Kathleen Thelen - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Kathleen Thelen

This essay explores the question of how fonnal institutions change. J Despite the importance assi... more This essay explores the question of how fonnal institutions change. J Despite the importance assigned by many scholars to the role of institutions in structuring political life, the issue of how these institutions are themselves shaped and reconfigured over time has not received the attention it is due. In the 1970s and 1980s, a good deal of comparative institutionalist work centered on comparative statics and was concerned with demonstrating the ways in which different institutional arrangements drove divergent political and policy outcomes (e.g., Katzenstein 1978). In addition, scholarship in the comparative historical tradition has yielded important insights into the genesis of divergent (usually national) trajectories. Works in this vein include some classics such as Gerschenkron (1962), Moore (1966), and Shefter (1977), but also significant recent contributions such as Collier and Collier (1991), Skocpol (1992), Spruyt (1994), Ernnan (1997), Gould (1999), and Huber and Stephens...

The End of Diversity?, 2018

The French and German political economies have been significantly reconfigured over the past two ... more The French and German political economies have been significantly reconfigured over the past two decades. Although the changes have often been more piecemeal than revolutionary, their cumulative effects are profound. The authors characterize the changes that have taken place as involving the institutionalization of new forms of dualism and argue that what gives contemporary developments a different character from the past is that dualism is now explicitly underwritten by state policy. They see this outcome as the culmination of a sequence of developments, beginning in the field of industrial relations, moving into labor market dynamics, and finally finding institutional expression in welfare state reforms. Contrary to theoretical accounts that suggest that institutional complementarities support stability and institutional reproduction, the authors argue that the linkages across these realms have helped to translate employer strategies that originated in the realm of industrial relations into a stable, new, and less egalitarian model with state support.

"Dynamic. Creative. Restless. Risk-taking." These are words that, according to Kathleen... more "Dynamic. Creative. Restless. Risk-taking." These are words that, according to Kathleen Thelen, not only describe capitalism but also the scholar who in his unique way has dedicated decades to understanding it

Law and contemporary problems, 2020

In the literature on political economy and historical sociology, American exceptionalism has typi... more In the literature on political economy and historical sociology, American exceptionalism has typically been framed as a question of why American labor unions appeared so weak and so conservative compared to their European counterparts. The usual answers point to American political culture, characteristics of the working class, features of American political parties or the party system, or aspects of the American state. However, by posing the question as an inquiry into what is different about American labor, scholars have overlooked the possibility that what is exceptional about the United States may have more to do with the distinctive features of American employers rather than of its unions or its working class. This Article attempts to fill that gap by bringing a comparative perspective to bear on an underexplored aspect of American exceptionalism: the peculiar features of American employers and the legal framework regulating firm competition in which they historically developed....

Annual Review of Political Science, 2021

This article provides an overview of the emerging field of American political economy (APE). Meth... more This article provides an overview of the emerging field of American political economy (APE). Methodologically eclectic, this field seeks to understand the interaction of markets and government in America's unequal and polarized polity. Though situated within American politics research, APE draws from comparative political economy to develop a broad approach that departs from the American politics mainstream in two main ways. First, APE focuses on the interaction of markets and governance, a peripheral concern in much American politics research. Second, it invokes a theoretical orientation attentive to what we call meta politics—the processes of institution shaping, agenda setting, and venue shopping that unfold before and alongside the more visible processes of mass politics that figure so centrally in American politics research. These substantive and theoretical differences expand the study of American politics into neglected yet vital domains, generating fresh insights into th...

The American Political Economy, 2021

Politics & Society, 2020

A large literature on urban politics documents the connection between metropolitan fragmentation ... more A large literature on urban politics documents the connection between metropolitan fragmentation and inequality. This article situates the United States comparatively to explore the structural features of local governance that underpin this connection. Examining five metropolitan areas in North America and Europe, the article identifies two distinct dimensions of fragmentation: (a) fragmentation through jurisdictional proliferation (dividing regions into increasing numbers of governments) and (b) fragmentation through resource hoarding (via exclusion, municipal parochialism, and fiscal competition). This research reveals how distinctive the United States is in the ways it combines institutional arrangements that facilitate metropolitan fragmentation (through jurisdictional proliferation) and those that reward such fragmentation (through resource-hoarding opportunities). Non-US cases furnish examples of policies that reduce jurisdictional proliferation or remove resource-hoarding opp...

