The Transition to the Knowledge Economy in Advanced Democracies: Measurement, Policy, and Politics

Abstract

Over the last three decades, advanced capitalist countries have progressively moved away from the Fordist wage-led growth model, often reorienting their investments towards more knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy, sustaining the transition towards alternative post-Fordist profit-led growth strategies. The significant cross-country variation in the extent to which the transition and its distributive implications have unfolded attracted the interests of scholars in comparative political economy and comparative politics. Despite growing scholarly attention on the transition towards knowledge economy, however, several fundamental questions remain open. First, there is no established consensus about how to define and measure the knowledge economy. Second, it is not clear what role public policy plays in driving the transition and managing its distributive consequences. Third, we do not know whether and how the transition to the knowledge economy affects citizens’ political and policy preferences. The contributions of this panel will tackle in various ways these issues and contribute to the advancement of the research on the knowledge economy both theoretically and methodologically. First, Diessner et al. will develop a more nuanced conceptualisation of the knowledge economy at the sectoral level and propose a novel multidimensional indicator to measure it. Then, Carstensen et al. will address the question of what the knowledge economy is from a relational perspective, exploring the way political coalitions interpret the concept of the knowledge economy and sustain its development, tracing the evolution of the constellations of actors and concepts over time using discourse network analysis and process tracing. Later, O’Donovan will map the outcomes of the knowledge economy in terms of economic performance and distributive implications and assesses to what extent public policy can influence them. Bürgisser et al. will then move to the micro level of analysis to experimentally test four possible mechanisms through which individual perceived distributive effect of the knowledge economy shape support for labour market policy. Finally, Buzzelli will explore the mechanisms through which the impact of the transition to the knowledge economy shapes individual political values and test them empirically using mediation analysis.

Title	Details
Conceptualizing and measuring the transition to the knowledge economy in advanced capitalist democracies	View Paper Details
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Structural economic changes and political realignment: a panel regression analysis on the impact of automation and globalization on political values	View Paper Details