Submissive Lobby Fodder or Assertive Political Actors? Party Loyalty of Career Politicians in the UK House of Commons, 2005–15

Abstract

Are career politician members of parliament (MPs) more or less likely to vote against the party line than their peers? Despite growing interest in the behavior of career politicians across parliamentary systems, answers to this question are marked by considerable theoretical and empirical uncertainty. I derive the two most common (but opposing) behavioral predictions before testing them over all legislative votes of two UK House of Commons terms (2005–15) using multilevel modeling of new and disaggregated data on MPs' occupational backgrounds. The finding that career politicians are more likely to rebel challenges conventional wisdom and provides an important empirical foundation for the ongoing debate.

Careerists Versus Coal-Miners: Welfare Reforms and the Substantive Representation of Social Groups in the British Labour Party

“…My emphasis on context also helps explain the divergence in results between this study and that of Heuwieser (2017), who looks at the period 2005-2015, finding that career politicians are apparently more rebellious than other politicians on votes across all political issues. This includes many policy issues where my theoretical framework could make different predictions, depending on the interplay of the three influences discussed in this section.…”

“…Another is that in European parliamentary systems, differences in legislators' preferences are often hidden from view, 1. Two notable recent exceptions to this rule are Hyytinnen et al (2018) and Heuwieser (2017). The former show that electing local politicians from public sector backgrounds in Finland leads to higher local public spending.…”

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

“…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).…”

“…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.…”

“…The institutionalization and professionalization of legislatures in the second half of the twentieth century created politicians who, in Weber's (1946Weber's ( [1919) famous analysis, lived "for" politics and also "off" politics. "Career politicians", as King (1981) termed them, have since become a dominant and controversial presence across the liberal democratic world (Squire, 1993;Searing, 1994;Norris, 1997;Saalfeld, 1997;Shabad and Slomczynski, 2002;Cairney, 2007;Koop and Bittner, 2011;Heuwieser, 2018). Many academics believe such politicians are essential for effective governance (Best and Cotta, 2000, pp.…”