Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory

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Rivalry as a social relationship: conceptualizing the

micro-foundations of competition

Alex Preda

To cite this article: Alex Preda (2023) Rivalry as a social relationship: conceptualizing the
micro-foundations of competition, Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 24:1, 87-110, DOI:
10.1080/1600910X.2021.1972021

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DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY
2023, VOL. 24, NO. 1, 87–110
https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1972021

Rivalry as a social relationship: conceptualizing the

micro-foundations of competition
Alex Preda
King’s College London, London, UK

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Recent sociological conceptualizations of competition emphasize social relationships; rivalry;
its discursive or institutional aspects, such as rankings. Although competition; micro-
macro- and meso-sociological takes on competition are more or sociology; interactions; social
knowledge; action
less well established, micro-sociological approaches are less so.
What does it mean to be in competition from the perspective of
everyday social relationships and interactions? A possible answer
is provided by the concept of rivalry. In this paper, I examine the
evolution of the concept of rivalry and its development in the
sociological tradition in the early to mid-twentieth century,
especially in the work of Georg Simmel, Leopold von Wiese, Karl
Mannheim, but also, later, Erving Goffman. I argue that a micro-
sociological focus on rivalrous social relationships and
interactions is able to address at least some of the issues
concerning a micro-sociology of competition. Grounded in an
examination of this tradition, I discuss how rivalry relates to
sociological notions such as social knowledge, action, worth, and
evaluation. I distinguish two intersecting logics of competition,
namely, the logic of action and the logic of observation. I argue
that a typology of rivalries cutting across various domains of
social life can be worked out according to this intersection. A
micro-sociology of rivalries can make a genuine contribution to
the sociological investigation of competition.

Introduction
The notion of competition, liberally used in the media, policy discourses and economic
recipes (to name but a few areas), is employed to designate an extensive number of
arrangements across various domains of activity (e.g. within arts, sports, culture and
science), as well as a set of discourses in the public sphere, intrinsic to globalization pro-
cesses (e.g. Heintz and Werron 2011). It is often presented as a (necessary) blueprint of
social organization, for instance, in calls for having more competition in education,
public services and the like. The ‘competition state’ (Fougner 2006, 167; Genschel and
Seelkopf 2017, 236) is seen as a historical stage, as well as the political enactment of com-
petition as a principle of societal organization.

CONTACT Alex Preda alexandru.preda@kcl.ac.uk King’s College London, Bush House, 30 Aldwych, London WC2B
4BG, UK
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
88 A. PREDA

This variety and ubiquity pose the sociological challenge of elaborating a conceptual
scaffolding distinct both from the tropes of policy and media discourses and from econ-
omics (e.g. Rosa 2006; Werron 2014, 2015; Jessop 2015). More recently, sociologists have
debated this scaffolding as having a relational component, in that they see competition as
‘the construction of a relationship among actors that centers on something scarce and
desired’ (Arora-Jonsson, Brunsson, and Hasse 2020, 2), as ‘the relation between two or
more actors aiming for an end that cannot be shared between them’ (Aspers 2011, 7),
or as a form of actor coordination (Karpik 2011, 71).
A fuller understanding of competitions then means analyzing this relational com-
ponent on an interpersonal level as well by paying attention to rivalries. I am saying
this not least because classical economic thought has associated competition with rival-
ries as interpersonal relationships: the right price is found through rivalries between
sellers and buyers in the marketplace, rivalries for which haggling provides an interac-
tional template (Boltanski and Thévenot 1991, 67; Schumpeter 1954, 98; Dennis 1975,
93). Yet, the complexity and variety of rivalries in social life do not appear as reducible
to short-lived struggles or haggling in the marketplace. How do we conceptualize rivalries
as a social relationship, and how does this help us understand competition itself?
Hence, it is worth investigating rivalry, not only because it is pointed at by classical
political economy but also because it seems unwarranted to assume short-lived market-
place struggles as a general template for a broad range of varied rivalries. However, there
is a perhaps more important rationale: if we are to examine processes of comparison and
valuation, we need to take into account the social interactions that generate knowledge
enabling (collective) decisions about what is valuable in specific situations. Rivalries as
interpersonal relationships within which social attributes are experienced and tested
appear as significant in this respect.
In asking how we shall conceptualize rivalries, we will have to address several aspects:
first, what kind of issues do rivalries address? Second, are the latter a necessary, or only a
contingent way of addressing these issues? Third, how can we identify a broader socio-
logical typology of rivalries? If the boundaries between economic and non-economic
relationships are fragile (e.g. Zelizer 2011, 203, 375), attempts to circumscribe these
relationships exclusively to economic domains would be self-undermining.
In this paper, I explore how such a micro-sociological approach can be elaborated, build-
ing upon intellectual traditions and sociological efforts that have acknowledged and
grappled with strategic and competitive dimensions of social interactions and relationships.
I start by shortly presenting the proto-concept (Swedberg 2014, 65) of rivalry as it
emerges in the aesthetic theory of the Renaissance and is transformed within the politi-
cal-economic discourse from the late sixteenth century on (Prochno 2006, 8; Dennis
1975, 44). Proto-concepts highlight specific issues that will be addressed later by socio-
logical concepts and, as such, cannot be entirely left outside the theoretical investigation.
Tracing the various transformations in the career of this notion is relevant because: (a) it
highlights conceptual evolutions and transfers across domains of reflection. (b) It allows
us to situate and distinguish sociological traditions vis-à-vis other domains of reflection.
(c) It shows that rivalry as a topic of inquiry does not originate in and is not the sole
domain of economic thinking. (d) It shows a preoccupation with taking competitive
interpersonal relationships into account. (e) It prepares thus the ground for a more sys-
tematic micro-sociological inquiry.
 DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 89

My goal, though, is not a reconstruction of the intellectual history of the proto-

concept of rivalry. My goal is to highlight first how the transformations it goes
through within classical political economy sever its original association with social
relationships and then to analyze how a genuinely sociological notion of rivalry restores
the association on a conceptual level, making concrete rivalries distinctly analyzable as
(dyadic or triadic) relationships. This, among others, is justified by the sustained atten-
tion rivalry as a competitive relationship gets from sociology in the early and mid-twen-
tieth century,1 pointing to efforts toward developing comprehensive investigations,
overcoming the limitations of the proto-concept.
In the next step, I focus on interpersonal rivalries and on the interaction formats
which support them. I argue that, in the sociological tradition of Georg Simmel, Karl
Mannheim, Leopold von Wiese, and later Erving Goffman, rivalry is seen as different
from struggle, conflict, controversy, feud, or enmity. It is conceived as a relational cat-
egory in its own right, and as being related to (though not coextensive with) the social
institution of the contest. In a third step, I show how rivalry as a relational category is
supported by particular types of social interactions. In a fourth step, I examine the
ways in which rivalry can be connected with sociological concepts such as audiences,
social knowledge, worth, or evaluation.

