The further rise of the career politician

Henn, Soeren

doi:10.1057/s41293-017-0061-9

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Meanwhile, the career paths of politicians have changed, with the career‐oriented politician now ubiquitous in multiple parliamentary systems (Barber 2014; Best and Cotta 2000; Cowley 2012; Henn 2017; King 1981, 1991; Mattozzi and Merlo 2008). Cairney (2007) argues they are increasingly middle class and university‐educated—in the United Kingdom frequently at Russell Group universities and predominately at Oxbridge, often with an Oxford degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE).…”

Section: Reforming Westminstermentioning

confidence: 99%

Procedural Rationality in Westminster Systems: HowDe‐SeparationAffects the Decision Premise

Dowding

Taflaga

2022

Public Administration Review

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Westminster administrative systems were characterized by a clear separation between the political careers and roles of elected ministers and career civil servants. The former set the values or aims of the organization; the latter utilize those values when generating policy ideas. This separation provides what H.A. Simon calls "procedural rationality." The decision premise of public servants is (1) an apolitical commitment to government service, and ( 2) a commitment to advise on and implement the current government values, including expert advice using their personal and institutional memory and procedural knowledge. Using evidence from Australia and the United Kingdom, we track the de-separation of political careers. Policy advice increasingly comes from outside the career public service, including politically appointed special advisors. Furthermore, senior politicians are increasingly drawn from the world of special and external advisors. De-separation changes the decision premise of all actors, which we argue deleteriously affects the nature of policy formation.

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Section: Reforming Westminstermentioning

confidence: 99%

Procedural Rationality in Westminster Systems: HowDe‐SeparationAffects the Decision Premise

Dowding

Taflaga

2022

Public Administration Review

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“…Everyone recognizes early-entry, "ultra" career politicians as members of the conceptual family (Kam, 2006;Goplerud, 2015;Henn, 2018;Heuwieser, 2018;O'Grady, 2019), but it is not clear they have long-term commitments to their parliamentary careers (Dimension 1). If they do not rise quickly or, having risen, doubt their opportunities for further preferment, they may leave politics to pursue careers in other fields (Mattozzi and Merlo, 2008).…”

Section: Likelihood Of Achieving Further Positionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Note that this approach gives each of the four dimensions an equal impact on our final composite index scores. Some might argue that equal weights are an inappropriate modeling choice, because recent studies have tended to place a greater emphasis on career politicians' occupational backgrounds and life experiences over their commitment and ambition (Henn, 2018;Heuwieser, 2018;O'Grady, 2019). It is difficult, however, to determine exactly how to weight the dimensions.…”

Section: Composite Career-politician Indexmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent quantitative investigations use occupational background and age at entry as indicators of "career politician" (Kam, 2006;Goplerud, 2015;Henn, 2018;Heuwieser, 2018;O'Grady, 2019) despite some uncertainty about their validity (Heuwieser, 2018, pp. 316;320-321).…”

Section: Validity Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Age of entry has been used in several studies(Kam, 2006;Henn, 2018; O'Grady, 2019), and it does pass the validation tests below, but it needs to be replaced where possible with more direct and better focused measures.…”

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confidence: 99%

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What is a career politician? Theories, concepts, and measures

Allen

Magni

Searing

et al. 2020

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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This paper examines the concept “career politician.” It seeks to clarify, systematize, and measure this ambiguous multidimensional concept in order to facilitate testing theories and hypotheses associated with it. We argue that career politicians are full-time politicians who lack significant experience in the wider world and have other distinguishing attributes for which they are both appreciated and criticized. From claims and critiques put forward by political scientists, journalists, publics, and politicians, we extract four principal dimensions: Strong Commitment, Narrow Occupational Background, Narrow Life Experience, and Strong Ambition. These dimensions and their indicators fit Wittgenstein’s family-resemblance conceptual structure, which is how we analyze, measure and validate them with data from a longitudinal study of British MPs spanning 1971–2016.

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Weak Presidents’ Characteristics and Pathways to Power

Grimaldi

2023

The Informal Powers of Western European Presidents

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The further rise of the career politician

Cited by 9 publications

References 19 publications

Procedural Rationality in Westminster Systems: HowDe‐SeparationAffects the Decision Premise

Procedural Rationality in Westminster Systems: HowDe‐SeparationAffects the Decision Premise

What is a career politician? Theories, concepts, and measures

Weak Presidents’ Characteristics and Pathways to Power

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