Leon Küstermann

Postdoctoral researcher

Welcome!

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science (IPZ), University of Zurich. At the IPZ, I am part of the research group "Politics and Inequality" (Prof. Thomas Kurer). I have a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute and a MSc in Comparative Social Policy from the University of Oxford. My main research area is political economy. Most of my research seeks to understand the divisive outcomes of structural economic change and how to mitigate them.

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Education

PhD Political and Social Sciences

European University Institute

MSc Comparative Social Policy

University of Oxford

Research areas

Political Economy Social Policy Comparative Politics

Research Agenda

Technological change, globalization and more recentely climate transitions have fundamentally changed the social and employment structures of modern societies. We know that these structural changes tend to deepen social, economic and political division between workers who benefit and those at risk of being left behind. However, we do not understand well enough the conditions for inclusive transformations which do not provoke subjective fears and political resentments.

My research agenda builds on the idea that firms are the societal actors that shape most immediately how threatened people feel by structural change. This also has important policy implications as it suggests that inclusive transformations depend on an institutional enviromnment in which firms are more likely to support vulnerable workers. Therefore, the overarching goals of my research agenda are to better understand:

1.) the social and political outcomes of firm strategies. What are the firm strategies that reduce fears and political backlash among workers exposed to structural change? What psychological mechanisms are triggered through workplace experiences during economic transformations?

2.) the institutional drivers of firm strategies. Which labor market institutions and policies incentivize firm strategies that benefit workers threatend by structural change? How strongly are firms ultimately constrained by political and labor market institutions in modern economies?

Publications

Published research

Küstermann, Leon (2025). Upgrading Jobs for All: How Welfare States Shape Differences in Life Satisfaction between the Winners and Losers of Structural Change. Socio-Economic Review, 23, 1895–921. Link

Küstermann, Leon (2025). Managers of change: how firms shape the political outcomes of structural economic transformations. URPP Working Paper Series, 80. [under review] Link

Ongoing research

Küstermann, Leon; Colombo, Francesco & van Kersbergen, Kees (work in progress). The institutional foundations of successfull adaptations: when are training policies an effective response to structural change?

Küstermann, Leon (work in progress). When ambition pays off: the social contract of managing structural change

Weisstanner, David, Küstermann, Leon; and van Kersbergen, Kees (work in progress). Beyond Automation Risk: Firm-Level AI Adoption and the New Politics of Social Policy

Kurer, Thomas, Findeisen, Sebastian, Consiglio, Valentina, Küstermann, Leon & Schlenker, Oliver (work in progress). The broken ladder: Changing occupational career values and political outcomes in the 21st century