Rivalry in the aesthetic debates of the Renaissance

In the Renaissance, two notions, emulatio (rivalry) and paragone (contest), come to
define what it means to compete.2 They emerge in close relationship to the status of
art making (e.g. drawing, painting, sculpting) as a liberal activity (and not yet a pro-
fession), but also to issues concerning the status of art in society and relationships
among artists.
Renaissance artists were not tied to the rules and constraints of guilds. The latter guar-
anteed equal incomes to their members, restricted membership and activities, and
excluded individual styles (Prochno 2006, 266, 269, 278). Painting and sculpture work
was not parceled out to artists by guilds. Artists did not price their works according to
the number of hours spent working on them, which was the general rule for guilds
(Alpers 1988, 89, 107). They were dependent on patrons, but also had to advertise
their craft in order to get commissions.
The practice of emulating, or copying the masters of the Antiquity, intrinsic to artistic
education (Alpers 1988, 119; Prochno 2006, 6), required justifying imitations of ancient
masters as progress from the originals (Gombrich 1966, 62). The challenges of comparing
and qualifying (Espeland and Stevens 1998; Espeland and Sauder 2007; Espeland 2013,
327) Renaissance art as progress, and of justifying the status of art in society on
grounds other than religious representation led to the introduction of two interrelated
notions: the virtues of artworks, and the virtue of the artists.
The former was to be ensured by paragone (contest). This distilled and justified the
practice of placing (notarized) wagers against other artists, of the kind, ‘I, painter X,
bet you, painter Y, that I can do a better St. Joseph than you.’ Notarized wagers (spon-
sored by rich patrons and adjudicated by a jury or by the public) made it possible for
artists to get a reputation beyond the confines of their cities (Ten-Doesschate Chu,
Harper, and Avery 1996; Holman 2005, 521). Artists could follow individual strategies
90 A. PREDA

in trying to win, for instance, by choosing to depict a subject in ways that emphasized
their artistic and technical strengths (e.g. Holman 2005, 539–540).
The legitimation of wagers occurred in ethical terms. Giorgio Vasari and Benvenuto
Cellini justified them as substituting a bad form of envy with an ‘honest’ one. Paragone
presented artists with the opportunity of channeling their ambitions into public displays
of skills, and thus to attain fame by honorable means (Holman 2005, 543). In the seven-
teenth century, artistic contests became institutionalized and given a formal organiz-
ation. The creation of the French Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture led to the first
formal contests for young artists from 1667, with rules establishing entry conditions,
the nature of works to be submitted, genres with their own aesthetic criteria (e.g. land-
scape, portrait, historical scene), and the jury (Ten-Doesschate Chu, Harper, and Avery
1996; Prochno 2006, 165, 171).
Public contests were presented as arrangements for control (of the artists), for estab-
lishing the aesthetic value of artworks, and for making visible artistic rivalries to audi-
ences (Holman 2005, 521, 545). Giorgio Vasari introduced a distinction between
virtuous and damaging rivalry (Clifton 1996, 27–8). Virtuous rivalry contributed to artis-
tic progress and was manifested by the declared ambition of an artist to surpass the rivals’
skill (Clifton 1996, 31). Damaging rivalry, by contrast, was manifest in the artists’ schem-
ing against and belittling each other in private. Paragone promoted good rivalry, albeit
the relationship between (two) artists was not confined to the limits of a public
contest. By contributing to artistic progress, good personal rivalry emulated a greater
one, namely that between the visual arts and literature (Watts 1996). As painting
strived to be ‘visible talk’, the practice found itself in a rivalry relationship with literature.
Rivalry as ‘good ambition’ was present not only at individual level, but also at the collec-
tive one.
Being tied to progress, rivalries are organized hierarchically, with a figure at the top,
who rivals seek to emulate. Advancement in the hierarchy is a matter of progress. The
(artistic) figure at the top is not supposed to engage in rivalries. This hierarchy is, at
least in principle, respected in the Renaissance, when Michelangelo, seen as the
topmost artist of the time, does not directly engage in any wager, but sends instead his
pupils as proxies (Holman 2005, 514, 548).3
Relevant in the present context is that social relationships (rivalries) entwined with
institutions (contests) address particular issues specific to a domain of activity that will
become professionalized first in the seventeenth century (Alpers 1988, 89). They are
meant to address specific knowledge problems within the domain and to confer status.
Rivalries contribute to the progress of an entire domain of activity and take place at
both at collective and individual level, while contests are arrangements for carrying
out and displaying rivalries. The latter have temporal dimensions that go beyond the dur-
ation of a contest.

The re-conceptualization of rivalries as economic struggles

The notion of emulatio makes its way into economic thinking in the late sixteenth
century by way of political treatises arguing that states produce great soldiers and mer-
chants in the same way in which art produces great artists (Dennis 1975, 23–4; Schump-
eter 1954, 154fn11, 164, 339–40). Mercantilist authors expand this to the idea that states
 DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 91

engage in rivalries too, and the interests of merchants are coextensive with those of the
state. Thus, rivalry is transferred from the level of social relationships, projected onto,
and replicated into political and economic realms at the level of collective entities (cor-
porations) and of governing bodies. It is stripped of ethical aspects and reworked as an
abstract, hostile relationship between states, concerned with control over specific econ-
omic activities, such as trade with the colonies (Dennis 1975, 30–2). It is renamed com-
petition. Later in the nineteenth century, the conceptualization of an abstract, hostility-
based, accumulation-oriented struggle is projected back onto the level of individual
relationships and represented as a general organizational principle for all society.
This does not mean that the issues addressed by the Renaissance notion of rivalry dis-
appear. The transposition of the term first onto mercantilistic struggles and later its
association with a view of generalized struggle anchored in biology ignores the continued
relevance of conceptualizing comparisons in both cognitive and ethical terms.
The object of emulation morphs from aesthetic representation to the acquisition of
economic goods, associated with power and status (Dennis 1975, 32). The new under-
standing – which represents a crucial shift – is that competition implies both imitation
and (possibly hostile) striving for acquiring more goods, with the ultimate goal of con-
solidating status and the power of the state in international relations (i.e. vis-a-vis
other, comparable states). This combination (emulation and struggle) projects (and dis-
torts) the conceptualization of social relationships at the individual level onto states and
firms. It is used now to explain and legitimate the actions of political and economic insti-
tutions, as well as those of individual sellers and buyers in the marketplace (Schumpeter
1954, 545).
Imitation combined with the relentless striving to surpass others in the accumulation
of goods (Schumpeter 1954, 892; Boltanski and Thévenot 1991, 244) is perceived as an
abstract organizational principle,4 later used as a ‘crutch,’ a purely heuristic assumption
in the analysis of price equilibrium (Stigler 1957; Vickers 1995, 3; Dennis 1975, 193;
Winter 1987, 108; Hicks 1934, 339). This principle is seen by some as the outcome of
evolutionary forces,5 dislodging custom from its dominant position in economic life
(Mill 1929, 243–5). Others see this principle as being an effect of the private property
over the means of production and the accumulation of such means (Morgan 1993,
570, 575; Marx and Engels 1970, 91–2), combined (or not) with the fallacy of treating
economic agents as freely contracting individuals, unjustly disregarding the social
bonds among them (Knight 1923, 590–2). In either case, a struggle for existence6 at
the expense of others ensues (Morgan 1993, 579–80), with fights over the allocation of
resources, both at the individual and collective level. Such fights, in their turn, need to
be kept in check, chiefly by the state designing mechanisms of control and intervention
(Morgan 1993, 582, 585). Within the capitalist class, emulation aims only at outdoing
one’s peers in the excessive accumulation of goods and status symbols (Veblen 1899,
33; 2003, 176).
The fact that under a system of private property and individual contracts emulation is
seen by institutionalist thinkers as having chiefly negative effects (and is mainly confined
to the capitalist class) does not mean though that, in the opinion of others, it cannot be
harnessed in a productive fashion. The distinction between capitalist and socialist com-
petition, discussed by Lenin (1964, 404, 409–10, 413) is mainly that under a system of
collective ownership, emulation becomes a collective positive endeavor. The tendency
92 A. PREDA

to imitate and outdo one’s peers in a domain of activity is separated from the ownership
of the means of production and seen (by Lenin) as a positive behavioral feature when the
means of production are collectively owned. The coupling between competition and the
associated institutions is sometimes conceptualized as tight, and sometimes as loose (as
Lenin’s argument implies).
At this point, we can look back and reconsider how the proto-concept of a specific
social relationship, emerging in the Renaissance, has been transferred and morphed
into an abstract principle of social organization, with a manifold of implications, accord-
ing to how social institutions are positioned around it. This transformation does not
solve the problem of conceptualizing comparisons in cognitive and ethical terms and
leaves out of sight micro issues of interactions and relationships, together with knowl-
edge components. Concomitantly, it provides the opportunity for a micro-sociological
reconsideration of rivalries with regard to the issues they address. This reconsideration
starts with the analysis of rivalries as a sui generis interpersonal relationship, distinct
from struggles.

