Professionalization of Legislatures: Long-Term Change in Political Recruitment in Denmark and Norway

Abstract

Everywhere a disparity can be observed between the socioeconomic composition of the electorate and the composition of the elected, representative body, which acts as a legislature for the society. Microcosm and macro- cosm are never identical; the legislature never mirrors the population at large. This is a universal generalization. It holds true for all representative systems at all times. It is furthermore true that the character of this disparity differs cross-nationally and over time: each legislature is unique in this sense.

Professionalization and Public Opinion of State Legislatures

“…Although some scholars use the term legislative professionalization to mean a change in the personal characteristics and attitudes of individuals who serve in office (e.g., King 1981; Eliassen and Pedersen 1978), I employ it here to refer to attributes of the institution. Measures of professionalization (e.g., Grumm 1971; Citizens Conference on State Legislatures 1971), can be broken into three components (Squire 1988, 69-70): level of member remuneration, staff support and facilities, and time demands.…”

Necessary Asymmetry or Undemocratic Imbalance? Professionalisation in the Recruitment and Career of Belgian Local Councillors

“…Before we elaborate on the content of this debate and its ramifications for local democracy, however, we should conceptualise professionalisation first. According to Eliassen and Pedersen (1978), professionalisation contains multiple dimensions. The first dimension relates to the process of political recruitment, advantaging certain groups of candidates in their race to office.…”

“…The latter stands for 'the process by which social status gives way to political status as the basic criterion for legislative recruitment' (Eliassen and Pedersen 1978, p. 291). Particularly, political parties come to structure recruitment by training and rewarding loyal party activists (Soule and Clarke 1970, Eliassen and Pedersen 1978. The second, and probably most familiar, dimension of professionalisation occurs in the aftermath of recruitment during the actual political career.…”

The Theory of Legislative Institutionalization and the California Assembly

“…PROFESSIONALIZATION AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION What is the relationship between legislative professionalization and Polsby's (1968) conception of institutionalization? Although some use the term legislative professionalization to mean a change in the personal characteristics and attitudes of the sort of individual who serves in office (e.g., King 1981;Eliassen and Pedersen 1978), I employ it here to mean a change in the attributes of the institution. Measures of professionalization, usually applied to American state legislatures (e.g., Grumm 1971; Citizens Conference on State Legislatures 1971), can be broken into three components (Squire 1988a, 69-70): member remuneration levels, staff support and facilities, and service time demands.…”

“…Professionalization and institutionalization, then, are not exactly the same thing, although they are occasionally treated as such (e. g., Chaffey 1970;Chaffey and Jewell 1972;Eliassen and Pedersen 1978;Chubb 1988). The concepts are not necessarily related on a theoretical level.…”