School of Social and Political Science

Research interests

I am a political economist interested in comparative social and public policy. My research focuses in particular on the policies underpinning advanced capitalist countries' transition into a knowledge-based post-industrial societies, with a specific interest on education, skills and labour market policies.

I am currently working on a project funded by the Leverhulme Trust titled "The Political Economy of Knowledge-based Growth" together with David Hope (King's College London), Hanna Kleider (King's College London) and Sebastian Diessner (Leiden University).

Please note that I will be on research leave for the academic year 2023-24.

Selected publications

(2021), Comparative Institutional Disadvantage: Small Firms and Vocational Training in the British Manufacturing Sector in Comparative Perspective, British Journal of Industrial Relations, (with Benassi, C. and Fortwengel, J.)

(2021), Engineering the Expansion of Higher Education: High Skills, Advanced Manufacturing and the Knowledge Economy, Regulation & Governance

(2021), Social Inclusion and Collective Skill Formation Systems: Policy and Politics, Journal of European Social Policy, (with Geyer, L.)

(2021), Skill-biased Liberalization: Germany's Transition to the Knowledge Economy, Politics & Society, (with Diessner, S. and Hope, D.)

(2020), Between Rule-makers and Rule-takers: Policy Change as the Interaction of Design, Compliance and Feedback, Journal of European Public Policy

(2020), The Political Economy of Employability: Institutional Change in British and German Higher Education, Stato e Mercato

(2020), Opening Universities’ Doors for Business? Marketization, the Search for Differentiation and Employability in England, Journal of Social Policy

(2020), Social Inclusion in the Knowledge Economy: Unions’ Strategies and Institutional Change in the Austrian and German Training Systems, Socio-Economic Review, (with Geyer, L.)

(2020), Going Up-skill: Exploring the Transformation of the German Skill Formation System, German Politics, [invited article for the special issue Imbalance: Germany’s Political Economy After the Social Democratic Century], (with Benassi, C.)

(2019), The Political Economy of High Skills: Higher Education in Knowledge-based Labour Markets, Journal of European Public Policy [winner of the 2018 best paper prize by the Council for European Studies’ Research Network on Political Economy and Welfare]

(2018), Social Solidarity for All? Trade Union Strategies, Labour Market Dualisation and the Welfare State in Italy and South Korea. Politics & Society, (with Fleckenstein, T. and Lee, S.C.)

(2017), Inclusive Unions in a Dualised Labour Market? The Challenge of Organising Labour Market Policy and Social Protection for Labour Market Outsiders, Social Policy & Administration

PhD supervision

I would be interested in supervising PhD projects in social and public policy. I would particularly welcome enquiries about supervision on projects that focus on the politics and political economy of education and skills, labour market policy and social investment policies in comparative perspective.

If you are interested in being supervised by Niccolo Durazzi, please see the links below (opening in new windows) for more information:

• PhD in Social Policy
• MSc (R) Social Policy