Thomas Paster

Why do some trade unions support the EU’s Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages, while others oppose it? Eriks Ozols, Stefan Ivanov Hristov and I investigate this question in a new article in Economic and Industrial Democracy. doi.org/10.1177/014383… 🧵A thread (1/7)

It’s a bad time to be a graduate on.ft.com/4ldW0cy | opinion

Tilly on Inequality Tilly addresses a key question –Why do social inequalities arise and persist?– & puts the focus on four causal mechanisms: exploitation, opportunity hoarding, emulation & adaptation. It's a thought-provoking book. Read Chapter 1 here: people.duke.edu/~jmoody77/FacF…

Moore, Tilly and Mann as exemplars You can argue in various ways for a historical social science. But, as Kuhn said, exemplars that serve as models for how to do research are very influential. And these three books are exemplars that continue to inspire me.

Is AI eroding our critical thinking? I'm on The Inquiry via @bbcworldservice bbc.com/audio/play/w3c…

Ontology, Epistemology, Methodology This figure, by political scientist Colin Hay, gets it right. Methods are very important. But we should not delink our discussions about methods from a consideration of ontological and epistemological questions.

Braudel’s Three Time Scales Braudel, in his chapter on “History and the Social Sciences: The Longue Durée” in 𝘖𝘯 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺, discusses various time spans and makes the following distinction between three time spans, which includes the idea of the 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘦 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘦́𝘦👇

Fundamental Works of Fernand Braudel Two of Braudel’s major works include The Mediterranean (2 Vols) and Civilization and Capitalism (3 Vols). His book On History contains reflections on historical research. 🧵with links to download Civilization and Capitalism

Polanyi on capitalism This book by Polanyi is a classic. It puts the focus on what he calls the double movement generated by capitalism: the movement toward a market society and the countermovement that seeks to create social protections. Free download: ia801401.us.archive.org/6/items/in.ern…

Hobsbawm on History This is an interesting collection of essays by the distinguished historians Eric Hobsbawm on the uses and abuses of history and the relevance of studying history.

Comparative Historical Research Since the 1980s These books capture very nicely how scholars have thought about comparative historical analysis (CHA) since the 1980s – and especially how their thinking about questions of methods has changed over time.

Path dependence The two papers, by David and Arthur, that launched the study of path dependence. And the paper by Pierson that brought the idea into political science. Download David: sjbae.pbworks.com/f/David+1985.p… Arthur: rochelleterman.com/ir/sites/defau… Pierson: critical-juncture.net/uploads/2/1/9/…

Charles Tilly's Concepts Tilly used a range of concepts that are common to many social sciences in his research on the state, nationalism, contentious politics and democracy. This is one place where he listed his key concepts and offered short definitions of each of them.👇

The EU’s Savings and Investments Union aims to get EU citizens to invest more of their savings on capital markets, a goal to be achieved in part by privatizing pensions. Daniela Gabor in the FT on why the SIU is based on false assumptions: ft.com/content/052e47…

This interesting portrait of Karin Kneissl, the former Austrian FM, shows how an ambitious career diplomat turned into a far-right outcast theguardian.com/world/2025/jul…

Increasing income inequality in Scandinavian countries. After-tax income inequality; @lisdata. Sweden from 22.7 to 30.5 (greater Gini percentage increase than in the US) Norway from 24.5 to 29.1 Denmark from 26.0 to 29.5

“I’m your conference moderator and I should have done more preparation. Joining me is a stellar line-up of people you’ve never heard of.” Conference panels have their quirks. To survive them, follow these rules: econ.st/447pu65

Joint statement: No directionality in MSCA 📣 The MCAA has co-signed a statement opposing the @EU_Commission's proposed introduction of directionality in the Work Programme 2026–2027 draft, calling for more support & investment in the MSCA. Read more: mariecuriealumni.eu/news/mcaa-take…

This is a very cool paper showing social class affects career progression within US academia.

Join our team as a Policy Officer! ⬇️

For decades the path to a nice life was clear: go to university, find a graduate job, then watch the money come in. Today’s hard-working youths, however, seem to be having a tough time econ.st/3G0GdOY