2026 Kathleen Thelen: Political Science Researcher – H-Index, Publications & Awards

Discipline name	D-Index	World Ranking	Current World Ranking	National Ranking	Current National Ranking	Publications	Citations
Political Science	46	306	272	173	146	107	45648

Research.com Recognitions

2015 - Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2005 - Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award, American Political Science Association (APSA)

Overview

Kathleen Thelen is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States. Their research spans multiple fields within social sciences and economics, especially focusing on political science and international relations as well as economics and econometrics. Thelen's scholarly work encompasses topics such as social policy and reform studies, political and economic history of the UK and US, employment and welfare studies, political influence and corporate strategies, housing, finance, and neoliberalism, alongside judicial and constitutional studies and electoral systems and political participation.

Thelen has published extensively in notable academic journals. Selected recent papers include:

"Institutional Sources of Business Power" (2020) in World Politics
"The American Political Economy: Markets, Power, and the Meta Politics of US Economic Governance" (2021) in Annual Review of Political Science
"Arrangers and orchestrators: the diverging role of the state in Danish and German vocational education and training" (2024) in Socio-Economic Review
"Brandeis in Brussels? Bureaucratic discretion, social learning, and the development of regulated competition in the European Union" (2023) in Regulation & Governance
"Coordination Rights, Competition Law and Varieties of Capitalism" (2024) in Comparative Political Studies

Thelen frequently collaborates with several scholars, including Jacob S. Hacker, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Paul Pierson, Chase Foster, and Marius R. Busemeyer.

Publications appear in journals such as Political Science Today, World Politics, Annual Review of Political Science, Socio-Economic Review, and Regulation & Governance.

Thelen's research primarily operates at the intersection of social sciences and economics, with major contributions to understanding social policies, employment issues, and governance structures. Their work addresses the complex interactions between political institutions, economic governance, and corporate strategies in different political economies.

Recognition for Thelen's contributions includes being named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015 and receiving the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award from the American Political Science Association in 2005.

Best Publications

Historical Institutionalism in comparative politics

Kathy Thelen

11686
Citations
Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies

Wolfgang Streeck;Kathleen Ann Thelen;Kathleen Ann Thelen

4327
Citations
Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies

Kathleen Ann Thelen;Kathleen Ann Thelen

3286
Citations
Introduction: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies

Wolfgang Streeck;Kathleen A. Thelen;Kathleen A. Thelen

3146
Citations
A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change

James Mahoney;Kathleen Ann Thelen;Kathleen Ann Thelen

2994
Citations
How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan

Kathleen Ann Thelen

2919
Citations
How Institutions Evolve: Insights from Comparative Historical Analysis

Kathleen Ann Thelen;Kathleen Ann Thelen

1873
Citations
Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power

James Mahoney;Kathleen Ann Thelen;Kathleen Ann Thelen

1795
Citations
Institutional change in varieties of capitalism

Peter A. Hall;Peter A. Hall;Kathleen Ann Thelen;Kathleen Ann Thelen

1464
Citations
Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity

Kathleen Ann Thelen;Kathleen Ann Thelen

1241
Citations
Structuring politics: List of contributors

Sven Steinmo;Kathleen Thelen;Frank Longstreth

1235
Citations
Institutionalizing Dualism: Complementarities and Change in France and Germany

Bruno Palier;Kathleen Ann Thelen;Kathleen Ann Thelen

1093
Citations
Varieties of Labor Politics in the Developed Democracies

Kathleen Thelen

723
Citations
Apples and Oranges Revisited: Contextualized Comparisons and the Study of Comparative Labor Politics

Richard M. Locke;Kathleen Thelen

610
Citations
Union of Parts: Labor Politics in Postwar Germany

Kathleen Ann Thelen

503
Citations
Varieties of Capitalism: Trajectories of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity

Kathleen Ann Thelen

490
Citations
Timing and Temporality in the Analysis of Institutional Evolution and Change

Kathleen Thelen

352
Citations
Advances in Comparative-Historical Analysis

James Mahoney;Kathleen Ann Thelen;Kathleen Ann Thelen

331
Citations
Regulating Uber: The Politics of the Platform Economy in Europe and the United States

Kathleen A. Thelen;Kathleen A. Thelen

318
Citations
The Rise of the Platform Business Model and the Transformation of Twenty-First-Century Capitalism:

K. Sabeel Rahman;Kathleen A. Thelen;Kathleen A. Thelen

300
Citations
Gender in the Journals: Publication Patterns in Political Science

Dawn Langan Teele;Kathleen A. Thelen;Kathleen A. Thelen

284
Citations
Are We All Amazon Primed? Consumers and the Politics of Platform Power:

Pepper D. Culpepper;Kathleen A. Thelen;Kathleen A. Thelen

258
Citations
Drift and Conversion: Hidden Faces of Institutional Change

Jacob S. Hacker;Paul Pierson;Kathleen Ann Thelen;Kathleen Ann Thelen

234
Citations

Frequent Co-Authors

James Mahoney Northwestern University

Wolfgang Streeck Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies

Marius R. Busemeyer University of Konstanz

Bruno Palier Sciences Po

Jonathan Zeitlin University of Amsterdam

Pepper D. Culpepper University of Oxford

Pierre Cahuc Sciences Po

Colette Fagan University of Manchester

Walter W. Powell Stanford University

Jelle Visser University of Amsterdam

External Links

Personal website of Kathleen Thelen

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