Elisabeth Muhlenberg

Ph.D. Student
M.P.A. University of Illinois at Chicago
M.A. ("Staatsexamen") Philipps Universitaet Marburg, Germany, English Language and Literature; History


E-Mail:emuhle1@uic.edu

Fields of Interest:

Major field: Comparative politics
Minor field: Urban politics

Current research topic:

Corporate Citizenship Initiatives in Public Education

Marxist theorists and liberal thinkers have treated the relationship between state and business as either-or propositions, leaving no space for shared responsibility. By breaking the relationship into its constituent parts, institutionalists have opened the door to examining where the interests of state and business overlap. Through corporate citizenship initiatives, for example in public education, firms are signaling their willingness to cooperate with the state on an equal footing and for their mutual benefit.

My dissertation seeks to identify the characteristics of mutually beneficial relationships between state and business in public education and the political, institutional and structural conditions that favor/disfavor them by comparing school-firm partnerships in Chicago and Berlin, Germany. The comparison provides both control and variation. Ultimately, I hope to make a contribution that shows persuasively that, given the right set of conditions, state and business can cooperate effectively and benefit society at large.

Selected Conference Papers:

"Measuring Human Capital: A Comparative Analysis of PISA", Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Political Science Association, Toronto, June 1 - 3, 2006.

"A Comparative Analysis of PISA Background Factors", Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association Meeting, Chicago, April 20 -23, 2006.

"PISA and the German states: Political and Institutional Influences on Variations in Educational Performance", Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the German Studies Association, Milwaukee, WI, September 28 - October 2, 2005.

"Are German Students Dumb'? or Federalism in German Education". Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association Meeting, Chicago, April 15-18, 2004.

"Tobacco Federalism: State Tobacco Control Policies" (with John Gardiner). April 4, 2003, 2003 Midwest Political Science Association Conference, Chicago, IL, April 3-6, 2003.