Skills and Inequality Partisan Politics and the Political Economy of Education Reforms in Western Welfare States

Skills and Inequality studies the political economy of education and training reforms from the perspective of comparative welfare state research. Highlighting the striking similarities between established worlds of welfare capitalism and educational regimes, Marius R. Busemeyer argues that both have similar political origins in the postwar period. He identifies partisan politics and different varieties of capitalism as crucial factors shaping choices about the institutional design of post-secondary education. The political and institutional survival of vocational education and training as an alternative to academic higher education is then found to play an important role in the later development of skill regimes. Busemeyer also studies the effects of educational institutions on social inequality and patterns of public opinion on the welfare state and education. Adopting a multi-method approach, this book combines historical case studies of Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom with quantitative analyses of macro-level aggregate data and micro-level survey data.

Introduction; Part I. The Political and Institutional Determinants of Education Policy: 1. Theoretical framework: partisan politics in context; 2. The politics of education and training reform: case studies; 3. Worlds of skill formation: cross-national quantitative analysis; Part II. The Impact of Educational Institutions on Outcomes and Popular Attitudes: 4. Educational institutions and socioeconomic inequality; 5. The impact of educational institutions on popular attitudes and preferences; 6. Conclusion.

Marius R. Busemeyer is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz, Germany. His research focuses on comparative political economy and welfare state research, education and social policy, public spending, theories of institutional change and, more recently, public opinion on the welfare state. He has published a large number of journal articles and edited The Political Economy of Collective Skill Formation (with Christine Trampusch, 2011) as well as a special issue of the Socio-Economic Review on 'The Political Economy of Skills and Inequality' (with Torben Iversen).