Dr. Marius R. Busemeyer

 

Research Projects

 

"The Evolution of German Vocational Training since 1976", with Kathleen Thelen and Wolfgang Streeck

The German system of vocational education and training is currently undergoing profound changes. This project builds on recently published work (Kathleen Thelen, How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). It seeks to advance existing understandings of processes of long-term institutional change based on an analysis of contemporary changes in the German system against a broad comparative backdrop. The first phase of the project will provide a comprehensive inventory of the reforms and adjustment measures that have been undertaken since the mid-1970s, analyzed with reference to the actual effects of these initiatives. This will provide an overview of general patterns of institutional change. In addition, the project will reconstruct the current state of the reform discussion in Germany, with special attention on how this discussion is influenced by developments at the EU level. The second phase of the project will consider developments in other, adjacent and related institutions such as collective bargaining and corporate governance. This phase will devote special attention to the interfaces across different institutional realms and the dynamic relations that emerge as a result of institutional complementarities, as well as to the causal mechanisms and processes through which developments in one institutional arena can foster or drive changes in other, neighboring, realms. This part of the project incorporates an explicitly international-comparative dimension. The project will be financed in part through a Max Planck Research Award for International Cooperation (Thelen). Project duration: September 2006 to August 2009.