Aiming higher: the consequences of progressive ambition among MPs in European parliaments

Sieberer, Ulrich; Müller, Wolfgang C.

doi:10.1017/s1755773915000260

Cited by 22 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…This operationalization ignores those MPs who did not stand and those who ascended to higher positions due to party internal quota or similar rules; moreover, the data are extremely difficult to obtain for all relevant positions in committees, parties, and parliament. The most appropriate measure for different ambition levels would include a direct measure of a parliamentarian's desire to stay in office, which is best attained with a direct survey question about his or her future career prospects (for examples, see Herrick and Moore ; Høyland, Hobolt, and Hix ; Maestas ; Sieberer and Müller ). However, this approach suffers from the same problem as most surveys: low response rates and, most likely, selection bias; moreover, it measures ambition only at one point in time of a career.…”

Section: Career Prospect and Expertise Impacting Legislative Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring, Maintaining, and Disengaging—The Three Phases of a Legislator's Life

Bailer

Ohmura

2017

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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Building on the understanding that a career is a dynamic concept, this article applies the idea that parliamentarians' legislative activities vary according to their career stage and age. This is partly a function of experience and partly a function of future career prospects. Using a new data set of the German Bundestag (2002-13) that pinpoints the age and career stage of MPs at the time of individual activities, namely, attending votes, posing parliamentary questions, and holding rapporteurships, we identify practical and normative challenges to MPs' legislative work: It takes time to learn the trade and as the desire for re-election dissipates, a last-period problem arises. MPs significantly reduce their activity levels toward the end of their legislative careers, indicating a clear loss of accountability toward their parties and their constituents.Parliamentarians want to perform well in order to get re-selected, re-elected, and promoted to higher positions. In this they are limited by institutional structures such as election systems and selection procedures, but also by their own career prospects, expertise, and individual talent. While we already have substantial knowledge of the impact of institutions on parliamentarians' performance such as voting, our knowledge is more limited with regard to how the individually variable resources of career prospects and expertise either constrain or enable parliamentarians. Investigating the role of career prospects and expertise and their impact on the behavior of parliamentarians furthers our understanding of what limits and what drives parliamentarians during their course of their parliamentary career paths. In this study, we compare legislative activities with professional employment where people begin careers, learn a trade, and become active and efficient workers over the course of those careers. Careers are the product of rational, individual calculations (Daniel 2015), and including career prospects in an analysis of MPs' legislative activity improves our understanding of legislators' accountability toward their party and voters.

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Section: Career Prospect and Expertise Impacting Legislative Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring, Maintaining, and Disengaging—The Three Phases of a Legislator's Life

Bailer

Ohmura

2017

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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“…Because career politicians are so driven by ambition, they concentrate on the game of politics (Wright, 2013, p. 449;Sieberer and Müller, 2017). They want to make a mark to advance their careers.…”

Section: Ambitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For excessive ambition, responses to the second question are instructive: those who believe their chances of achieving further positions are very good or even fairly good (18%) will, according to Schlesinger's (1966) ambition theory, be more determined than those who want further positions but see their chances as uncertain, very small or negligible (33%) (see also Sieberer and Müller, 2017). At the very least, responses to this second question help weed out those who are less serious about promotion.…”

Section: Likelihood Of Achieving Further Positionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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“…They also enjoy a large electoral advantage, as documented in Canada (Kendall and Rekkas, 2012), Spain (Llaudet, 2014), or Norway (Fiva et al, 2019;Fiva and Smith, 2018). Interestingly, the European Parliament-farther away from home, far less prestigious, and less influential in policy-making-constitutes an exception to this pattern (Meserve et al, 2009;Sieberer and Müller, 2017).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

How valuable is a legislative seat? Incumbency effects in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies

Micozzi

Lucardi

2019

PSRM

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In many developing countries, national legislative seats are considered less valuable than (subnational) executive positions. Even then, ambitious politicians may seek a legislative seat either (a) as awindow of opportunityfor jumping to an executive office; or (b) as aconsolation prizewhen no better option is available. Using a regression discontinuity design adapted to aprsetting, we examine these possibilities in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies between 1983 and 2011. In line with the consolation prize story, we find that marginal candidates from the Peronist party—which controls most provincial governorships—are more likely to be renominated and serve an additional term in the legislature, but not necessarily to jump to an executive office. The effect is stronger in small provinces.

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Aiming higher: the consequences of progressive ambition among MPs in European parliaments

Cited by 22 publications

References 45 publications

Exploring, Maintaining, and Disengaging—The Three Phases of a Legislator's Life

Exploring, Maintaining, and Disengaging—The Three Phases of a Legislator's Life

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

How valuable is a legislative seat? Incumbency effects in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies

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