Shaping institutional change in skill formation: the role of background ideas in growth strategies
Journal
Journal of European Public Policy
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2025
Author(s)
Abstract
States are taking on an increasingly prominent role in shaping policy across
advanced capitalist democracies. This paper conducts a comparative study of
state intervention in skill formation between 2014 and 2022 and explores
why state intervention was deployed for opposite goals: it increased
deregulation, underlining skill formation’s subordinate role in the French
educational system while it strengthened collective governance and the
social inclusion potential of the German system. Using a mixed-methods
approach that combines process tracing and discourse network analysis of
public media debates, this study argues that the non-functionalist
background ideas of the actors employing skill formation in growth
strategies inform this process. In Germany, beliefs about the complementarity
between skill formation and economic growth tie coalitions of state actors
and employers that promote institutional reproduction of skill formation
even by unusual means, such as state intervention. In contrast, in France,
where the skill formation system is perceived as a social policy tool, a
coalition of business and state actors aims at increasing the economic
potential of the system and reforming its governance according to market
principles. This paper calls for more attention to the role of the ideas in
influencing trajectories of institutional change.
advanced capitalist democracies. This paper conducts a comparative study of
state intervention in skill formation between 2014 and 2022 and explores
why state intervention was deployed for opposite goals: it increased
deregulation, underlining skill formation’s subordinate role in the French
educational system while it strengthened collective governance and the
social inclusion potential of the German system. Using a mixed-methods
approach that combines process tracing and discourse network analysis of
public media debates, this study argues that the non-functionalist
background ideas of the actors employing skill formation in growth
strategies inform this process. In Germany, beliefs about the complementarity
between skill formation and economic growth tie coalitions of state actors
and employers that promote institutional reproduction of skill formation
even by unusual means, such as state intervention. In contrast, in France,
where the skill formation system is perceived as a social policy tool, a
coalition of business and state actors aims at increasing the economic
potential of the system and reforming its governance according to market
principles. This paper calls for more attention to the role of the ideas in
influencing trajectories of institutional change.
Refereed
yes
Additional Information
Presented at the NordWel Summer School on "STATE, SOCIETY & CITIZEN- CROSS-DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON WELFARE STATE DEVELOPMENT" and at CES 2024 in Lyon
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