A great way to start the new year. The European Political Science Review just accepted our paper “Setting the Terms of State Intervention: Employers, Unions and the Politics of Inclusiveness in Austrian and Danish Vocational Education Institutions” (with Martin B. Carstensen and Daniel F. Unterweger). Here is the abstract:

How do coalitional dynamics matter for the capacity of states to maintain social inclusion in coordinated models of capitalism? Taking its departure in scholarship emphasizing the influence of employers on the extent of state intervention in post-industrial economies, this paper argues that employer influence depends on which actors they team up with – unions or parties. If unions depend on employers for their organizational influence in a policy field, unions become a strong coalitional partner for employers in weakening demands for inclusiveness from the parliamentary arena. Conversely, if unions have influence independent of any coalition with employers, both unions and employers are likely to team up with political parties aligned with their preferences. This makes the level of inclusion resulting from increased state intervention more fluctuating, depending on who holds government power. A comparative study of reforms of Danish and Austrian vocational education institutions corroborates the empirical purchase of the argument.

We are inviting applications for a postdoctoral research fellowship position (3.5 years) at the University of St. Gallen’s School of Economics and Political Science and its GOVPET research center. Please apply by December 31 to work with Giuliano Bonoli, Christine Trampusch, Patrick Emmenegger, and the other members of the GOVPET team on how labor markets and skill formation systems adapt to a knowledge economy, with a particular focus on digitalization and skill-biased technological change.

Within the confines of the overall project, the successful applicant will have freedom to develop her/his own independent research. Next to research, the postdoctoral researcher is expected to join the research team’s activities such as the annual doctoral workshop or the regular meetings with our prestigious academic advisory board. There are no teaching obligations.

The successful applicant is expected to have:

• A PhD in political science or a related discipline
• Interest in theory-guided empirical research
• Excellent training in social science methodology
• Strong English language skills; additional German language skills are an advantage but are not considered necessary

We seek a candidate per mutual agreement (at earliest by February 1, 2022).

The GOVPET Leading House is a multi-disciplinary research center at the Universities of St. Gallen and Lausanne, conducting cutting-edge research at the intersection of labor markets and education/training policies. The center’s main goal is to develop knowledge about how labor markets and skill formation systems adapt to a knowledge economy, and how these processes are governed by political and economic actors. For more information on the GOVPET Leading House, please visit our website at http://www.govpet.ch.

The application should include a cover letter, statement of research, curriculum vitae, publication list, a job market paper, and contact information for two professional references that may be contacted. Candidates should submit their application to Prof. Dr. Patrick Emmenegger (patrick.emmenegger[at]unisg[dot]ch) at the latest by December 31. For further information, please also contact Patrick Emmenegger.

Our new book on “Collective Skill Formation in the Knowledge Economy” will be coming out soon (with Oxford University Press), with contributions by Kathleen Thelen, Marius Busemeyer, Christine Trampusch, Giuliano Bonoli, Christian Lyhne Ibsen, Lukas Graf, Martin Bæk Carstensen, Philipp Gonon, Dennie Nijhuis and many more! It was a fantastic experience working with this wonderful group of scholars.

The European Journal of Industrial Relations just accepted the paper “Orchestrators of Coordination: Towards a New Role of the State in Coordinated Capitalism?” for publication (co-authored with Marius R. Busemeyer and Martin B. Carstensen). Here is the abstract:

Liberalization poses significant challenges for the continued provision of collective goods within coordinated market economies (CME). Extant scholarship suggests two dominant sets of responses. Either CMEs continue to rely on employer coordination, but only for a privileged core, leading to dualization. Or, in cases where the state enjoys high capacity, the state instead compensates for liberalization but ends up crowding out employer coordination. In both cases, the result is decreasing employer coordination. We argue that in CMEs, the state may also play the role of ‘orchestrator’ by supporting the revitalization of employer coordination. It does so through the deployment of ideational and institutional resources that mobilize employers’ associations on a voluntary basis. Applying our framework to a core area of coordinated capitalism, vocational education and training, we show that in both Germany and Switzerland, this indirect and soft form of state intervention was instrumental for turning around their crisis-stricken vocational training systems.

