, I flag opportunities for research by IPE scholars.