Kathleen Thelen
Berkeley, she was influenced by faculty members John Zsyman, Gregory Luebbert, Ernst Haas, Reinhard Bendix, and Harold Wilensky, as well as fellow graduate students Jonas Pontusson, Sven Steinmo, Robin Gaster, and Tony Daley.Through an analysis of labor relations in Germany between the 1970s and 1980s, she identified the interaction of centralized bargaining and German work councils as the institutional basis for peaceful, negotiated adjustment in the midst of radical economic and political change.[5] In “How Institutions Evolve” (2004), Thelen examines variations in the nineteenth century settlements between employers and skill-intensive workers, artisans, and early trade unions.For example, she discovered that German Handicraft Protection Law of 1897, originally designed to shore up support among a reactionary artisanal class, was a historical cause of contemporary Germany’s vocational training system.Contrary to the conventional wisdom, her study reveals that the successful defense of the institutions traditionally associated with coordinated capitalism has often been a recipe for increased inequality due to declining coverage and dualization.