Politics & Society, 2019

This article explores the changing nature of twenty-first-century capitalism with an emphasis on ... more This article explores the changing nature of twenty-first-century capitalism with an emphasis on illuminating the political coalitions and institutional conditions that support and sustain it. Most of the existing literature attributes the changing nature of the firm to developments in markets and technology. By contrast, this article emphasizes the political forces that have driven the transformation of the twentieth-century consolidated firm through the firm as a “network of contracts” and toward the platform firm. Moreover, situating the United States in a comparative perspective highlights the distinctive ways US political-economic institutions have facilitated that transformation and exacerbated the associated inequalities.

Perspectives on Politics, 2019

The address situates the rise of “gig” work in the context of a much longer-term trend toward mor... more The address situates the rise of “gig” work in the context of a much longer-term trend toward more precarious forms of employment. It explores the forces that are driving these developments and discusses the problems they pose at both the individual level and the national level. By situating the United States in a comparative perspective, it identifies the structural factors that exacerbate the problem of precarity and intensify its effects in the American political economy.

Comparative Politics, 2019

The "digital revolution" that began in the late 1960s has transformed product markets and product... more The "digital revolution" that began in the late 1960s has transformed product markets and production processes in rich democracies. Observers depict the changes underway as a transition from the Fordist industrial economy to a new "knowledge economy," characterized by rapid technological innovation and associated with a heightened premium on higher education. 1 Although the challenges of this transition are broadly similar across the rich democracies, individual countries have navigated the course differently. This article compares three countries that exhibit different trajectories of change: Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Unlike their liberal counterparts (including the United States and the United Kingdom), all three countries feature strong social partnership between unions and organized employers, and they are all considered examples of coordinated market economies in the literature on varieties of capitalism. However, despite these similarities, each has adapted differently to the challenges and opportunities of the new knowledge economy. Germany has vigorously defended its strength in high quality manufacturing through the digital transformation of products and production within the traditional industrial core. Sweden, by contrast, has moved more strongly to compete directly in high-tech sectors, especially information and communications technologies (ICT). Finally, the Dutch have increasingly turned to high-end business services, deploying new technologies to return to the country's historic strengths in trade and finance. What accounts for these divergent trajectories? I argue that differences in the structure of organized labor and business interests, and in the institutions that structure their interactions with each other and with the state, produced different coalitional alignments that have led these countries onto divergent paths toward the knowledge economy today. In Germany, unions and employers are organized along industrial lines, and manufacturing interests dominate the producer-group landscape on both sides of the class divide. Market pressures since the 1970s have inspired intense cross-class cooperation within the industrial sector and forged a formidable political alliance 296

Perspectives on Politics, 2018

I use the case of the transportation network company Uber as a lens to explore the comparative po... more I use the case of the transportation network company Uber as a lens to explore the comparative politics of the platform economy in Europe and the United States. Within the advanced capitalist world, different countries have responded in very different ways to this new service, from welcome embrace and accommodating regulatory adjustments to complete rejection and legal bans. I analyze Uber’s arrival and reception in the United States, Germany, and Sweden, documenting three very different responses to this disruptive new actor. I show that conflicts over Uber centered on different issues in the three countries. These differences were consequential because the specific regulatory “flashpoints”that Uber provoked mobilized different actors, inspired the formation of different coalitions, and shaped the terms on which conflicts over Uber were framed and fought.

PS: Political Science & Politics, 2017

This article explores publication patterns across 10 prominent political science journals, docume... more This article explores publication patterns across 10 prominent political science journals, documenting a significant gender gap in publication rates for men and women. We present three broad findings. First, we find no evidence that the low percentage of female authors simply mirrors an overall low share of women in the profession. Instead, we find continued underrepresentation of women in many of the discipline’s top journals. Second, we find that women are not benefiting equally in a broad trend across the discipline toward coauthorship. Most published collaborative research in these journals emerges from all-male teams. Third, it appears that the methodological proclivities of the top journals do not fully reflect the kind of work that female scholars are more likely than men to publish in these journals. The underrepresentation of qualitative work in many journals is associated as well with an underrepresentation of female authors.

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2016

This chapter traces developments in historical institutionalist approaches to institutional chang... more This chapter traces developments in historical institutionalist approaches to institutional change. Originally, historical (like rational choice and sociological) institutionalism focused on institutions as “independent” variables, favoring a “comparative statics” mode of analysis. Institutions were relatively fixed and unproblematically enforced rules, while change came through periodic “critical junctures.” A dualistic institutional imagery treated institutions as exogenous for some analytical purposes, highly plastic for others. More recently, historical institutionalists have turned their attention to the dynamics of institutional evolution through political contestation and contextual change. This has allowed the identification of previously neglected processes of incremental and endogenous institutional change.