The social relationship of rivalry

While the object of a struggle7 can be the acquisition of, or control over material goods
(or money), the object of rivalry is a different one. Rivalries have an intrinsically rela-
tional dimension; by definition, rivals will have to relate to each other, act and react to
each other’s actions in a sustained way over a longer period of time. This endows rivalries
with an internal dynamic that can include, but is not limited to, moments of struggle and
antagonism (Von Wiese 1929, 21, 29). Parties in a rivalry can attempt to deceive, manip-
ulate, or backstab (Von Wiese 1929, 31). However, deceit and manipulation are neither
the dominant nor the exclusive interaction format of rivalries. Writing forty years after
von Wiese, Erving Goffman (1969, 43, 113, 132, 138, 140) insisted that strategic inter-
actions – to which one would ascribe deceit and manipulation as game moves – are dis-
tinct from and not coextensive with social relationships. Quite the contrary: strategic
interactions require a trust-based, fundamental relational format as a condition of
their possibility within particular contexts and with a limited duration. Consequently,
while rivalries might include sequences of strategic interactions, the latter are neither
dominant nor exclusive.
Rivalries can be fueled, at least in part, by status issues, but are not identical with feuds.
Nor are they reducible to violent outbursts meant to solve status uncertainties in the
absence of formal mechanisms for addressing such issues. As Roger Gould (2003, 179)
has noticed, most status contests end with one contestant deferring to the other.
However, temporary deference neither implies, nor automatically produces robust defer-
ence. When the status of a person or organization is ambiguous, it can be challenged by
peers time and again (White 2008, 37, 228; 2003). In this perspective, status challenges
can be intrinsic to rivalries, without the latter being reducible to the former. Status is
maintained within networks of social relationships, and maintenance work implies
keeping up relationships, deploying adequate narratives, and making use of appropriate
signals. Practical challenges to one’s status (which can unfold along one or more of these
lines) require responses within rivalries.8
 DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 93

Overall, rivalries have an open, internal dynamic, one that is not predetermined by any
law-like biological or cultural principle, or by a given interaction format. Interpersonal
rivalries are guided by the motto of ‘we can what you can – only better.’ With that,
rivalry relationships have a cognitive dimension. Before being able to say, ‘only better,’
any rivals will have to display that they can do what their counterpart can. This
implies skills and knowledge of the said counterpart, and awareness of one’s own knowl-
edge as intrinsic to any rivalry relationship: the knowledge produced in rivalries is
regarded by Simmel (1955, 59) as benefitting both sides. As this knowledge becomes
apparent only in the relational dynamics between rivals, rivalries have an experimental
character (Von Wiese 1929, 34). They are experimental not only in that such a motto
can be confirmed or not but also in that they produce social knowledge. Rivalries can
take different turns in their internal dynamics: they can morph into struggles, or they
can include moments of partnership or of conflict. They differ in this respect from antag-
onisms, where the ties are pre-defined, or from controversies, which unfold primarily in a
dialogic manner and imply an opposition of viewpoints.
A rivalry relationship can be initiated as an imaginary one or can be imagined by audi-
ences. An example is provided by fans of soccer players (musicians and film stars as well),
who imagine their idol as being in a rivalry relationship with the idol of other fans
(Bairner and Shirlow 2001) and use this to enter into a real rivalry with other fan
groups. Rivals can imitate each other, adopt and adapt each other’s ideas, or even
(occasionally) collaborate. Karl Mannheim (1929, 75) emphasizes in his analysis of intel-
lectual competitions that, in this respect, economic competitions replicate general aspects
of social rivalries. Similar to Leopold von Wiese (and, as I shall argue, to Georg Simmel
and Erving Goffman), Mannheim sees rivalry as a particular format of social relation-
ships distinct from struggles or from conflicts.
The experimental character of rivalries comes from their guiding motto (which
requires proof), from their open-ended and under-determined dynamics, as well as
from the requirements they place upon parties (to do what they can). As proof is intrinsic
to a rivalry, audiences can intervene in it. In some situations at least, rivalries cannot be
kept entirely secret, in the way a romantic affair can. They can be an open secret, some-
thing everybody knows, but does not talk about. Yet, rivals can strive to obtain the favors
of an audience, which distinguishes them from a secret affair, for instance.
Rivalries can be a dyadic relationship, but they can also be open to the (active) partici-
pation of audiences, even if the latter are not always present or intervening in the
relationship. The question becomes, thus, what are the consequences of audience inter-
ventions in dyadic rivalries? How does the rivalry dynamic change with the shift from a
dyadic to a triadic relationship? Conversely, how do rivalries evolve if they remain
dyadic? Instead of assuming audiences as a necessary presence in rivalries, we can ask
the question of audience interventions and their consequences.
The audience can be a public of one (in a romantic rivalry, for instance) or a larger
public that engages with the rivals along particular dimensions (e.g. in a mercantile
rivalry). Rivalry, then, can be seen as a double relationship: on the one hand, a relation-
ship between competitors (dyadic rivalry), and on the other hand, the relationship of a
particular audience with the rivals (triadic rivalry). While the dimensions along which
wooing takes place can differ (romantic wooing, for instance, is different from how
two rival scientists woo their audiences), attracting the audience on one’s side is intrinsic
94 A. PREDA

to rivalries. Audiences, however, can take an active role and not only dispense favors to
rivals, or evaluate them but also encourage and support relationships between rivals.
Sebastian Smee’s analysis of the rivalry between Jackson Pollock and Willem de
Kooning highlights the role of audiences in framing this artistic rivalry (2016, 280). In
this respect, the audience of a rivalry relationship is similar to the rivals and not restricted
to a passive role, as observer or evaluator (Simmel 1908, 149, 1955, 62–3). Similarly,
Goffman (1969, 74) notices that strategic interactions are often triadic, and not dyadic.
We can see then rivalries as relational arrangements through which participants
experience, test, and evaluate social attributes in particular situations. Such arrangements
can be dyadic or triadic. In the latter case, the audience participates in constituting riv-
alries with various structuring effects.
The temporality of rivalries is underscored by Georg Simmel (1908, 323), who sees
them as radically different from a mere fight over money or material goods. Werner
Sombart (1928, 558–9), writing only six years before Simmel’s Sociology was published,
distinguished violent competition from performance and suggestive competitions. When
an opponent is eliminated, absorbed, or controlled, the struggle ends; performance and
suggestive competitions are much more protracted. In both cases, argues Sombart, com-
petitors strive for the favors of their audiences either on grounds of quality attributes (e.g.
quality merchandise, exclusive merchandise, etc.), or on grounds of positive public
exposure that should excite audiences. Quality attributes or positive public exposure
are only instruments toward gaining the favor of specific publics. Randall Collins
(1980, 197) notices too that overt fights occur seldom and that conflict is as much a
form of interaction as cooperation is.
Thus, rivalries do not take the form of short outbursts of violent conflict (although
conflictual encounters, such as a duel with weapons, can be part of them), but are
ongoing chains of action-response activities between the parties. In triadic rivalries,
parties compete for the favors of the public (Simmel 1908, 327), and the public fans
up the relationship.9 Rivalries can have a public format, in the sense that the chains of
action-responses are at least in part witnessable by publics and judged upon. This does
not mean that audiences need to witness rivalries uninterruptedly. It means, though,
that audiences (close up or from afar) participate in the relationship. Rivalries require
rules as well (formal in some cases), which bind participants to particular action
formats and responses. They can require both partisanship and neutrality, in the sense
that they can mobilize partisan publics but also accept referee judgments. Rivalries can
have resolution or not – romantic rivalries, for instance, can come to a resolution, but
in other cases, rivalries can be transmitted across generations. In short, rivalries
appear as durable relationships supported by particular sets of institutions.
Rivals can encounter each other in tight games (Goffman 1969, 119): that is, in rules-
determined, controlled settings (such as a championship or a tournament) where they
play against or by each other. Rivalries, however, are not reducible to such settings.
Neither are they reducible to loose games – that is, to strips of strategic interactions
mediated by loose social conventions and distributed over time and locales. Fiction
writers or visual artists for instance, can play alongside each other (Simmel 1955, 70)
at book fairs or artistic salons, and they can play protracted loose games as well over
whole careers (see Smee 2016). A rivalry relationship can include one or both games
without being reducible to either.
 DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 95

