Where Are the Revolving Doors in Brussels? Sector Switching and Career Progression in EU Business–Government Affairs

Abstract

By applying event history analysis to a unique large sample of more than 300 government affairs managers working for companies active in the European Union (EU), this article investigates whether managers with work experience in the public or nonprofit sector are more likely to progress in their career in their current company and whether career progression depends on when that experience takes place. The findings suggest that managers with experience in the public and nonprofit sector are less likely to progress in their careers. This effect becomes stronger when the stage of the career at which the manager had experience in the public sector is taken into consideration. These findings are contrary to the expectations from the public and private management literature and suggest that we should see less revolving door activity in Brussels. We propose that these findings are driven by the distinct EU public policy process and the variance in individual and organizational incentives in the EU public sector.

Quo Vadis? Career paths of Brazilian regulators

“…Overall, research focuses on regulators' individual incentives to enter revolving doors and on the negative macro effects in terms of regulatory capture. However, current studies indicate that revolving door dynamics in different contexts or policy areas share more nuances than may be indicated by US capture theories (Gormley & William 1979;Cohen 1986;Makkai & Braithwaite 1992;Coen & Vannoni 2016, 2020.…”

“…Nevertheless, the convergence of individual and organizational incentives leading to regulatory capture may not always be observable. A different set of individual and organizational incentives within the EU context makes public-to-private sector switching less common, and alternative professional trajectories are observed in the context of EU affairs managers (Coen & Vannoni 2018, 2020. However, the assumption that regulators are guided by narrow, self-interested goals such as postgovernment personal wealth, causing them to exchange regulatory favors with interest groups, such as regulated markets or politicians, dominates research on school choice and is the most notable characteristic of capture theories (Stigler 1971(Stigler , 1975Peltzman 1976;Laffont & Tirole 1991;Zheng 2014).…”

The Executive Revolving Door: New Dataset on the Career Moves of Former Danish Ministers and Permanent Secretaries☆

“…We have evidence of a revolving door in a number of European political systems. Starting with the European Union, it has been demonstrated that, even if the revolving door is not used to the same extent here as in the US system, it occurs (Coen & Vannoni 2016;2020a;2020b). Similarly, Vaubel et al (2012) found that 39 percent of EU commissioners leaving the Commission between 1981 and 2009 later became lobbyists (see also Freund & Bendel 2016).…”

“…It is therefore no surprise that we have seen an expansion in the academic research on the topic. While scholars still focus on the US system (e.g., Blanes i Vidal et al 2012;Bertrand et al 2014;LaPira & Thomas 2017;McCrain 2018;Shepherd & You 2020), research has gradually been expanded to a number of other political systems, for example, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the European Union (e.g., Selling 2015;Coen & Vannoni 2016;2020a;2020b;Baturo & Arlow 2018;Selling & Svallfors 2019;Egerod et al 2020;Luechinger & Moser 2020;Claessen et al 2021). These studies demonstrate that, even if the frequency of career moves between the political and private sector varies between political systems, the revolving door is a phenomenon across advanced democracies.…”

In and out of revolving doors in European Union financial regulatory authorities

“…Individuals amass a stock of know-how and benefit from "human capital accumulation" (Vidal et al 2012, p. 373f). Experience accrued through work experience adds to a career-specific "premium" enjoyed by that individual (Coen & Vannoni 2020). Ultimately, this capital can be used by the individual to help them move into a new and presumably more lucrative or prestigious job.…”