Individual Ambition and Institutional Opportunity: A Conceptual Approach to Political Careers in Multi-level Systems

Abstract

The article develops a conceptual framework for the analysis of political careers in multi-level systems. Political careers are seen as being shaped by the interplay of individual ambition and the institutional structure of opportunities. Under the conditions of political professionalism, career decisions are made comparing the costs and benefits of attaining the various offices given in a certain polity. I argue that the availability, accessibility, and attractiveness of offices provide the most important clues for career-planning. The article develops a conceptual framework for the analysis of political careers in multi-level systems. Political careers are seen as being shaped by the interplay of individual ambition and the institutional structure of opportunities. Under the conditions of political professionalism, career decisions are made comparing the costs and benefits of attaining the various offices given in a certain polity. I argue that the availability, accessibility, and attractiveness of offices provide the most important clues for career-planning. These in turn are shaped by the institutional structure. Within multi-level systems, the article finds that the relationship between offices on different territorial levels may be organized in one of three ways: there may be a clear hierarchy, there may be separate alternative arenas largely sealed off against each other, or there may be one large integrated playing-field. Finally, the article discusses the repercussions career patterns may have for the political system in which they occur by linking certain political institutions but not others.

Keywords:

• Ambition
• structure of opportunity
• political careers
• multi-level systems
• career types
• political office

Notes

There has been surprisingly little research on careers in multi-level systems and even less conceptual work. Schlesinger (1966) is still an indispensable point of reference, as is Herzog (1975) from a European perspective. The idea of movement between institutions and levels of government has not been studied much. For the US, cf. the works of Squire (1988, 1993), Prinz (1993) and the contributions to Williams and Lascher (1993), more generally. Recently, there has been more interest in the topic. See Samuels (2003) on Brazil, Moncrief (2003) on Canada, Jones et al. (2002) on Argentina, and Siavelis and Morgenstern (2008) on Latin America. Good general reflections on career research may be found in Matthews (1985) and Hibbing (1999). A very interesting discussion of careers in multi-level systems is Deschouwer (2001). Studying Belgium and Denmark, respectively, Stefaan Fiers (2001) and Ulrik Kjaer (2001) have focused on career moves across territorial levels, coining the notions of ‘level-hopping’ (Fiers) and ‘stepping-stones’ (Kjaer) in the process. Most work on careers, however, still focuses on careers within one institution (cf. inter alia Epstein et al. (1997), Hibbing (1991), Moncrief and Thompson (1992) and Price (1998)). If other institutions are considered it is mostly as recruitment pool—cf. inter alia the contributions in Norris (1997) and by Moncrief (1994, 1999).

In this paper subnational, regional and state politics are used synonymously.

The term ‘professionalization’ is rather ambiguous, especially as related to politics. It connotes the historical development of an occupation, the turning of an occupation into a special kind of endeavour (‘the professions’, such as medicine and law), the individual acquisition of the capabilities required in that occupation, and sometimes the quality of the work that is performed (professional as opposed to ‘amateur’). These ambiguities notwithstanding, professionalization is an analytically fruitful concept that cannot be simply given up. Here it is understood in terms of politics becoming an occupation. The yardstick for professionalization in this understanding is twofold: the income that may be earned and the time that has to be spent. A full-time activity with an income that is comparable to, for example, that of judges or leading bureaucrats is considered professional. For institutions, a third criterion for professionalism is the institution's budget (cf. conceptually, Squire (1988); for an elaboration with international comparisons, Z'graggen (2009)). I have dealt with some of the other implications of the term elsewhere. For a discussion of to what extent the sociological concept of the ‘professions’ may be fruitfully applied to politics, cf. Borchert (2003a: 133–201). On the conceptual distinction between a professionalization of an individual, an office, an institution and a political system, cf. Borchert (2003a: 25–29).

This is not to ignore that, of course, there are other factors that have shaped the institutional structure. The growth of state interventionism, for one, clearly has played an important role. My point simply is that not only do institutional features of the polity provide incentives and restrictions to political careers—they are also themselves the object of reform proposals that, to say the least, take the career interests of professional politicians into account.

The power one might have, of course, depends heavily on the political constellation of the day—for example, on the question of whether one's party is in government or in opposition. Usually, the government benches are clearly more attractive. Yet, planning a career-step based on the current constellation before an election, or even on one's predictions about the election outcome, is bound to lead to disappointment in many cases. Thus, career steps should be influenced more by the realistic chance to see one's party assume the government while one is a member of a legislature, for example. As accessibility is greater during times of opposition while attractiveness is in times of government, it makes sense to gamble on time and hope for a change of government in the future. Only if there is little chance of that ever happening will there be a clear-cut influence on career decisions.

The former was the prime motivation behind the 1979 reform of the British House of Commons, introducing standing (select) committees (Judge, 1981), while the latter may be interpreted as being the driving force behind the development and institutionalization of the US House of Representatives, as described by Polsby (1968) and others (cf., for example, Brady et al., 1999; Schickler, 2001).

In Brazil legislators also frequently take a leave of absence from the Chamber of Deputies in order to serve as state ministers (Santos, 2003: 128–130). Should they resign from their state executive post within the federal legislative term, they can then take back their seat in the chamber.

Drawing the boundary is somewhat arbitrary, but I would consider it a low pace of movement, if changes of position occur less frequently than every ten years, and a high pace if, on average, more than two positions are held within a time-span of ten years.

Thus, it is for example easily conceivable that the branches of government recruit their personnel from different pools of candidates resulting in three clearly demarcated career pathways that may or may not transcend different levels of government but that do not allow for crossovers. These career patterns focused on particular types of institutions are not considered in detail here.

A similar thought can be found in Schlesinger (1966: 99–100), who considers similarity of the electorate, similarity of institutions and unity of political arena as the three major factors favouring succession between offices.