Introduction

In the previous chapter, we discussed the field development in global ranking concerning good governance indicators and university rankings. In this chapter, we turn to discuss innovation rankings and city-level measurements of competitiveness that emerged a few years later. As our discussion will show, they have come to draw heavily from previously published datasets, hence echoing the hegemonic views and ideological undercurrents already present in the field as we have outlined in the previous chapter. The sharing of data is hence part of the evolving conventional power of data production on a global level. Empirically, we focus on four key indicators of knowledge governance and competitiveness that are also revealing of how the global ranking field has evolved: Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), Global Innovation Index (GII), Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) and Global Power City Index (GPCI).

We are particularly interested in the idea of ‘global talent competition’, where countries and cities are now competing over talented individuals, linked with world-class educational and innovation systems (see also Chapters 5 and 6). We argue that the field development of ranking has strong implications for the creation of global policies on education, innovation and AI as the major ranking producers are explicitly revising their indicators to analyse the social transformations anticipated through automation and AI (World Economic Forum 2019c; INSEAD et al 2020) or using AI as a motivation for launching new indicators (Tortoise 2019a; World Bank 2019). The number of indicators has thus increased, and their nominal focus has expanded, but they strongly converged, both conceptually and in terms of the use of data between different indicator sets. They are now coming together under the notions of ‘AI’ and ‘talent competition’. The knowledge alchemy we observe in this process is the use of existing data and concepts that strongly project past ideas and ideals of governance for the automated future, or what it is assumed to be. This means that there is a strong sense of conformity concerning the assessments of uncertain future through automation and the use of AI.

Indicators are becoming a lingua franca for global governance, not only in the domains we commonly associate with knowledge (Espeland and Sauder 2007; Kelley and Simmons 2015; Merry et al 2015). Relevant rankings are known by everyone in a policy field and allow comparisons and shared understanding of goals.

Introduction

In this chapter, we describe how policy makers and decision-makers developed and implemented strategies and policies based on the ‘talent’ imaginary and bring knowledge alchemy to life. By reviewing how the presuppositions revolving around the global competition for talent became integrated in higher education and university policies, migration policies, university recruitment practices and more, we show how the processes of globalization, internationalization and competition unfold across multiple policy sectors, institutions and governance levels. Here, policy makers and decision-makers use the notion of interdependence in multiple ways: to describe the state of existence, to identify the sources of cause for concern (interdependence as a policy problem), and to present policy solutions (interdependence as an opportunity for new alliances and cooperation). To unpack how interdependence is interpreted and used, we organized this chapter to revolve around several case studies that span multiple governance levels: the macro-regional, the national and transregional, and at the city level. Our case selections are meant to be illustrative and not comprehensive, involving cities, countries and regions in the ‘West’ as well as the ‘East’. What our cases have in common is the centrality of the ‘talent’ competition imaginary, articulated through the competition narrative, driving knowledge governance.

We start with developments taking place at the beyond-the-state level, looking particularly at how the EU integrated the presuppositions about global talent competition into its strategies and policies concerning creating a ‘knowledge area’, big technology and AI. We then examine China and its university alliance-building efforts through the Belt and Road Initiative. Our discussion shows how China is strategically positioning its universities at the centre of the global web of connectivity through differentiated approachesof university alliance building. Finally, we turn to city-level developments and unpack how cities are becoming global players in talent competition. What the various developments taking place across multiple governance levels reveal is how prevalent the practice of integrating the imaginaries of competing for ‘talent’ has become. Indeed, knowledge alchemy has reached a fevered pitch and its allure is no longer confined only to national actors working in one policy domain: it is now widespread and highly contagious to anyone everywhere susceptible to yearnings of being ‘competitive’.

Introduction

This chapter begins the second part of our book and turns to the scripts and imaginaries of knowledge governance to show how they shape diverse sectoral policies and institutional practices through numerical global scripts and formulas. As discussed in Chapter 3, global indicators bring coherence to transnational governance by providing decision-makers with numerical global scripts to succeed in global economic competition. This is most apparent with the ‘world-class university’ model (see Chapter 2) that now steers the higher education policies of most countries (Mittelman 2017; Rider et al 2020). We also discussed a new emerging script of ‘talent competition’ that builds on the earlier ideas of competitiveness, excellence in higher education and good governance (Chapter 3).

To become effective, however, numerical knowledge needs to be narrated and communicated. Numbers alone are meaningless without the broader context and the interpretation of what these numbers symbolize. As discussed in our introductory chapter, policy scripts describe predetermined sequences of events based on storylines (Schank and Abelson 1977). While these are increasingly expressed in numbers (that is, digitization), we also see actors referring to different imaginaries of knowledge governance. These imaginaries are linked to grand narratives of global megatrends, pointing to intensifying global economic competition through digitalization and innovation, as well as the implications for those countries, institutions or individuals left behind. The ranking producers have also identified automation as one of their observed megatrends, discussing it as the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ or ‘second machine age’, where digitalization and automation ultimately affect global competitiveness, innovation and knowledge governance.

Going beyond the state as a unitary actor, innovation and knowledge creation are tightly linked to cities as innovation hubs, reflecting the global trend of urbanization as part of the broader modernization movement. ‘Talents’ are important in this storyline. Policy makers, businesses and institutional leaders compete for the ‘best and brightest’ who would add value to their policies, product and service offerings. The talent competition script is one that builds on ‘more and more talents’ (attraction) and not on how to best integrate and retain this human capital over time, but this is also now changing. The storyline put forward by expert organizations such as the WEF is vague, but interestingly there are keen references to historical past that provide seeming analogies to the future. This chapter argues and shows that transnational knowledge governance operates on the perceptions of futures.

