‘Muddling through’ and historical institutionalism – Explanatory devices for the long term development of the dualistic Austrian VET system

Austria with its specific ‘dualistic’ structure of VET, including both, a strong full-time schools sector, and a strong apprenticeship system lies in-between the established classifications of VET. This structure is not a result of ‘systemic’ political decision making; rather the different institutions have evolved more or less in parallel. A remarkable phenomenon is that the formal structure remained quite stable through history along very different regime periods (the Habsburg Empire, 1st Republic, two Fascisms, 2nd Republic).
Challenges are first to identify the specific structural traits, and second to explain the historical processes. Methodologically, artefacts of historical analysis are combined with statistical sources; the main task is a consistent interpretation of the material, based on institutionalist approaches and trying out different versions of these. A main result is the questioning of the strong distinction of punctuated and incremental change in historical incrementalism.