British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2009

The political-economic institutions that have traditionally reconciled economic efficiency with s... more The political-economic institutions that have traditionally reconciled economic efficiency with social solidarity in the advanced industrial countries, and specifically in the so-called 'coordinated market economies', are indisputably under pressure today. However, scholars disagree on the trajectory and significance of the institutional changes we can observe in many of these countries, and they generally lack the conceptual tools that would be necessary to resolve these disagreements. This article attempts to break through this theoretical impasse by providing a framework for determining the direction, identifying the mode, and assessing the meaning of the changes we can observe in levels of both economic coordination and social solidarity.

[Excerpt] Dieser Bericht untersucht die Mitbestimmung im Deutschland der neunziger Jahre in inter... more [Excerpt] Dieser Bericht untersucht die Mitbestimmung im Deutschland der neunziger Jahre in international vergleichender Perspektive. Wir konzentrieren uns dabei auf die Regulierung der Arbeitsbeziehungen im Betrieb die Mitbestimmung in den Aufsichtsräten auf Unternehmensebene behandeln wir nur am Rande. Gleichzeitig richtet sich das Hauptaugenmerk unserer Analyse darauf, wie die Mitbestimmung im Betrieb mit ihrem institutionellen Kontext, insbesondere mit anderen Elementen der industriellen Beziehungen interagiert-vor allem wie die deutsche Mitbestimmung in das System der Industriegewerkschaften und der nach Branchen geführten Tarifvereinbarungen eingebettet ist. Unsere Untersuchung konzentriert sich auf Vergleiche des deutschen Modells-das durch einheitliche Repräsentation der Arbeitnehmer auf Betriebsebene durch gesetzlich geregelte Betriebsräte mit starken formalen und informellen Verbindungen zu auβerbetrieblichen Gewerkschaften sowie durch relativ starke und gesetzlich definierte Rechte und Pflichten gegenüber dem Arbeitgeber im betrieblichen Entscheidungsprozeβ gekennzeichnet ist-mit Institutionen und Prozessen in anderen Ländern. Die Fragen, um die herum sich unsere Untersuchung organisiert, lauten: wie unterscheidet sich die deutsche Mitbestimmung von den betrieblichen Regimen anderer Länder; in welche Richtung verändern sich gegenwärtig Institutionen und Praktiken der Arbeitsbeziehungen; und was sind die relative Stärken und Schwächen anderer betrieblicher Regime im Kontext sich rasch wandelnder Weltmärkte? Der Bericht gliedert sich in fünf Teile. Im ersten Teil geben wir einen Überblick über die vergleichende theoretische Literatur, die sich mit den sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Folgen der Institutionen der industriellen Beziehungen und der Repräsentation im Betrieb befaβt. Der zweite und dritte Teil vergleichen die deutsche Mitbestimmung mit Systemen der Repräsentation und Organisation von Arbeitnehmern in anderen Ländern. Dabei beziehen wir uns zunächst auf andere groβe Volkswirtschaften (Groβbritannien, die Vereinigten Staaten, Japan, Italien und Frankreich) und anschlieβend auf ausgewählte europäische Länder, die über ähnliche Institutionen verfügen (Österreich, Belgien, Dänemark, die Niederlande und Schweden). In allen Fällen werden wir untersuchen, was die verfügbare Literatur über die Funktionsweise dieser anderen betrieblichen Regime aussagt. Dies nutzen wir als Grundlage, um die besonderen Eigenschaften (und damit auch die Stärken und Schwächen) der deutschen Mitbestimmung und des »dualen Systems« der industriellen Beziehungen im allgemeinen zu bewerten. Der vierte Teil beschäftigt sich mit den Herausforderungen, denen die deutsche Mitbestimmung in Zeiten globaler und regionaler Integration ausgesetzt ist. Er untersucht, ob und wie Recht und Wirklichkeit der Mitbestimmung mit der Internationalisierung der Kapitalbewegungen und der Herausbildung groβer, multinationaler Konzerne vereinbar ist. Der fünfte und letzte Teil faβt unsere Resultate zusammen und präsentiert unsere Schluβfolgerungen für die Zukunft der deutschen Mitbestimmung angesichts der kritischen wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Probleme im Zusammenhang mit Umstrukturierung und Reorganisation, Innovation, Qualifizierung, sozialer Stabilität, Partizipation am Arbeitsplatz und wirtschaftlicher Effizienz.