A statistical evaluation of the effects of a structured postdoctoral programme

Published© 2014 Society for Research into Higher Education. Postdoctoral programmes have recently become an important step leading from doctoral education to permanent academic careers in the social sciences. This paper investigates the effects of a large and structured postdoctoral programme in the social sciences on a number of academic and non-academic outcomes of fellows. Propensity score matching is employed to match fellows with applicants with similar characteristics who did not receive the fellowship; then the outcomes in the treatment and control groups are compared. The programme has a statistically significant positive effect on the general life satisfaction of former fellows and their publication activity. It is argued that an active and collegial research environment, with training in academic skills during postdoctoral employment, may improve the academic outcomes of postdoctoral fellows

Varieties of labour administration in Europe and the consequences of the Great Recession

This article focuses on national public administration activities that relate to employment, social protection and industrial relations. The International Labour Organization (ILO) refers to these activities collectively as ‘labour administration’ and regards the bodies that conduct them within individual countries as together forming national systems of labour administration. This article explores the concept of ‘national system of labour administration’ and considers the potential contribution of comparative institutional analysis in understanding how national systems are organised and change over time. The article also compares the organisation of national labour administration systems in European Union (EU) countries and analyses how these systems have developed since the start of the economic crisis that erupted in 2008

The \u2018Leap\u2019 from Coordination to Harmonization in Social Policy: Labour Mobility and Occupational Pensions in Europe

The Supplementary Pension Rights Directive, legislated in 2014, represents a leap from minimum coordination of social security rights to minimal harmonization, thereby facilitating the portability of occupational pensions across the EU. The Lisbon Treaty, which relaxed the voting requirements in the Council, facilitated its adoption. In the \u2018shadow of the vote\u2019, the opponents (mainly Continental CMEs) abandoned the defence of the status quo for less exacting legislation. The majority of Member States instead understood that consensus was necessary to appease the domestic concerns of countries like Germany and to strengthen its negotiating position vis-\ue0-vis the Parliament. Despite the inevitable watering down, the final law modifies domestic pension arrangements across the EU, thereby benefiting mobile workers. The implications are twofold. First, political economists should take into account the growing European influence on domestic pension policymaking. Second, the extension of QMV to sensitive areas of social policy will probably enhance overall harmonization

Recovering from the Crisis through Social Dialogue in the New EU Member States: The Case of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia

The recent financial and economic crisis is the biggest economic downturn experienced in Central and Eastern Europe since the immediate post-Communist era, and its impacts were deeply felt in the four countries under review. A reduction in domestic demand, an increase in unemployment, rising public debt, and lower living standards are among the results of the economic crisis. The authors explain that the measures aimed to mitigate its impacts and accelerate economic recovery can be grouped into three categories: 1) short-term anti-crisis measures negotiated at the national level; 2) executive measures negotiated at the sectoral and firm level; and 3) fiscal consolidation measures and structural reforms negotiated at the national level. Social dialogue has played an important role in the post-Communist era in Central and Eastern Europe; first in the early years of transition, and later during the EU accession process. As the volume shows, social dialogue was used as a key mechanism in devising and implementing anti-crisis measures, particularly in the first part of the downturn. The short-term anti-crisis measures were developed with the support of the social partners and were by and large effective. Tripartite consultations and collective agreements negotiated at the sectoral and firm levels focused on the preservation of jobs and helping enterprises to adapt to the difficult economic environment. Conversely, in the second phase of the crisis, social dialogue was challenged and its role was relegated. Governments faced pressure to comply with the Maastricht criteria and with the conditions set by the international financial institutions; as a result, austerity measures were adopted, in most cases without the support of the social partners. In response, demonstrations have been organized by the social partners and other civil society organizations in order to express disapproval of the governmentimposed austerity policies. However, as the studies show, social dialogue did not break down in the four countries under review, as was the case in some parts of Western and Eastern Europe, thus illustrating a certain maturity of industrial relations in the countries concerned

Welfare State Retrenchment in Central and Eastern Europe: The Case of Pension Reforms in Poland and Slovenia

This paper endeavours to shed some light on the mechanisms that led to the divergence of welfare state arrangements across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In particular, pension system reforms displayed a great deal of variance, which surprised both institutionalists and convergence theorists. The Polish and Slovenian cases are thus presented and compared in a political economy perspective. Theories of retrenchment, recent studies on the dynamics of CEE pension reforms and consultations with some of the relevant actors, were employed in order to account for the divergence of reform outcomes in the two countries. The study focused on three main explanations: partisan competition, the interaction between relevant external (World Bank) and internal actors (Minister of Labour and Minister of Finance) and the trade-off between power concentration and accountability concentration. The latter yielded the best explanation. While Polish reformers managed to internalise most veto actors’ reservations, Slovenian politicians excluded from consultation the country’s main trade union. Its opposition determined the rejection of radical reforms recommended by the World Bank