The ‘nested’ politics of structural reform. In search of novel heuristics (SPS-WS-RE-SCH-25)
SPS-WS-RE-SCH-25
| Department |
SPS |
| Course category |
SPS Workshop |
| Course type |
Workshop |
| Academic year |
2025-2026 |
| Term |
3RD TERM |
| Credits |
10 (EUI SPS Department) |
| Professors |
- Prof. Anton HEMERIJCK
- Prof. Waltraud SCHELKLE
- Laurence Boone (Head of Santander CIB France and Head of Banking France)
Ioana Petrescu (Director of Center for Leadership and Innovation at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration)
Mariëtte "Jet" Bussemaker (Professor at the Faculty Governance and Global Affairs at Leiden University)
Atanas Pekanov (Economist at Austrian Institute of Economic Research)
|
| Contact |
Livena, Liga
|
| Course materials |
| Sessions |
26/03/2026 9:00-18:00 @ Seminar Room 2, Badia Fiesolana
27/03/2026 9:00-18:00 @ Seminar Room 2, Badia Fiesolana
|
| Enrolment info |
11/01/2026 - 30/06/2026 |
Purpose
Since the 1980s, “structural reform” has become a central feature of policy-making across advanced capitalist democracies. Governments have pursued far-reaching transformations in monetary and fiscal policy, pensions and social security, labour-market regulation, education and training, healthcare, and family services. Yet despite the prominence of reform in political discourse, we still lack robust heuristics for explaining why some reforms are undertaken, sustained, and institutionalised—while others fail, stall, or are reversed.This workshop aims to develop a novel analytical framework to understand the nested politics of structural reform in Europe. We define structural reforms as policy changes that substantively depart from the status quo and display downstream staying power—that is, reforms capable of surviving governmental turnover. The notion of “nested politics” directs attention to the interaction between political conflict, institutional constraints, socio-economic pressures, and policy design. Reforms are not isolated decisions; they are embedded in multi-level governance structures, electoral dynamics, administrative capacities, and European integration processes.The workshop combines conceptual discussion, comparative empirical analysis, and direct engagement with four high-level practitioners, all former ministers or state secretaries of EU countries, who have designed and implemented structural reforms.The full syllabus will be available on the webpage: https://www.eui.eu/en/academic-units/political-and-social-sciences/seminars-and-teaching.
ENROL FOR THIS COURSE
Page last updated on 05 September 2023