Summarizing: rivalries are intense social comparisons to identify and evaluate attri-
butes that matter to the participating parties in specific situations. They (a) have open
ended, evolving temporal horizons; (b) they imply reciprocal, intimate knowledge of
the rivals, as well as mutual adaptation; (c) they can involve specific publics that
witness their evolution, and which can intervene in the rivalry, actively supporting it.
(d) Rivals can relate not only to each other but also to their publics and await responses
from the said publics. (e) The emotional bonds between rivals, on the one hand, and
between rivals and their public, on the other hand, are not predetermined and not redu-
cible to hate. Rivals can show respect or affection for each other too (Fine 2021, 104) – as
illustrated by terms such as frenemy or Intimfeind (intimate foe). (f) Rivalries can unfold
in public (making publics intrinsic to this relationship), as well as in the private sphere
(since rivals are emotionally bound to each other).
Rivalries, social knowledge, and worth
If these are the formal features of rivalries, two questions remain, though: first, what is
at stake in them? Seeing jealousy as the emotional driver of rivalries does not mean that
rivalries are simply irrational emotions or that they unfold for jealousy’s sake. Second,
where does their necessity come from? What do they accomplish that cannot be accom-
plished otherwise? Thorstein Veblen argued that rivalries among members of the capital-
ist class are necessary in order for said members to achieve public recognition, thus
implying that status is not automatically provided by wealth, and that it requires displays
within particular relationships. In other words, displays of wealth alone are not enough
for status recognition, but must be framed by particular relationships dynamics (e.g. X
displaying against Y and alongside Y’s displays). Rivalries are necessary frames for
wealth displays if the latter are to produce the desired effect (status), but as frames,
they can be put on display too. There is a social obligation to display (at least occasion-
ally) a specific relationship (of rivalry) in order to get one’s status acknowledged (Veblen
1899, 250).10
The object of rivalries can be seen through not only with respect to social status but
also to social knowledge. In a rivalry where both parties compete for acknowledgement
from specific audiences, the object of that acknowledgement is not only the individual
but also the attributes or qualities they put on display, and which are considered as
socially significant or desirable by the rivals, as well as by the audiences. Speed, or endur-
ance, or patience, or agility can be among such attributes. But speed, agility, or endur-
ance, are seldom if ever, purely individual attributes. They are produced by group
efforts. For instance, speed in an athlete implies a group effort involving coaches, phy-
siotherapists, and nutritionists. Speed in an athlete requires knowledge of speed in
one’s rivals too, and of the coaching strategies producing that speed. An attribute like
speed is the product of social knowledge. The audiences are asked to judge not only
who of the rivals is speedier, more agile, more enduring, or more cunning. The audiences
are expected to make judgments upon what an attribute such as speed entails in terms of
skills, group knowledge, and contextualized display against other efforts. What is the
worth of being cunning, or agile, or speedy, in particular situations?
This requires first establishing what cunning, or speed, or agility means in a particular
situation. What kind of actions and responses to action can be deemed as cunning, and
what are the consequences of being cunning in that situation? The worth of attributes is
not limited to the personalities of the rivals, yet it cannot be easily decided upon without
96 A. PREDA

witnessing such attributes as embodied and enacted in a particular relational dynamic. In

other words, the outcome of a rivalry relationship is not only (and not primarily) the
acknowledgment that ‘rival A is better at X compared with rival B’. The outcome is
knowing what ‘having X’ as the product of a group effort means in a particular situation.
It is not just the acknowledgment of the rivals’ status either. It is the social knowledge and
the social acknowledgement of a particular set of attributes put on display as valuable.
Hence, the first logic at work in establishing the worth of a set of attributes is the logic
of making them observable in an organized fashion.11 Some attributes deemed as having
social worth cannot be directly observed but can be inferred from their observable out-
comes. We cannot, for instance, evaluate the social worth of fiction writing from simply
observing two or more writers typing. While typing contests were not unknown in the era
of the typewriter, they were about different skills, such as speed or orthographic accuracy.
Putting fiction writing skills on display has a different timeframe than that of a typing
contest. The skills of fiction writing – inventiveness, metaphorical expression, innovative
use of language – can be only inferred from the end product of a particular writing
process. Therefore, indirect observation of attributes can be relevant – brushstrokes on
canvas or sentences on paper display inventiveness or expressivity, for instance, as attri-
butes requiring different timeframes from those of organized direct displays. An indirect
observation would require then, in Goffman’s terms, a loose game rather than a tight one.
A central aspect of Simmel’s argument is that values are objectified in rivalries (1908,
325). Social attributes, as products of group efforts, within specific rivalry relationships,
put on display in front of audiences, become objectified. A dyadic relationship would not
objectify attributes because it remains opaque to outsiders (104). More recently, Pierre-
Michel Menger (2014, 280) has argued that artistic talent as a set of attributes is honed
and amplified in multiple, repeated ‘trial(s) of competitive comparisons’ because the
uncertainties which persist in creative activities have to be dealt with in a ‘dynamic
tension of testing’. This reminds us of the Renaissance view that artistic skills are
honed in rivalries, while grounding the necessity of the latter not primarily in solving
temporary status issues but as a more durable form of social relationships through
which the worth of human attributes is set, even if temporarily.
A similar argument is made by Erving Goffman (1967, 186, 194), who, without using
directly the term rivalry (and drawing fully on an analysis of contests), asks the same
question: how can social action establish which human attributes are worthwhile or
not? This question cannot be answered in a general fashion because attributes are situa-
tionally bound: speed, or cunning, or endurance, may be valuable in particular situations,
but not in others. Moreover, speed, or cunning, or endurance, may have internal var-
ieties, the worth of which has to be judged upon (physical or mental endurance, for
instance, can be expressed differently according to the situation). This question cannot
be answered based on routines either, because routines are not the best way for
putting such attributes to test. Action though, as opposed to routines, is relevant here;
in action, participants ‘knowingly take(s) consequential chances perceived as avoidable’
(Goffman 1967, 194). Borrowing from Robin Wagner-Pacifici (2017, 65), action is event-
ful because it implies ruptures – that is, unexpected interruptions of the normal future
orientation of participants. Such interruptions generate uncertainties, making it more
difficult for participants to know what comes next (as is the case with routines).
 DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 97

