Research Program
INSTITUTIONS, INEQUALITIES  and INTERNATIONALISATION

Research topics

The point of departure of I³ is what might be termed, after Polanyi, the Second Great Transformation: from markets embedded in national states to states embedded in international markets. The key conjecture inspiring our research agenda is that existing national and international governance institutions regulating and distributing social and economic resources are called into question, because they are or appear ineffective and strongly challenged by transnational, global and sometimes domestic developments such as financial globalisation, relocation of labour, migration, ageing, etc. Thus, renewal at local, national and international level is called for, with improved interaction between levels and learning about where and how to best create effective institutions. 

The I³ research programme is about how institutions of socio-economic governance emerge, develop, change or break down.  Empirically we focus on labour markets and relations, welfare states and social protection, companies and finance, i.e., those domains, institutions, policies and actors that have a major bearing on the production and distribution of resources across societies, regions, localities, classes, households and individuals. We place our programme within the comparative and international political economy, political science and sociology of governance., institutions and stratification. Our focus is on the study of change in contemporary societies, but this will not do without attention to politics in time and historical analysis. We favour cross-national comparative studies, if feasible extending beyond the world of OECD or EU. Theoretically and methodologically, the study of institution creation and evolution can gain much from comparison with transitional economies and emergent capitalisms in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, China, South and East Asia, Brazil and others.

We place the study of institutions in the dual context of challenges and outcomes – of internationalisation and inequalities. Acknowledging that pressures on current welfare states, labour markets, firms and financial regulation have also domestic origins, we nonetheless give much weight to challenges created by an increasingly transnational economy. Moreover, through this bias we direct our attention to the problem of institution creation at the international level and the relation between different levels of governance (international, regional, national and local). Thus, in addition to cross-national comparative research, we wish to include the vertical (multi-level) dimension of internationalisation in our research..

Institutions always involve alignments and distributions of interests, norms and power. In particular, when focusing on labour markets, welfare states, firms and finance, our key interest is how (varying) social institutions influence, alter, define and legitimate the inequalities in and between societies, and how such inequalities in turn affect the political and societal struggle over international and national institutions.

Research Objectives

The three main research objectives of I³ are

• to identify, explore and explain the emergence and evolution of institutions of socio-economic governance and the mechanism of self-enforcement, reinforcement, learning, transformation and decay.
• to examine and explain the causes, transmission and consequences of inequalities within and across countries, especially with a view to the (causal) role of institutions and policies.
• to investigate and explain the consequences for welfare, (self-)governance, association, power, protest and democracy of current developments in equality and internationalisation in modern societies, with particular attention to labour markets and relations, financial regulation and corporate governance, welfare states and social protection.

Research areas and projects

Current research activities are divided in two main groups. Group one – Socio-Economic Governance, Internationalisation and Learning - addresses (mainly) research objective one; group two – Internationalisation and the comparative analysis of inequalities – focuses (mainly) on research objective two. Naturally, research objective three is a concern in both groups. In both groups much of the work, and the cooperation with researchers from other disciplines, universities and countries, is organised through some large research programs and projects, or networks of excellence, financed by the Dutch Foundation for Scientific Research NWO and the European Union’s Framework Programs.

In group one the leading projects are the “Governance as Learning” research program in NWO’s Shift in Governance priority research area and the two EU large-scale projects and networks of excellence on New Modes of Governance (NewGov) and International Networks and Government in Finance (Garnet). Related there are a string of individual projects and PhD studies. This group involves researchers from sociology (Visser, Kittel, Bruggeman, De Deeken, Gërxhani), political science (Hajer, Underhill, Freyberg-Inan, Grin) and other ASSR researchers, outside the faculty or university (Van der Meer, Wilts).

In group two, the EU financed Network-of-Excellence on Economic Development, Inequality and Social Cohesion (Equalsoc) will play a key role, with additional support from leading international research and data collections on trade unions, industrial relations, labour market and welfare institutions, low pay and earnings. Researchers include Kittel, Visser, Van de Werfhorst and Gërxhani (sociology), Becker, Burgoon and Freyberg-Inan (political science) and Van der Meer, Steyn and Tijdens (outside).

Cooperation

Within the ASSR, the I³ research cluster draws on researchers and expertise from sociology (western and non-western) and political science. Outside the ASSR but with the University, the group tries to realise its research objectives in close cooperation with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), the multi-disciplinary research institute which combines expertise and integrates approaches from economy, law and sociology in the study of labour markets, social policy and inequality at the University of Amsterdam. Many members of the research group are AIAS fellow and participate in international networks and research projects of AIAS. Internationally, the research group has taken a leading role in EU financed networks-of-excellence and integrated projects, involving close cooperation and exchange of students and staff, as well as joint training courses, with other leading research institutes in Europe and America. The list of international universities, institute and researchers with which there is regular exchange and cooperation, and a list of concrete projects and joint programs, can be found on the website of the ASSR and AIAS.

 

Cluster director: Herman van der Werfhorst (UvA)

Cluster PhD coordinator: Daniela Grunow (UvA), Mara Yerkes (EUR)

Cluster PhD student committee member: Thijs Bol (UvA)

 

Staffmembers and PhD students in this Cluster