How Rankings Produce Competition: The Case of Global University Rankings

It is often assumed that ranking produces or intensifies competition while the way this happens remains largely obscure. We address this problem by analyzing global university rankings. Drawing on a sociological understanding of competition, we propose a concept of ranking as a type of social operation that combines four sub operations: comparison of performance, quantification, visualization, and publication of the results. We particularly emphasize visualization and publication to highlight the often-neglected performative dimension of ranking. We then develop an explanation of how ranking builds up competition between universities, highlighting the following three effects of this: (a) globalization of a specific discourse on university excellence; (b) scarcification of reputation for excellence; and (c) regular publication of findings, effectively transforming a stable status order into a dynamic, competitive field. In this process, competition for status is being converted from something implicit and inherently local into something explicit and globally acknowledged. We conclude by discussing general conceptual implications of this analysis for the study of the construction and societal impact of competition.