The Political Economy of the Service Transition

Edited by Anne Wren

First systematic examination of the service-based economy
Presents new empirical research and innovative ideas from leading scholars in the field
Interdisciplinary appeal across the Social Sciences, including Political Science, Economics, Sociology, Business, and Public Policy
Original contribution to the "Varieties of Capitalism" debate

The Political Economy of the Service Transition

Edited by Anne Wren

Description

Over the past four decades the wealthiest OECD economies-in Europe, North America, and Australasia- have faced massive structural change. Industrial sectors, which were once considered the economic backbone of these societies, have shrunk inexorably in terms of size and economic significance, while service sectors have taken over as the primary engines of output and employment expansion. The impact on labor markets has been profound: in many OECD countries more than three-quarters of employment is now in services, while industrial sectors, on average, account for less than one-fifth.

This sectoral shift in the locus of economic activity has potentially radical implications for politics and society. However, these implications are only beginning to be understood. This path-breaking book is a systematic attempt to understand the distinct political economy of service societies. It examines how different types of socio-economic regimes manage the service transition, with a central focus on job creation and destruction and the changing characteristics of labor markets, and shows that the economic, distributional, and political outcomes with which it is associated vary across countries depending on their political-institutional structures.

The Political Economy of the Service Transition

Edited by Anne Wren

1. Introduction: The Political Economy of the Post-Industrial Age, Anne Wren
Part 1: Socio-Economic Regimes and the Service Transition
2. A Political-Institutional Model of Real Exchange Rates, Competitiveness, and the Division of Labor, Torben Iversen and David Soskice
3. The Trilemma Revisited: Implications for Inequality and Employment Creation of the ICT Revolution and the Expansion of Service Trade, Anne Wren, Mate Fodor and Sotiria Theodoropoulou
4. The Service Transition and Women's Employment, Moira Nelson and John Stephens
5. Pathways of Change in Coordinated Market Economies: Training Regimes in Germany and the Netherlands, Karen M. Anderson and Anke Hassel
6. A Tale of Two Trilemmas: Varieties of Higher Education and the Service Economy, Ben Ansell and Jane Gingrich
Part 2: Political Outcomes of Economic Change
7. De-Industrialization and the Expansion of the Welfare State: A Reassessment, Philip Manow, Kees Van Kersbergen, and Gijs Schumacher
8. Service Expansion, International Exposure, and Political Preferences, Anne Wren and Philipp Rehm
9. The Political Economy of Working Time and Redistribution, Lucy Barnes
10. The Political Economy of Gender in Service Sector Economies, Torben Iversen and Frances Rosenbluth

The Political Economy of the Service Transition

Edited by Anne Wren

Author Information

Dr. Anne Wren received her Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University in 2000 and was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University between 2000 and 2007. In 2006 she was awarded a Marie Curie Excellence Team grant by the European Commission to establish a research team working on the political economy of the service transition at the Institute for International Integration Studies (IIIS), Trinity College Dublin. She returned to Dublin to direct this research program and is currently a Research Associate of IIIS.

Contributors:

Karen M. Anderson, Radboud University, the Netherlands
Ben Ansell, University of Minnesota, USA
Lucy Barnes, University of Oxford, UK
Mate Fodor, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Jane Gingrich, University of Minnesota
Anke Hassel, Hertie School of Governance, Germany
Torben Iversen, Harvard University
Philip Manow, Bremen University
Moira Nelson , VU University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Philipp Rehm, European University Institute
Frances Rosenbluth, Yale University
Gijs Schumacher, VU University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
David Soskice, University of Oxford, UK
John Stephens, University of North Carolina, USA
Sotiria Theodoropoulou, European Trade Union Institute, Brussels, Belgium
Kees Van Kersbergen, Aarhus University

The Political Economy of the Service Transition

Edited by Anne Wren

Reviews and Awards

"The Political Economy of the Service Transition provides an essential guide to understanding the transformational impact of the shift to services across the rich democracies. The volume features insightful contributions from an all-star cast of authors, framed by a superb synthetic introduction by Anne Wren."--Kathleen Thelen, Ford Professor of Political Science, MIT

"The Political Economy of the Service Transition is an outstanding collection of essays explaining the impact of one key dimension in the changes affecting industrial societies. Anne Wren has gathered a stellar group of scholars to address how the development of the service sector transforms the politics and economics of advanced democratic societies. The analytically and empirically rich essays by leading contributors draw on their research to related the development of the service sector to the varieties of capitalism framework and to the political consequences of service based economic transformation for politics. The result is a major contribution and indispensable reading for students of comparative politics, political economy and the sociology of industrial society."--Desmond King, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of American Government, University of Oxford

"This path-breaking volume brings together a remarkable group of distinguished and talented scholars. Unpacking the concept of 'deindustrialization,' it explores the distributive and political implications as well as the institutional determinants of different trajectories of service-sector expansion in advanced capitalist economies. The literature on varieties of capitalism can no longer be accused of being "manufacturing-centered!"--Jonas Pontusson, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Geneva

"Many classic analyses in political economy are anachronistically focused on manufacturing and tend to assume that services are all sheltered, low-wage and low-productivity. Anne Wren, in this volume's introduction, demonstrates that technological change has upended old assumptions about services." -- Political Studies Review