Congratulations to Milan Thies from the Department of Political and Social Sciences, for receiving his doctorate in March 2026, after unanimous decision from the jury.
On 2 March 2026, Milan Thies defended his thesis Governing Capabilities. The Political Economy of Skills in the Knowledge Economy
The dissertation examines the changing nature of state activism in recent developments in vocational education and training, and family policy across the EU from a comparative perspective. The clearly written, wide-ranging, and well-researched thesis represents an original contribution to comparative political economy and welfare state research, offering a welcome alternative to the dominant 'society-centred' approach to the study of skills in advanced democracies. Overall, Thies’ study illustrates how the rise of the knowledge economy has reshaped the demands placed on the state and expanded opportunities for intervention.
Read Thies' thesis in Cadmus.