Patrick Emmenegger
Thumbnail Image
Title
Prof. Dr.
Last Name
Emmenegger
First name
Patrick
Email
patrick.emmenegger@unisg.ch
Phone
+41 71 224 2332
Homepage

Research Output

Filters

Reset filters

Settings
Now showing 1 - 10 of 190
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Education as social policy: New tensions in maturing knowledge economies

2023-03-01 , Carstensen, Martin B. , Emmenegger, Patrick

Abstract Education has long played an important role in social policy as a means for strengthening labour market integration and increasing social mobility. The shift towards a knowledge economy has placed education policy even more centrally in efforts to provide the institutional preconditions for making economic efficiency compatible with social inclusion. To provide conceptual and theoretical context to the special issue, this paper first explores the key tension in the role of education in modern economies between serving concerns for efficiency and inclusion. Second, it argues that it remains possible for education policy to balance between efficiency and inclusion, but that the capacity of advanced economies to do so is politically mediated. Finally, the paper reviews the four main arenas in which such mediation processes take place—the parliamentary arena, the corporatist arena, the state, and public opinion—and how the contributions to the special issue study these

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

State-Led Bricolage and the Extension of Collective Governance: Hybridity in the Swiss Skill Formation System.

2021-08-16 , Graf, Lukas , Strebel, Alexandra , Emmenegger, Patrick

This paper explores the extension of collective governance to sectors without collective governance tradition. We introduce the concept of state-led bricolage to analyze the expansion of the Swiss apprenticeship training system – in which employer associations fulfill core collective governance tasks – to economic sectors in which training had previously followed a school-based and state-oriented logic. In deindustrializing societies, these sectors are key for the survival of collectively governed training systems. Through a mixed-methods analysis, we examine the reform process that led to the creation of new intermediary organizations that enable collective governance in these sectors. In addition, we compare the organizational features of these organizations with the respective organizations in the traditional crafts and industry sectors. We find that the new organizations result from state-led bricolage. They are hybrid organizations that reflect some of the bricoleur's core policy goals and critically build on the combination of associational and state-oriented institutional logics.

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Masters of grey zones and elusive champions of the tax ‘optimization’ industry (book symposium with Oliver Godechot and Patrick Inglis).

2019 , Emmenegger, Patrick

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

The Politics of Inequality as Organised Spectacle: Why the Swiss Do Not Want to Tax the Rich

2019-01-18 , Emmenegger, Patrick , Marx, Paul

In 2015, Swiss voters had the opportunity to impose a tax on the super rich in a popular vote and thereby fund a redistributive policy. However, a large majority voted against its seemingly obvious self-interest and rejected the tax. We propose an explanation for this puzzling outcome, bridging the usually separate behavioralist and institutionalist perspectives on the politics of inequality. We start from the observation that political economy tends to neglect processes of preference formation. Theorising preferences as socially constructed, we show that interest groups played a major role in shaping the outcome of the vote. Business frames were multiplied through allied parties and the media and had a major impact on individual voting behaviour. In addition, we demonstrate that interest groups representing business interests derive the content of their communication from business’s structurally privileged position in the capitalist economy. Specifically, creating uncertainty about possible perverse effects of government policies on jobs and growth is a powerful tool to undermine popular support. Frames based on this structural power ultimately explain why the Swiss refrained from ‘soaking the rich.’

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

The Limits of Decentralised Cooperation: The Promotion of Inclusiveness in Collective Skill Formation Systems?

2021 , Bonoli, Giuliano , Emmenegger, Patrick

This paper examines how collective skill formation systems balance economic objectives related to competitiveness and social objectives related to inclusion. Based on a simple theoretical model, we argue that there are clear limits to how much inclusiveness can be achieved in collective skill formation systems. Firms are generally successful in resisting pressure by governments to be more inclusive because they benefit from their structural power in collective skill formation systems. Therefore, most pro-inclusiveness policies in such training systems do not require any firm-specific involvement. If pro-inclusiveness policies involve firms, employer associations typically participate in their development, trying to align the goal of inclusion with the economic interest of employers. Our two-level game model helps to understand this complex interaction between governments and firms. Empirical examples substantiate our expectations. They show how important it is to consider both levels simultaneously when analyzing inclusion-oriented training policy reforms.

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

New Interest Associations in a Neo-Corporatist System: Adapting the Swiss Training System to the Service Economy.

2021-09 , Strebel, Alexandra , Emmenegger, Patrick , Graf, Lukas

Collective skill formation systems need to adapt to economic change, most notably the expansion of the service economy. However, deeply anchored in the craft and industrial sectors, these systems rely on neo-corporatist institutions to undergird firms’ training provision, which are often missing in the service sector. We show that Switzerland's voluntaristic approach to interest intermediation provided the flexibility needed to extend vocational training to economic sectors without neo-corporatist institutions. Yet, these adaptations resulted in the emergence of interest associations characterised by low levels of generalisability and governability. These new associations co-exist with neo-corporatist ones, rendering the overall training system surprisingly heterogeneous.

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Social versus Liberal Collective Skill Formation Systems? A Comparative-Historical Analysis of the Role of Trade Unions in German and Swiss VET.

2019-04-23 , Emmenegger, Patrick , Graf, Lukas , Strebel, Alexandra

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Disproportional Threat: Redistricting as an Alternative to Proportional Representation.

2021-07 , Emmenegger, Patrick , Walter, André

Analyzing the voting behavior of Swiss members of parliament (MP) using newly collected individual, district, and cantonal level data, we show that both electoral disproportionalities and the insurgent parties’ electoral potential are important determinants of MP voting behavior on the adoption of proportional representation (PR). However, in contrast to the prominent electoral threat thesis, the insurgent party’s high electoral potential decreases the probability that MPs of established parties support PR. The reason for this relationship is partisan redistricting, whose relevance has so far been largely ignored in the literature. We demonstrate that adapting electoral district boundaries for political reasons, if possible in a given institutional context, can be a powerful alternative to the adoption of PR, because it allows established parties to retain parliamentary majorities even as an insurgent party’s electoral potential increases.

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Social partner involvement in collective skill formation governance. A comparison of Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland

2020-02-12 , Emmenegger, Patrick , Seitzl, Lina

Dual vocational education and training (VET) with social partner involvement in its governance can typically be found in collective skill formation systems. This article reviews the diversity of collective skill formation systems with a particular focus on their systemic governance. In particular, we look at the actors involved as well as how the systemic governance is organised in terms of corporatist decision-making bodies. The article shows that there are important cross-national differences. First, the social partners do not always participate in the decision-making at the political-strategic level. Second, social partner involvement is not always on equal terms (parity), with trade unions in some cases being less strongly involved. Third, differences in VET governance are particularly pronounced at the technical-operational level. Empirically, the article focuses on the five prototypical collective skill formation systems Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

View
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

The Governance of Decentralized Cooperation in Collective Training Systems: A Review and Conceptualization

2019 , Emmenegger, Patrick , Graf, Lukas , Trampusch, Christine

View