Chapter 5 applies the argument of this book to the beginning of the Macron presidency. Initially, Macron implemented a series of liberalizing reforms, notably of taxation, collective bargaining, and the national railways, often over the opposition of strikers and demonstrators. However, after just eighteen months in office, simmering resentment erupted into the so-called yellow vest protests, a movement against higher gasoline taxes that spiraled into a broader contestation of the government itself. Chapter 5 shows that both the social anesthesia state and skinny politics contributed to the yellow vest movement. In a context of scarce fiscal resources due to the social anesthesia state, Macron’s desire to bolster French business through tax cuts while reducing France’s budget deficit necessarily entailed tax increases and cutbacks in public and social services for the general population. Further fueling contestation, Macron adopted an extreme form of skinny politics, disdaining negotiations with political elites and the social partners, and imposing reforms from above. The combination of unpopular reform, much of it liberal in nature, and skinny politics sparked the yellow vest protests. In the end, the yellow vests forced Macron to backtrack from his agenda, sent his approval ratings plummeting, and weakened his capacity to govern.

Chapter 1 shows that economic liberalization is contested in France in multiple ways. Liberalizing reforms are routinely met with strikes and demonstrations; they are often defeated by protest movements; and, in some cases, the leaders who launch such reforms lose their capacity to govern or subsequent elections as a result. The chapter demonstrates that economic liberalization – as measured by indices of fiscal policy, labor market policy, and business competition – has made less headway in France than in the leading European political economies. It also demonstrates that this limited liberalization is not the byproduct of a well-functioning alternative to the liberal economic model. Chapter 1 presents and critiques three explanations of French resistance and contestation of economic liberalization, centered on economic culture, political leadership, and the character of the welfare regime respectively. It then presents the central argument of the book, which is that the pervasive contestation of economic liberalization in France can be traced to the policy, party-political, and institutional legacies of France’s postwar statist or dirigiste economic model. Although the dirigiste model was largely dismantled decades ago, the legacies of this model continue to shape the politics of economic liberalization in the present day.

Chapter 2 analyzes the policy legacies fueling the contestation of economic liberalization. When French authorities broke with the dirigiste system in the 1980s, they deployed generous social and labor market policies to pacify and demobilize victims of the move. While this “social anesthesia” strategy, as I call it, humanized and facilitated de-dirigisation, it contributed to contestation in three ways. First, it transformed France’s liberalizing trajectory into a two-stage process – a shift from the dirigiste state to the social anesthesia state, then an overhaul of the social anesthesia state itself – fueling liberalization fatigue. Second, the high costs and labor market disruptions of the social anesthesia state partially offset the economic benefits of de-dirigisation, resulting in disappointing economic results that bolstered the sentiment that liberalization does not work. Third, the fiscal burden of the social anesthesia state limited governments’ ability to offer side-payments in return for acceptance of liberalizing reform. Chapter 2 shows how these factors combined to generate mass opposition to two labor reforms aiming to boost employment among French youths by reducing their wages and job protections. In both instances, French youths, skeptical of the benefits of uncompensated labor market liberalization, protested and forced the government to retract its reforms.

Chapter 6 analyzes Macron’s attempt to rebound from the yellow vest protests. On the one hand, signaling a shift in governance, Macron launched two initiatives, the Grand National Debate (GDN) and the Citizens’ Climate Convention (CCC), that offered an opportunity for ordinary citizens to voice their concerns and preferences. In the case of the CCC, 150 citizens were given the chance to craft legislative and regulatory reforms that Macron pledged to implement. Both initiatives were popular, revealing a strong desire among the French to be listened to and participate in key decisions affecting their lives. On the other hand, rather than serving as a template for a new agenda and mode of governance, the GDN and CCC remained isolated exceptions. In all other matters, Macron continued as before, pursuing an unpopular liberal economic agenda via top-down, skinny methods. Chapter 6 uses Macron’s two most important initiatives during this period, a tightening of unemployment benefits and eligibility conditions along with an overhaul of the pension system that included a controversial increase in the retirement age for many workers, to demonstrate the continuity of Macron’s agenda and approach to governing. Both reforms triggered significant contestation, and the pension reform was ultimately abandoned.

Chapter 4 analyzes the institutional factors fueling the contestation of economic liberalization. The dirigiste model was rooted in the premise that top-down governance, free of interference by interest groups, offered the best way to modernize the country. The institutions of the Fifth Republic reinforced this exclusionary orientation by centralizing power in the executive. While France’s top-down or “skinny” approach may be effective when governments are extending popular new benefits, it is problematic when they are trying to avoid blame for unpopular measures, as is generally the case with economic liberalization, since with concentrated power comes concentrated accountability. Despite this problem, Chapter 4 shows that French authorities have refused to break with skinny politics. In the late 1990s, the “social refoundation” tried to shift reform away from the contested political arena to negotiations among the social partners but was blocked by governments of left and right alike. Finally, through analyses of liberalizing initiatives during Chirac’s second presidency and the case of French pension reform, Chapter 4 shows that skinny politics almost invariably triggers popular contestation and, even when successful, tends to yield half-measures that antagonize the populace without fixing the fiscal and economic problems that motivated action in the first place.