A Network of Networks: Comparing Employers' Associations Participation in Two Vocational Education Policy Fora in Switzerland

What factors determine employers’ associations’ participation in policy-making in Switzerland in the policy field of vocational education? In order to answer this question, we examine a unique set of network and covariate data describing the participation of 153 employers’ associations in two different national policy-making arenas relevant to vocational training: federal commissions and national conferences. Employers associations’ joint participation in a policy forum forms a link between two associations. Together, these links form a network of employers’ associations. Applying an exponential random graph model allows controlling for dependencies between the observations. The models determine which characteristics of the organization and which network dynamics make it probable for associations to be present in the two national policy arenas. Comparing the two political networks, the analysis aims to find out, which factors drive connections among associations. Do connections predominantly depend on professionalization of the association, or on the number of apprentices an association represents – and do they differ in the two policy fora? Our preliminary results show that the size of the association itself or the degree of professionalism of the association do not matter in either, but that the number of apprentices represented by the employers’ associations is highly significant. Our paper contributes to a better understanding of interest aggregation in corporatist policy systems, and touches upon the question of legitimacy of these corporatist structures