National political economies and their skill formation systems face increasing liberalization and deindustrialization pressures, related to factors such as growing global competition, the rise of the service sector, and rapid technological developments (Streeck 2009; Mayer and Solga 2008). The literature on institutional change discusses different reactions to such increasing pressures. While some authors identify a process of policy conversion along the lines of liberalization (Albo 2005; Baccaro and Howell 2011), others highlight the variation in how systems liberalize (Thelen 2012, 2014). For example, Thelen (2012) finds that political economies differ in the extent to which they maintain strategic employer coordination to achieve joint economic gains, on the one hand,