Kathleen Thelen

Kathleen Thelen is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. She is the Ford Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a permanent external member of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG), and a faculty associate at the Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University.

She is known for her research on political-economic institutions, as well as her frameworks for understanding institutional stability and change. She is influential in the field of historical institutionalism.

Education She received her B.A. from the University of Kansas. She was awarded an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Layering: new elements are added to existing elements in an institution Drift: an institution is not updated to respond to a changing environment Conversion: the rules of an institution are re-interpreted for new purpose Displacement: the replacement of an old institution with a new one

In 2022, Thelen co-edited American Political Economy: Politics, Markets, and Power (Cambridge University Press) with Jacob Hacker, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, and Paul Pierson, part of an ongoing collaborative project on the American political economy funded by the Hewlett Foundation.

In 2025, Thelen published Attention, Shoppers! American Retail Capitalism and the Origins of the Amazon Economy (Princeton University Press), which examines the political and institutional origins of Amazon's dominance in American retail. The book won the American Political Science Association's 2026 Gladys M. Kammerer Award for the best book published in the field of U.S. national policy. Thelen is currently working on The Chamber of Influence: Corporate Power in American Courts, co-authored with Jingtian Chen and Morgan Gillespie, under contract with Princeton University Press.

Recognition She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015 and to the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2009. She has been awarded honorary degrees at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2013), the London School of Economics (2017), the European University Institute in Florence (2018) and, most recently, the University of Copenhagen (2018

Works Union of Parts: Labor Politics in Postwar Germany. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991 How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004 Winner (2006) of the Mattei Dogan Award for best book published in the field of comparative research in 2004/2005 Co-winner (2005) of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book published in 2004 on government, politics, or international affairs. Chinese and Korean translations 2010 (published by Cambridge in collaboration with Shanghai People’s Publishing House and Motivebook Publishing House). Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies (co-editor with Wolfgang Streeck). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power (co-editor with James Mahoney). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010 Winner (2019) of the Aaron Wildavsky Enduring Contribution Award, APSA Section on Public Policy, for the introductory chapter co-authored with James Mahoney. Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014 Winner (2015) of the Barrington Moore Book Award of the American Sociological Association, for the “best book in the area of comparative and historical sociology” Co-winner (2015) of the Best Book Award of the American Political Science Association’s Organized Section on European Politics and Society Advances in Comparative Historical Analysis (co-edited with James Mahoney). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015 American Political Economy: Politics, Markets, and Power (co-edited with Jacob Hacker, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez and Paul Pierson). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Attention, Shoppers! American Retail Capitalism and the Origins of the Amazon Economy. Princeton , NJ: Princeton University Press, 2025. Winner (2026) of the American Political Science Association's Gladys M. Kammerer Award for the best book published in the field of U.S. national policy.