Participants must take chances, understood as practical guesses of what is the appropriate
next step in the sequence of action.
This taking of chances can reveal the social worth of particular attributes in that the
latter are tested against uncertainties. Moreover, uncertainties can be designed or set in
such a way as to test particular attributes. Being purposeful, the testing of attributes in
action will be organized: it will have spatio-temporal boundaries, a material setup,
implicit and explicit rules, participants, and audiences. In testing the participants’ attri-
butes, time can be a resource, a benchmark, as well as an organizational device (Fine
2015, 81). Time can create its own uncertainties. In his ethnography of chess compe-
titions, for instance, Gary Alan Fine underscores that a match can be lost not only by
making wrong move decisions but also by making decisions too slowly (83). If rivalry
relationships are under-determined, full of uncertainties, and open-ended, as Mannheim
and von Wiese argued, they would offer a format for testing attributes against uncertain-
ties produced by the rivals themselves.
If we were to think of alternative social procedures through which such worth would
be set, what could these be? One could argue for negotiation as a procedure. Yet, if this
were to be the case, human attributes would be merely talked about, not displayed in
social interactions. Or, one could argue that rituals are procedures in which attributes
are put on display, to be judged upon. While rituals can mark the beginning or the
closing of a rivalry relationship, they are focused on group solidarity reinforced in stereo-
typical actions (Collins 2004, 49; Alexander 2006, 32). Rituals are ‘moments in and out of
time’ (Turner 1969, 96) in which community is produced, not moments in which com-
munities are asked to make a judgment on what is valuable in their members’ attributes
and on what is not.
More important, perhaps, is that rituals (and ritual-like activities) presuppose that the
attributes put on display (such as endurance or courage) are performed according to a
script and in an authentic fashion, as a condition for achieving fusion with the audiences
(Alexander 2006, 40, 55). How can we know, then, that such attributes are authentic,
without subjecting them to uncertainties? A script-based performance implies that the
social worth of said attributes is already agreed upon and not subject to uncertainties.
In this perspective, fusion would be significantly different from what Erving Goffman
(1967, 262, 268) calls vicarious experience, where audiences participate in chance
taking as a prerequisite for making a judgment on what endurance or courage mean,
among others.12 Seen from a different angle, and following here Claude Lévi-Strauss’s
argument (1966, 30), rituals, in opposition to contests, are meant to achieve equilibrium,
meaning that their outcome is expected and can be foretold. The outcome of rivalries
(and of contests as one of their institutions) cannot be foretold, since by definition
they are under-determined.
However, when rituals are part of a string of strategic interactions as one of the rivals’
game moves (Goffman 1969, 124), the worth of relevant attributes can be set within per-
forming a ritual. For instance, the worth of metaphorical inventiveness in delivering
sermons can be witnessed and evaluated within rituals, especially when the latter are
game moves in a rivalry relationship between clerics.
Rivalries appear as necessary with respect to the process of finding out values – that is,
what human attributes entail, whether they are valuable and desirable for the community,
and how exactly. They are necessary because, as Von Wiese notices, rivalries are
98 A. PREDA

underdetermined and open-ended. One does not know from the start how rivalries will
evolve; how the attributes at stake in them will be displayed and evaluated in particular
situations; which attributes will be judged as relevant when; which attributes will be
judged as undesirable, and how. In other words, the necessity of rivalries with respect
to human attributes is that the value of the latter can be established primarily within
such relationships. (This does not mean, of course, that human attributes can be exer-
cised only within rivalries.)
The social institution of the contest tests the exercising of skills and abilities (Goffman
1967, 207). In contests, the abilities and skills of the participants are exercised on
opponents in interpersonal action, usually (but not always) segregated from ‘serious
life’ (Goffman 1967, 209). This suggests that contests are institutions geared toward pro-
viding rivalry relationships with organized occasions for being displayed. At the same
time, however, rivalries are not limited to formal contests. A romantic rivalry, for
instance, will not be put on display within a formal contest. Yet, occasions for public
contest can be used by romantic rivals in a fashion that becomes intrinsic to the
rivalry. Rivalries do not necessarily need to be put on display permanently. Contests,
in their turn, are not the only institution geared toward the display of rivalries. The artis-
tic salon, world fairs, festivals, trade fairs, professional conventions are similar insti-
tutions that provide occasions for initiating, reproducing, or advancing rivalrous
relationships, visible to publics. Moreover: since worth can be produced by direct or
by an indirect display, respectively, we should be able to identify institutions adapted
to the logic of observation, be it direct (a broad variety of contests), or indirect, such
as rankings or ‘person of the year’ (e.g. athlete, financial analyst of the year and so on)
proclamations, fairs, salons, festivals, conferences, conventions and many more.
Direct and indirect observations can use a variety of judgment devices (e.g. measuring
instruments, indices, benchmark indicators) in order to segment, classify, and rank par-
ticipants, valuing thus both products and actors (Chiapello and Godefroy 2017: 156–7;
Stark 2020, 10). Can we say that judgment devices substitute rivalry relationships with
standardized valuations? Let’s have a look at two domains that use standardized judg-
ment devices extensively: competitive swimming, which uses automated timers (Harris
2016), and figure skating, which uses a set of athletic metrics such as the height of
jumps and number of spins (Lom 2015). Timers and video cameras do not evaluate
the attributes of dryland coaches, fitness coaches, tactical coaches, nutritionists, or phy-
siotherapists who collectively contribute to producing the swimmer’s stroke. A timer will
rank the swimmers in a given situation, but will not tell us – including here coaches and
swimmers – which qualities of the stroke brought swimmers in that particular position in
the ranking, in a given situation, and how these qualities can be worked on and adjusted
for future similar situations. In order to deal with these uncertainties, left unsolved by
timers, swimmers and coaches resort to relationships and interactions with teammates
(including rivals) and with other teams. In figure skating, as Stacey Lom (2015)
reports, a shift to athletic metrics as a judgment device led to a reconfiguration of the
relationships between judges and coaches, from antagonism to collaboration, but did
not substitute for rivalries.
Or take another judgment device: the Parker Wine Guide. The guide is a points-based
wine scoring system; variances in scores impact variances in futures prices for Bordeaux
wines, albeit to different degrees, depending among others on preexisting classifications
 DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 99

