ABSTRACT
In the growing body of historical institutionalist analyses of training systems in industrialised countries the starting point is often a critique of functionalist approaches. Processes of the emergence, reproduction and change in TVET systems are not considered a direct result of economic change or an adaptation to market failures. Rather, they are considered to be embedded in the institutional structures of their respective politicalcum-economic systems which have resulted from the interactions between key actors (e.g. labour unions and employers’ associations) and, in turn, influence the behaviour of these actors (Thelen 2004; Busemeyer and Trampusch 2012).
