This paper addresses two shortcomings of the Varieties of Capitalism-framework by analyzing the politics of apprenticeship reforms within three Liberal Market Economies (LMEs), which attempted reforms towards the German model of collective skill formation. First, it tackles the lack of sensibility for variation of skill formation within LMEs: Here, while the United Kingdom continuously failed in its reform attempts, Australia until the mid-90s and, more recently, Ireland display more successful apprenticeship reforms. Second, it advances the functionalist approach to comparative institutional advantage by tracing the differences in the (non-)evolution of collective skill formation - from the 1980s until today - from an actor-centered institutionalist and power resource perspective. Two findings are presented to explain institutional diversity: First, relationships between employers, unions and governing parties, and their influence on forms of corporatist policymaking are of central importance for divergent trajectories. Regarding partisan politics, and contrasting typical models of party differences, the emergence of collective apprentice- ship systems depends more heavily on governments’ incorporation of business and union interests than on its partisan complexion. Second, the emergence of cross-class coalitions between capital and labor is necessary for the sustainability of collective solutions towards skill formation. In absence of such coalitions, policy reforms will not lead to institutional change and are bound to be continuously contested and prone to market failure.