Dr. Lina Seitzl, CPE @ HSG team member and post-doctoral researcher in the GOVPET Leading House, just got elected to the German Bundestag as a Member of Parliament. CONGRATULATIONS! Great loss for our team but also a big win for German politics.

The Swiss Political Science Review just accepted the paper “Torn Between International Cooperation and National Sovereignty: Voter Attitudes in Trade-Off Situations in Switzerland” (together with Lukas Lauener, Silja Häusermann and Stefanie Walter). Here is the abstract:

This Research Note examines voter preferences in Swiss-EU relations. We identify large shares of cross-pressured voters, i.e., citizens who support the bilateral treaties but wish to either control immigration into Switzerland or oppose a liberalization of social protection measures. Voters experiencing a trade-off between immigration control and international cooperation are mainly located on the Right. Their share decreased between 2015 and 2019, whereas the share of neutral voters sharply increased. Moreover, negotiations about an Institutional Framework Agreement between Switzerland and the EU have given rise to a new trade-off – namely between social protection and international cooperation – with cross-pressured voters mainly concentrated on the Left. This tension has generated a high share of undecided voters. When pressured to decide on these trade-offs, cross-pressured and neutral voters opt for the bilateral treaties over immigration control, whereas they prefer social protection over the new agreement. Partisanship is a strong predictor of these choices.

Great news! André Walter just received a prestigious SNF Ambizione Grant. I am sad to see him leave the CPE @ HSG group after nine years but I am very happy for him. It is a great project. Well done! Here is to another nine years of collaboration!

Great news! Dominik Schraff, former member of the CPE @ HSG group and currently senior researcher at the Center for International and Comparative Studies, ETH Zurich (on a SNF Ambizione Grant) will start as Associate Professor at Aalborg University in November 2021. Congratulations. Well done!

Regulation & Governance just accepted our paper “State-Led Bricolage and the Extension of Collective Governance: Hybridity in the Swiss Skill Formation System” (with Lukas Graf and Alexandra Strebel). Here is the abstract:

This paper explores the extension of collective governance to sectors without collective governance tradition. We introduce the concept of state-led bricolage to analyze the expansion of the Swiss apprenticeship training system – in which employer associations fulfil core collective governance tasks – to economic sectors, in which training had previously followed a school-based and state-oriented logic. In deindustrializing societies, these sectors are key for the survival of collectively governed training systems. Through a mixed-methods analysis, we examine the reform process that led to the creation of new intermediary organizations that enable collective governance in these sectors. In addition, we compare the organizational features of these organizations with the respective organizations in the traditional crafts and industry sectors. We find that the new organizations result from state-led bricolage. They are hybrid organizations that reflect some of the bricoleur’s core policy goals and critically build on the combination of associational and state-oriented institutional logics. 

Good news. The Journal of European Public Policy just accepted the “Does War Exposure Increase Support for State Penetration? Evidence from a Natural Experiment” (with André Walter). Here is the abstract:

A vast literature argues that war exposure has left an enduring footprint on state penetration of society, both with regard to taxation and state intervention into the economy. In this way, interstate warfare has contributed to declining levels of inequality. Yet, several questions remain. Most notably, it is unclear whether war increases popular support for penetration or if changes in taxation and economic intervention are primarily elite-driven. Existing research rests mainly at the macro level and is therefore unable to distinguish between the two mechanisms. In this paper, we employ a natural experiment to investigate whether direct war exposure affects popular preferences for state penetration in the post-war period. We use accidental bombardments of Swiss municipalities during the Second World War as treatments to examine whether popular preferences expressed in direct democratic votes on tax policies and economic intervention in war-affected municipalities followed different trajectories in the post-war period compared to municipalities that were not the target of accidental bombardments. We show that war exposure increased popular support for state intervention into the economy, but we do not find an effect of accidental bombardments on popular support for more progressive taxes or the extension of fiscal capacity.