Political Careers of Ministers and Prime Ministers

Abstract

The concept of career, while ubiquitous in elite research, has hardly received any comprehensive analytical treatment in the study of political executives. This chapter will summarize and develop the basic theoretical and methodological approaches as well as empirical findings of studies investigating political careers of cabinet members in democratic parliamentary and semi-presidential systems at the national level. It is divided into three sections. The first provides a sketch of the basic research questions that have been raised (and discussed) in the field of executive careers studies over the past decades. The second part offers a systematic survey of the current state of the literature concerned with ministers’ and prime ministers’ political careers. The third section presents some avenues for future research, including the potential for further theoretical and methodological improvement, followed by some concluding remarks.

How Political Careers affect Prime-Ministerial Performance: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

“…While the impact of career features is explored pretty well for cabinet ministers, surprisingly little is known about the heads of government in this respect. Even though it appears rational to expect a similar impact of political careers on performance in PM office, the research engaging with the power and leadership of individual PMs in different countries (Bennister, 2012; Helms, 2005; Weller, 1985) did not yet address this question from a comparative perspective (Müller-Rommel et al, 2020). Systematic answers to this question would not only contribute to a better understanding of how PMs fulfil their manifold tasks but also of the relevance that different recruitment paths to the chief executive position have for the functioning of parliamentary democracy.…”

Are all politicians the same? Reproduction and change of chief executive career patterns in democratic regimes

“…Therefore, the educational and professional positions that a chief executive has followed are proxies of her previous career (Müller‐Rommel et al. 2020). The most common career steps that numerous chief executives regularly make before entering office define their overall career patterns.…”

“…It starts with the observation that top executive politicians in democracies tend to follow similar career patterns before entering their political office (Müller‐Rommel et al. 2020). In particular, this work focuses on national chief executives 1 and claims that the study of their political career patterns can benefit from the integration of discussion about institutional resilience.…”

“…The analysis gathers information about those socio‐demographic and occupational characteristics which the international scholarship on political careers agrees on in understanding as crucial indicators of previous experience (e.g., Müller‐Rommel et al. 2020). The choice is also justified by the use of these indicators in specific comparative studies of presidential systems (Alcántara et al.…”

»Mehr Fortschritt wagen«?

“…Jede Regierung besitzt ein eigenes Personalprofil, das nicht zufällig zusammengewürfelt ist. So lässt eine systematische Auswertung der Forschungsliteratur den Schluss zu, dass sich die Selektion des Regierungspersonals in parlamentarischen Demokratien maßgeblich an den Prinzipien der Repräsentation, politischen Loyalität und Führungskompetenz orientiert (Müller-Rommel et al 2020;Vogel 2021). In unserem Fall wird die Repräsentationsdimension exemplarisch anhand der Kriterien Geschlechterparität und Regionalproporz analysiert.…”