(Hay 2007, 204). Does this mean that it substitutes social relationships between wine
growers, buyers, testers, and Parker scorers? Accounts of how the guide is produced
(Langewiesche 2000) show that: there is more than one guide scorer involved; scorers
make regular trips to vineyards and entertain relationships with wine growers; these
relationships are sometimes antagonistic, and sometimes not; wine growers try some-
times (successfully) to persuade scorers to change the score; wine growers sometimes
badmouth each other in conversations with the scorers. All this indicates that relation-
ships continue to play a role and that the guide does not simply supplant them, but
rather provides opportunities for relational configurations.
In the accounts of Simmel and Goffman, rivalries can develop their own institutions.
In addition to (or instead of) assuming that institutions are exclusively external scaffold-
ings or triggers for rivalries, the dynamics of this particular type of relationship, geared
toward testing the social worth of human attributes, is, at least in some situations, seen as
capable of generating institutional settings, according to particular logics of display.
The coupling between rivalries and the institution of the contest should thus not be
seen as a tight one. Rivalries do not need organized contests all the time in order to
unfold. Informal situations of the contest can be organized by the participants them-
selves, for instance, in situations where two or more participants challenge each other
to race their bikes down the street, or to swim a number of laps in the pool. This
author has witnessed a situation in a subway car where a group of young males chal-
lenged each other to do the most pull-ups on a support bar in front of all other
passengers.
Rivalries and audiences
Rivalries can be played out for audiences which, be they direct, face-to-face or syn-
thetic ones (Knorr Cetina 2009), are never passive. Audiences have an impact on the
outcome of contests (Leifer 1995, 237; Heath 2013, 55) and a stake in them (Goffman
1967, 262). If audiences have a stake in the institutions supporting rivalrous relation-
ships, it is plausible that they will have a stake in the said relationships too. Goffman’s
argument is that audiences have such a stake because they participate vicariously in
fateful actions, as well as in the display of character (that is, of potentially valuable attri-
butes) intrinsic to contests. Expanding on this argument, we can say that audiences can
participate (vicariously) in rivalrous relationships outside contests too. Instances in this
respect are provided among others by artistic and literary rivalries – fans and patrons of
literary rivals can participate vicariously in the relationship. In English soccer, rivalries
between fans of competing soccer teams continue outside and beyond the game and
have a durable quality (e.g. Elias and Dunning 1966; Dunning, Murphy, and Williams
1986). Rivalries between fans of rap musicians continue outside music battles and
dissing contests (Lee 2016, 110).
This raises the question of whether audiences can initiate or steer rivalries, influencing
their internal dynamics. Food manufacturers, for instance, send product samples to
specialized laboratories that analyze the components of several manufacturers’ products
and sell them back data on biochemical compositions and organoleptic attributes, includ-
ing data on the competitors’ products (Dubuisson-Quellier 2013, 258–9). We can ask, to
what extent are rivalries between food engineers working for different manufacturers
triggered by the scientific laboratory as an audience? Or rivalries between wine
growers by the Parker Guide scorers as an audience? To what extent can audience
100 A. PREDA

reactions steer the internal dynamics of a rivalry in a particular direction, bringing it

closer to, or away from conflict? An almost standard example of how audiences not
only steer but create competition on purpose is provided by auctions (Smith 1989, 61;
Heath 2013, 82). Another example in this sense is provided by Dick Cavett, a 1980s
PBS talk show host, who, while on air, pointedly insisted on asking the writer Mary
McCarthy, which writers she thinks are overrated, a question McCarthy answered by
mentioning only Lillian Hellman, her longtime rival. This interview is well known for
triggering a defamation lawsuit, a contemporary instance of the Greek echthra (Acker-
man 2011, 32–3).
If audiences participate vicariously in displays of valuable attributes by the competi-
tors/rivals, their reactions would not only tend to be ‘taken personally’ (that is, taken
by participants as judgments of character) but also influence the relationship between
rivals. At the same time, rivalries can transfer to audiences, which will create then
their own, second-order audience for their relationship. In their study of rival soccer
teams, Dunning, Murphy, and Williams (1986, 234) show that fans of soccer clubs will
develop their own durable rivalries, played in fights outside the stadium, mainly for
the benefit of the police as an audience, but sometimes engaging with the police as a
rival. Rival fan groups and the police engage in confrontations where they take turns
at providing the audience for each other, confrontations in which attributes of ‘mascu-
linity’ (e.g. physical force, agility, aggression) are effectively validated in interactions.
Rivalrous relationships do not have to be outspoken all the time – in other words, a
generalized and permanent awareness of their character is not necessary. Neither is a per-
manent presence of audiences. Being under-determined and with an open-ended
dynamics, rivalries can maintain – for casual observers – the appearance of an acquaint-
anceship, or of professional collegiality, while unfolding their dynamics for specific,
devoted audiences. They acquire this specific significance from being displayed simul-
taneously front- and backstage, in different ways, and for different audiences. This can
create an affective bind between rivals and the ‘true’ audience of the rivalry (Goffman
1959, 215). The audience can become an active participant in the relationship, one
who devotedly seeks and deciphers signs of the rivalry’s special nature. Literary or artistic
rivalries, instead of being visible to a large public, can target a devoted, closed public (e.g.
Farrell 2001, 296).
Can rivalries be seen as contributing to inequalities, at least in some instances?
Turning Randall Collins’s definition on its head (2009: 100), we can say that a social
class is perhaps a pool of potential friends, but certainly is a pool of potential rivals.
Answering this question in a more systematic manner implies analyzing rivalries as
triadic relationships. John Levi Martin clearly sees at least contest competitions as con-
tributing to inducing dominance orders in some situations (2009: 124, 147). He acknowl-
edges the role of audiences in the emergence of such orders (148). This argument
resonates with Eric Leifer’s (1995, 116) earlier analyses of team sports, showing that
the ascent and influence of nationwide audiences (through the medium of television)
actually led to greater performance inequalities across teams.
The logics of rivalrous relationships
If rivalries are relational arrangements for enabling the situational observation,
testing, and evaluation of social attributes through comparisons, then the latter has to
 DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 101

subsume a logic of action (i.e. enacting the attributes at stake), as well as one of obser-
vation (i.e. how can such attributes be observed, directly or indirectly).
In his analysis of how relationships of dominance emerge, John Levi Martin dis-
tinguishes between contests and scrambles (2009, 123), a distinction that roughly corre-
sponds to Simmel’s (1955, 70) distinction between Wettbewerb (competing against) and
Wetteifer (competing along), and to Goffman’s (1969, 119) distinction between tight and
loose games. Contests would require face-to-face encounters (a tight game), in which the
worth of attributes is temporarily decided. We can regard at least some rivalries as requir-
ing regular tight games (in tennis or soccer, for instance, but we also have music, dance,
or eating contests, among many others).
In scrambles, rivals collect status signals to prove their worth. Literary rivalries are a
case in point: one collects prizes, reviews, sales figures, state medals, media interviews,
against those of rivals. Scientific rivalries would be another case in point: citation
counts, Nobel Prizes, research funding, are collected against those of the rivals,
without necessarily having to have a face-to-face encounter in which attributes of
worth are decided. In the same way, in which contest rivalries have their institutions
(tournaments, championships, trade fairs, to name but a few), scramble rivalries have
theirs (medals, prizes, critics’ judgments, and many more).
We have thus a logic of action (rivals acting against each other or along with each
other) and a logic of observation (depending on how attributes are displayed). Their
combinations can prove useful in working out a typology of rivalries. In those situations
where rivals enter against each other with direct displays, we have tennis tournaments,
auctions, eating contests, university challenges, or spelling bees, among others. In situ-
ations where rivals enter against each other with indirect displays, we have something
like architecture competitions. In situations where rivals enter along with each other
with indirect displays, we have academic or literary rivalries, among others. Can we
find situations though, where rivals participate along with each other with direct dis-
plays? I would argue here that we can find such situations in ‘races to do X’, as witnessed,
for instance, among deep-sea divers, solo flying pilots, mountaineers, but also among
scientists (see Table 1). In every such instance, rivalries are as much individual as they
are group ones. They involve entire groups organized around producing the attributes
at stake, be they speed, endurance, aesthetic novelty, or metaphorical inventiveness.
Yet, in many such games, the attribute at stake is presented front stage as embodied
by a single individual, while it is in fact a group achievement. We would need to inves-
tigate than a double set of rivalry relationships, unfolding front- and backstage at once,
namely the relationship between the rivals taken to embody the attribute, on the one
hand, and the relationship between the rival groups producing the attribute, on the

Table 1. A typology of rivalries.

