The 'return of great power competition' between (among others) the US, China, Russia and the EU is a major topic in contemporary public debate. But why do we think of world politics in terms of 'competition'? Which information and which rules enable states and other actors in world politics to 'compete' with one another? Which competitive strategies do they pursue in the complex environment of modern world politics? This cutting-edge edited collection discusses these questions from a unique interdisciplinary perspective. It offers a fresh account of competition in world politics, looking beyond its military dimensions to questions of economics, technology and prestige.

Daniela Russ, born 1987, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph, Canada. Trained as a historical sociologist in Berlin, New York, and Bielefeld, she is currently working on her first book, Working Nature: Steam, Power, and the Making of the Energy Economy (1830-1980). Her research interests lie in historical epistemology, energy history and the critical theory of nature. James Stafford, born 1988, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Research Training Group 'World Politics' at Bielefeld University. A historian of Ireland, Britain and Europe since 1750, his first book, The Case of Ireland: Commerce, Empire and the European Order 1776-1848, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. He completed his Ph.D. in History at Cambridge University in 2016, and worked as a Lecturer in Modern History at St. Hugh's College, Oxford, before coming to Bielefeld in 2017.