Political economy on the agenda for the 2018 Rokkan Memorial Lecture
The Stein Rokkan Memorial Lecture of 2018 will be held by Professor Kathleen Thelen, whose research on historical institutionalism and comparative historical analysis connects her to the work of Stein Rokkan.
![Kathleen Thelen](https://www.uib.no/sites/w3.uib.no/files/styles/content_main/public/media/thelen_3.jpg?itok=8ZMlZd_2×tamp=1579195851)
Hovedinnhold
Kathleen Thelen is one of the leading scholars in Comparative Political Economy worldwide. She is Ford Professor of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has just finished her stint as President of the American Political Science Association. Her research examines the origins and evolution of political-economic institutions in rich democracies, with a particular interest in education and training systems, industrial relations, labour market policy, and social policy. Thelen has also made important theoretical and methodological contributions to historical institutionalism and comparative historical analysis. Through these theoretical and methodological approaches, her work is connected to the work of Stein Rokkan.
Thelen has conducted extensive research in Europe, especially in Germany, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. In her Stein Rokkan Memorial lecture, she will re-visit the case of the US and consider the American political economy from a comparative perspective. We can all look forward to an exciting lecture, analysing a country whose rapid economic and political transformations have had such a strong impact on Europe as well as the world. From a political-economy perspective, the analysis of the US will include the rising power of technological firms, the business and employment model of the platform economy, as well as the high social risks and precariousness in the American labour force.