Action Direct observation Indirect observation
Rivals against Tight games: person-focused Intermediate tight games: object-focused tournaments
each other tournaments (sports, eating, spelling (architecture competitions, art salons, literary prizes)
contests, etc.)
Rivals along Loose games: person-focused scrambles Intermediate loose games: object-focused scrambles
each other (races to do, discover, or decipher X) (research grants, publications, exhibitions, media
appearances)
102 A. PREDA

other hand. For instance, while on the front stage, metaphorical inventiveness may be
produced by rival fiction writers, on the back stage we might encounter associated rival-
ries of literary agents, editors, and critics.
Within this typology, the rivals’ audiences do not have to always be identical or per-
manently present. Yet, this would not impact the rivalries as such. In cases where rivals
participate along with each other, for instance, audiences may differ or only partially
overlap. Rival literary figures may have different fan bases, but instead of diminishing
the rivalry relationship, this has the potential of fanning it up.
In all these types, we can encounter negative instances of the kind designated by
Sombart as violent competition – that is, instances where rivals can try and cut each
other off from audiences, with more or less legal means.
A question arising at this point is, to what extent is the notion of rivalry as a relation-
ship applicable to the analysis of market exchanges and, more generally, of economic life?
In classical economic thought, haggling is seen as a form of short-lived rivalry (Smith
1776: 59–60), as I mentioned in the introduction of this paper. Nevertheless, haggling
is not the only kind of price negotiation we encounter: price transactions can have,
under particular circumstances, a relational quality with a longer time horizon. They
may require initiating a framework of mutual knowing between the parties involved,
making a transaction into an anchored relationship, different from the patterned, anon-
ymous interaction at a market stall (Goffman 1971, 227). As is the standard argument in
economic sociology (e.g. White 2002, 267; 2008, 211; Burt 2005, 128; Powell 1990, 297),
transactions are not restricted to ephemeral interactions aiming at moving the price of a
good in a particular direction (e.g. Orr 2007), but involve more durable relationships. To
what extent, then, and how can such relationships be rivalries, in the sense articulated
above? Networks of relationships do not have to be exclusively collaborative: they
open up the possibility of rivalries both for more limited periods of time and for
extended, if not lifelong ones. This resonates with Veblen’s argument that, in business
life, personal rivalries play an important role – an aspect which should be closely exam-
ined by a sociology of rivalries.
Since rivalries are under-determined, it becomes crucial to analyze their internal
dynamics: what features make rivalries take particular turns and evolve into fights,
struggles, or into cooperation? To what extent is the framework of mutual knowing, to
use Goffman’s expression, significant in this respect? This framework, albeit in a
different terminology, is emphasized by Simmel as well. And to what extent are economic
rivalries encouraged or even triggered by audience interventions? If we follow Simmel’s
argument that rivalries are about the values of the rivals (understood as the attributes
they put on display), then the personal aspect of the rivalry relationship becomes relevant
with respect both to its internal dynamics and to its substantive outcome. In the case of
an economic transaction, then, the personal aspect can become relevant with respect to
the turns the rivalry takes, but also with respect to price as the outcome of the nego-
tiation, for instance.
At least as important, perhaps, is an analysis of how various types of economic
relationships and transactions which are usually lumped together can actually be seen
as different from each other, according to the types discussed above. In financial
markets, for instance, we encounter both trading contests and ‘trader of the year’ judg-
ments; we encounter both direct displays of attributes judged as worthy, and rankings of
 DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 103

financial analysts, of mergers and acquisitions specialists, and so on. This indicates not
only that the dynamic of rivalries can vary but also that the institutional setups associated
with them address different types of issues related to how worth is evaluated and judged
upon.
An objection that could be raised is that oftentimes organizations and not individuals
are involved in economic transactions. Yet, as it is often the case, transactions are con-
ducted by individuals on behalf of and as representatives of organizations. It becomes
relevant then to investigate how personal aspects relevant in rivalrous interactions are
transferred from the individual to the collective (or organizational level) and taken as
representative for the latter. This would only be an extension of Simmel’s argument
that values are objectified in rivalries.

Conclusion
I have started the argument by discussing shortly the proto-concept of rivalry and its tra-
jectory from aesthetic theory to political economy, in order to situate better the sociologi-
cal effort of reconceptualizing rivalry as a relationship, away from abstract and general
organizational principles, and from the heuristics of price finding.
Rivalry is a specific kind of social relationship supported by associated institutions
(such as contests, artistic and literary salons, world fairs, or trade fairs, to name but a
few). Rivalrous relationships are neither general, nor universal, nor all-on-all relation-
ships. They are not reducible to generalized dominance and status orders in and
outside the marketplace (Collins 1976, 137, 242). They can involve third parties, partici-
patory audiences for whom, and with whom the relationship unfolds. Audiences can
create rivalries too, in the sense that their responses to two actors can make these
enter a rivalry or can transform an acquaintanceship or a friendship into a rivalry. Fol-
lowing the argument put forth by Von Wiese, rivalries are under-determined and open
ended; they have duration; they do not necessarily have resolutions.
What is though their necessity? The formal features of rivalries alone cannot justify
their existence or the necessity of studying them more systematically. To go back to
von Wiese, the principle of rivalries is ‘what you can, I can.’ This is a precondition for
appending ‘only better’ to it. This raises issues of social knowledge, values, and valuations
in relationship to human attributes intrinsic to the rivalry process. Seen like this, rivalries
are different from a mere controversy, where at stake is establishing the attributes of an
external state (as in scientific controversies – see for instance Latour 1988; Collins 2004,
781), an object, activity, or discipline (e.g. as in an artistic controversy).
The necessity of the rivalry relationship is that it objectifies values – to use Simmel’s
phrase – in other words, that rivalries enable collective decisions about what is valuable
‘character’ (in Goffman’s words). This means that attributes deemed valuable for social
interactions within particular domains of activity are experienced and tested situationally
within rivalrous relationships. Such attributes cannot be decided upon on a purely dis-
cursive basis, or in a universal and standardized manner, or once and for all. Rivalries,
thus, are not fully co-extensive with competitions: while the former implies some form
of competition, not every aspect of competitions necessarily has to involve rivalries.
If we accept that rivalries are relational arrangements for experiencing and testing
what social attributes are valuable in what situations, then such arrangements can be
104 A. PREDA

investigated at individual and collective levels. Rivalries between artists, athletes, or scien-
tists (to name but a few) would all share the feature of dealing with issues of ‘character’, in
the sense that they situationally test specific, activity-relevant attributes. These latter, in
their turn, acquire (temporary) validity within such collective experiences of rivalry.
Since rivalries cannot a-temporally validate ‘character’, the elements of this latter can
and will change in time. The attributes seen as valuable in a scientist, for instance, in
an athlete, or in an artist, can change in time through rivalry dynamics.
Seen in this perspective, a sociology of rivalries would investigate how rivalrous
relationships produce knowledge about human attributes and ‘character’ – that is, how
they produce and validate attributes of individual and collective actors. For instance,
what makes an artist ‘innovative’, ‘rebellious’, ‘maverick’ or ‘marginal’ is neither a
simple declaratory exercise, nor a given, nor externally assigned, nor exclusively a
matter of that artists’ networks (see also Menger 2014, 283). It is related to the display
and validation of specific attributes not only of artwork but also of the person. If we
were to follow the arguments presented here, this validation would require a rivalry
relationship, one in which audiences can intervene. To come back to a previous
example: what is at stake ultimately in competitive swimming is the stroke, an apparently
simple athletic move jointly produced by swimmers, coaches, nutritionists, and phy-
siotherapists. What makes a stroke powerful, efficient, elegant or rough cannot be
decided solely with recourse to a timer. In fact, it can be argued that the outputs of a
timer provide starting points and occasions for producing such qualifiers in action
within rivalry relationships at the group and individual level. Similarly, if the Parker
Guide produces wine scores, to what extent does the web of social relationships (and
possible rivalries) that coalesces around the guide produce not only attributes such as
‘clarity’, ‘depth’, ‘floral notes’ but also human attributes such as fine noses, discriminating
eyesight, and discerning palates? A sociology of rivalries should investigate the relational
production and validation of these attributes.
Sometimes, rivalries have their own institutions, which contribute to the organized
observation and validation of attributes. Contests, prize cycles (e.g. the Pulitzer, the
Booker prizes), art salons, athletic championships, fairs, duels, ‘battles’ (of musicians,
for instance), rankings, ‘personality of X’ proclamations, or trade conventions have at
least one thing in common: they organize and channel the display of attributes relevant
for the activities at stake. These can be widened to include personal attributes relevant to
‘character,’ such as civility or sociability (e.g. McCormick 2014: 2264).
While particular types of relationships such as collaborations have been studied in
depth (e.g. Solomon 2008, 252), there have been comparatively few investigations of
rivalry as a social relationship. What are the internal dynamics of rivalries? What triggers
them, and what possible role do audiences play in this triggering? Under what conditions
and how do rivalries achieve closure? How do personal rivalries transfer at the collective
level? For instance, the personal rivalry between two CEOs can be transformed into firm
rivalry – a point noted by Veblen.
A micro-sociology of rivalries would contribute to the sociology of the professions too.
Many occupational skills, such as sports-relevant ones, seem to have been professiona-
lized at least in part in relationship to contests. At least some professions seem to have
institutional proclamations, such as ‘professional of the year’ or ‘top ten professionals
in the area of X’. A sociology of rivalries would investigate how such proclamations
 DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 105

