Marius Busemeyer was awarded Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research 2015
30. July 2015
The prize is awarded by the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the University of Bergen (Norway), and the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) on an annual basis. The jury acknowledges Busemeyers's book as
“innovative in its analytical ambitions; theoretically sophisticated; exceptionally broad-ranging in its empirical scope; and rigorous in methodological terms. As such, the book constitutes a ‘very substantial and original contribution in comparative social science research,’ as stipulated as the main criterion for the award of the Stein Rokkan Prize.”
The book „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.” (publisher)
Marius Busemeyer is professor of political science (with a focus on policy analysis and political theory) at the University of Konstanz. Between October 2013 and September 2014, he has done research as a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study Konstanz, where he finished the manuscript of the awarded book.