Sven Steinmo
Professor of Public Policy and Political Economy
Tel. [+39] 055 4685 439 / 244
Fax [+39] 055 4685 279
Email: Sven.Steinmo@eui.eu
Secretary: Maureen.Lechleitner@eui.eu
EUI SPS Department
Via dei Roccettini 9
50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI)
Italy
Office Hours
Wednesday afternoons 14.00-16.30. Please sign up on the list on my door.
Sven Steinmo holds the Chair in Public Policy and Political Economy at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. His teaching and research interests include the fields of comparative politics, public policy, institutional theory and most recently experimental social science methodology. Professor Steinmo began his teaching career at the University of Colorado in 1987 and has been visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo; Gothenburg University, Sweden; the Max Planck Institute, Köln; the Institute for Future Studies in Stockholm, Sweden; and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), University of Bordeaux, France. He is also currently an Honorary Professor in Comparative Politics at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense.
Professor Steinmo has been awarded multiple international honors over his career including the Riker Prize for the best book in Political Economy (APSA), the Gabriel Almond Prize for the best dissertation in Comparative Politics (APSA) as well as the German Marshall Fellowship, the Abe Fellowship and the STINT Advanced Researcher Grant. Steinmo’s most recent book, The Evolution of the Modern State: Sweden, Japan and the United States was recently awarded the Gunnar Myrdal Prize (2011), by the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy. In 2012 he was also awarded a European Research Council “Advanced Researcher” Grant in support of his project “Willing to Pay? Testing Historical Arguments with Experiments.”
fluent: English, Norwegian, Swedish
passive: Danish and German
Comparative politics, Public policy, Political Economy, American Government, Comparative case studies, Evolutionary theory, Institutional theory
Sven Steinmo is engaged in a series of research projects addressing three inter-related themes: a) Evolutionary theory and the social sciences, b) the Political Economy of Aging, and c) Experimental Methods in the Social Sciences.
a) Evolutionary Theory
I have a longstanding Evolutionary theory and its implications for social and political sciences. This is a multi-disciplinary project involving a large number of scholars from around the world in fields as diverse as political science, economics, biology, anthropology and psychology. I recently co-edited a special issue of the Journal for Institutional Economics which summarized our findings. My most recent book, “The Evolution of the Modern State: Sweden, Japan and the United States” was awarded the “Gunnar Myrdal Prize” for it contribution to the field of Evolutionary Political Economy.
b) The Political Economy of Aging
Another research topic of great interest to me is the political economy of aging in rich democratic countries. While broadly interested in research on the challenges and crises of modern welfare states, I am particularly interested in the ways in which welfare states adapt as their populations age. I am currently writing a book titled “The Greediest Generation” which explores how and why societies have become so self-interested in recent years.
c) Experimental Methods in the Social Sciences
One of the major challenges facing rich democracies is the challenge of raising sufficient revenues to finance their fiscal commitments. In summer 2012 I will begin a new project financed by grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to examine what I call “Willingness to Pay.” In this five-year project I will attempt to integrate methods and insights drawn from Historical Institutionalist theory on the one side, and Experimental Methods on the other. Traditionally historical/interpretive methods have been quite divorced from more formal methodologies. In this project I will attempt to test many of the hypotheses generated through historical/institutional analysis through both laboratory and field experiments in Sweden, Italy, Britain and the United States. The research will specifically examine tax systems, citizens’ willingness to pay taxes in different contexts, as well as attitudes and beliefs about redistribution both across incomes and generations.
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Political Economy in Advanced Industrial Societies (Spring 2007)
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American Politics and Policy in Comparative Perspective (Fall 2007)
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Political Economy Seminar (Spring 2008) (with L. Bruszt)
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Understanding/Explaining Institutional Change (with A. Héritier) (Fall 2008)
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Evolutionary Theory and the Social Sciences (Spring 2009)
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Political Economy of Advanced Industrial Nations (Autumn 2009)
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The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (together with L. Bruszt) (Spring 2010)
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American Politics and Comparative Perspective (Fall 2010)
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Comparative Public Policy (Spring 2011)
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Experimental Methods and Techniques in political and Social Science (Spring 2012)
"The Evolution of Modern States: Sweden, Japan and the United States", Cambridge University Press, 2010
“Taking Evolution Seriously in Political Science” (with Orion Lewis), Theory in Biosciences, forthcoming, 2010
“Historical Institutionalism”, in Laurie Boussaguet, Sophie Jacquot, and Pauline Ravinet (eds.), Dictionnaire des politiques publiques, VOL. 2., Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2010
“The End of the Strong State?” (with Eisaku Ide) in The New Fiscal Sociology: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective, edited by Isaac Martin, Ajay Mehrotra and Monica Prasad, CambridgeUniversity Press, pp. 119-137, (2009)
“Changes in the Modern State and Tax Policy: Globalization, Aging and Reliance on Government,” (translated into Japanese by Takehiko Ikegami and Andrew DeWit) in Naohiko Jinno and Takehiko Ikegami (eds.), The Fiscal Sociology of Taxation, Tokyo: Zeimu Keiri Kyokai Publishing Co., pages 167-180, (2009)
“Do Libraries Matter? On the Creation of Social Capital,” Journal of Documentation, (with Andreas Vårheim and Eisaku Ide), (2008) vol. 64, no. 6, pp. 877-892
“What Should the State Do? A Political Economy of Ideas and Institutions,” in John Campbell and Peter Naargard, Institutions and Politics, Copenhagen: DJOF Press, pages 195-226, (2008)
“Historical Institutionalism” in, Approaches in the Social Sciences, edited by Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating, Cambridge University Press, pages 113-138, (2008)
“Growing Apart?” (co-authored with Jeffrey Kopstein) in Growing Apart? America and Europe in the 21st Century, pages 1-34 (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
"Social Security, Taxation and Redistribution in Japan" with Alison Chopel and Nozomu Kuno, Public Budgeting and Finance, (Winter 2005) vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 20-43
Second years 2009/10
BAYRAM Ismail Emre (TR): Comparative Origins of the Current Financial Crisis: Varieties in the Age of Globalization
CHRISTENSEN Johan (NO): Comparing Tax Policy Change in Scandinavia: Welfare Capitalism Reformed?
POPIC Tamara (HR/RS): Explaining Institutional Stability and Change: Inquiry into the Mechanisms Generating Self–Enforcing Institutions
Third years 2008/09
HIEN, Josef (DE): Christian Democracy and the Welfare State
NIELSEN, Julie (DK): Creating a European Public Sphere? A Comparative Analysis of the Role of National Television News in Creating a European Public Arena
STAMATI, Furio (IT): Privatizing Risk in Bismarckian Pension Policies. The case of Italy, Germany and the US
Fourth years 2007/08
TODOR, Arpad (RO): Software Industry Evolution in Central and Eastern Europe