intervene in professionalization processes, but also how rivalries impact professions and
the extent to which they are associated with proclamations or not.
A micro-sociology of rivalries would investigate, among others, the role of gender and
ethnicity in rivalry relationships, in the organization and dynamics of contests and
scrambles (e.g. Demoor, Saeys, and Lievens 2008; McGhee Hassrick 2012; Boyle 2005),
respectively, and in the constitutions of audiences.
Overall, a micro-sociology of rivalries can contribute to the scaffolding for analyzing
competitions and to correcting the public rhetoric about the latter as an unavoidable and
ubiquitous necessity.

Notes
1. In 1928, for instance, the Sixth Conference of the German Sociological Association has
‘Competition’ as its main topic (Verhandlungen 1929), with the explicit aim of making
rivalry a sociological concept, distinct from economic competitions. Previous efforts
include Simmel’s (1908) extensive treatment of competition, Robert Park’s (1967) approach,
the interest in strategic interactions present in the work of Jesse Bernard (1954) and Erving
Goffman (1969), or the development of conflict theory by Randall Collins (1976), among
others. With the exception of Robert Park and Jesse Bernard, early attempts to examine
competition sociologically have a distinct interactionist bend and focus on interpersonal riv-
alries and strategic interactions.
2. Ancient Greece knew two ostensive, non-normative terms that point to two different sets of
practices and relationships: those of agōn and of echthra, respectively. The first designated,
with historical variations, forms of (mostly, but not exclusively) athletic contest (see Golden
2004, 5; 2008, 92; Pleket 2014, 39; Farrington 2014, 177, 181; Poliakoff 1987, 114; Scanlon
2014, 14). The second designated a publicly acknowledged relationship of personal rivalry
that was distinct from mere hatred or anger (Alwine 2015, 28, 31, 54). These two ostensive
terms differ from the normative, Renaissance ones which ground an aesthetic theory.
3. Similarly, the institution of the duel in Britain forbade members of the royal household, seen
as the top of the aristocratic hierarchy, to engage in duels (Allen and Reed 2006, 97). Duels
between aristocrats and workers were forbidden (Collins 2008, 213). Duels between female
aristocrats, while rare, do occur.
4. Jean-Christophe Agnew (1986, 9, 17–8) shows that, up to the eighteenth century, political
philosophy as well as pre-classical economic thinking develops a general and abstract
notion of the ‘market’ only very slowly and that representations of lively individual trans-
actions in specific marketplaces play a significant role in this respect.
5. Mary Morgan (1993) has highlighted how, under the influence of biologism, over the course
of the nineteenth century, the principle of competition changes from a more or less civilized
struggle in the marketplace to a generalized struggle for accumulation. For reasons of space,
this transition is not discussed here.
6. This view finds its way into sociology in the work of Robert Park (1967, 70, 75, 79), among
others, who sees generalized struggle as an explanatory principle for all organic, social, and
economic life. From a mere tool allowing market actors to find the (just or unique) price,
rivalry becomes a generalized principle of all existence and, with that, of social order
(Park 1967, 83). This essentially means that an external deterministic principle is adopted
as a general explanans: biological/economic struggles (Park sees them as amounting to
the same) determine social life. This is less of a genuinely sociological concept than the (logi-
cally unwarranted) adoption and generalization of a heuristic tool initiated in classical pol-
itical economy (and formalized by neoclassical political economy) for accounting for the
price mechanism.
7. Thorstein Veblen implicitly distinguishes rivalries from struggles. For Veblen (1899, 34),
rivalries consist in ‘invidious comparisons’ and have to do with the social worth of the
106 A. PREDA

individuals and groups involved, not with mere accumulation of goods. The notion of jea-
lousy, which is also invoked by Simmel in relationship to competition (as distinct from
envying material goods), implies that competitions have psychological (rather than biologi-
cal) underpinnings.
8. Such challenges can occur within organizations, but they involve individuals. They imply
contesting authenticity, or honour, or respect, by means of counter-narratives or of counter-
signals targeted at a public, or at one’s network of relationships, or at both. Examples in this
sense are, among other, rap music rivalries (e.g., Harkness 2013), but also the rivalries in the
wine industry (Garcia Parpet 2008).
9. Similarly with Leopold von Wiese and with Karl Mannheim, but before them, Simmel sees
rivalries as having a durable relational quality that is distinct from the accumulation of
goods by depriving a counterparty (see also Duina 2011, 165). Rivalries are not reducible
to the economic sphere; their motor is not envy (for material goods), but (status) jealousy
(Simmel 1908, 318–9). In a similar vein, Pierre Bourdieu seems to conceive rivalries as
status-relevant struggles for control of both ‘taste’ and access to ‘taste’, as in the case of
the Parisian salons (Bourdieu 1992, 135–142). The drive of rivalries is the jealousy of one
party toward the other. Thus, rivalries are inter-actor relationships, not actor-artefact ones.
10. In his analysis of how relationships of dominance are formed, John Levi Martin emphasizes
the significance of ritualized submission, which requires a public (2009, 118, 146). In other
words, a prerequisite for such a relationship is that it is displayed to relevant publics at key
moments.
11. Rivals can also observe moves that are not intentionally put on display, for instance athletes
or coaches observing the training routines of their competitors.
12. Goffman acknowledges that contests can and do include ritualistic moments (1967, 178–9);
yet, these moments are either subordinated to the broader scope of problematic and conse-
quential engagements (casino players kissing dice before throwing would be such an
instance), or are moves in a strategic game (1969, 125).

Acknowledgment
The author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and sugges-
tions. The author also owes a debt of gratitude to Hendrik Vollmer, John Levi Martin, Rita
Samiolo, and Leon Wansleben, who on multiple occasions have engaged in reading manuscript
drafts, comments, and discussions. The author has greatly benefitted from their critical insights.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor
Alex Preda is a sociologist working at King’s College London. He is the author of, among others,
Framing finance. The boundaries of markets and modern capitalism (2009) and Noise. Living and
trading in electronic markets (2017), both published with the University of Chicago Press. His
research interests are in the sociology of science and technology and the sociology of finance.

ORCID
Alex Preda http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2456-2713
 DISTINKTION: JOURNAL OF SOCIAL THEORY 107

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