German Political Careers: The State Level as an Arena in its Own Right?

Abstract

This article looks at political career patterns in Germany with a focus on the state level. After all, state legislators are a far more representative group of professional politicians in Germany than members of the federal parliament. Furthermore, by looking at pathways to the state legislatures, strategies to remain there (including office accumulation) and options of career advancement from a state mandate to other positions the authors substitute a dynamic career perspective for a mainly institution-centered one. The main finding of the article is contra-intuitive: Despite an institutional structure that allows for high levels of permeability between different territorial levels of government in Germany, there is actually very limited movement. The high degree of professionalization of state politics, a certain regionalization of the party system and some other factors seem to have turned state politics into a career arena in its own right.

Keywords:

• Career patterns
• Germany
• state level
• professionalization
• office accumulation
• party democracy
• federalism

Notes

The following is based on Borchert and Golsch (2003).

Only rather recently have some states (Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia) adopted an institutional order in which the mayors or county executives are directly elected by the voters. This is now uniformly the case in all German states (except the city states) which otherwise still differ in terms of the way local politics is organized.

See following note for more details.

The eight states that (with some variation in detail) practise a mixed system with a 50/50 distribution between constituency and list mandates are Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rhineland Palatinate, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. Bremen and Saarland have pure list systems, while Baden-Württemberg stands out with a pure constituency system in which proportionality is maintained by giving seats to the relatively best losers of other parties. The remaining states have mixed electoral systems with an overweight of constituency seats. The formula in some cases approximates 60/40 (Berlin, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein), in others 2/1 (Lower Saxony) or 70/30 (North Rhine-Westphalia).

The study of political careers is confronted by a general methodological problem: the definition of the population of cases to be analysed. While theoretically it seems most appropriate to select the individual career as the unit of analysis, this has serious practical repercussions. In general, it will be impossible even to detect all those persons within a territorial unit who have pursued a professional political career at some point in their life. Some fail in their attempt at entry, whereby even this attempt may remain unknown. Yet, even if we look only at the successful, we are required to take a detour via particular institutions. The conventional solution is usually to constrict the study to national parliaments—often without even reflecting on the selectivity of proceeding in this way (cf. Hibbing, 1999, on this issue).

In Germany, there is surprisingly little literature on state legislators (cf. Dürr, 1977; Höffken, 1982; Holl, 1989, 2000; Paprotny, 1995; Greß and Huth, 1998; Lock, 1998; Lohse, 1999; Schöne, 1999; Borchert and Stolz, 2003; Mielke and Reutter, 2004; Davidson-Schmich, 2006; Reutter, 2008; Edinger, 2009; Könen, 2009).

Data for 1877 were computed from the entries in the Biographical Directory (online at http://www.reichstag-abgeordnetendatenbank.de/); the information for 1907 is taken from Molt (1963: 47).

Between 1980 and 2003 only fourteen representatives held dual mandates for transitionary periods of three to eleven months (Schindler, 1999: 465–468; Feldkamp, 2005: 134).

This is a recurring theme in German journalism. Cf., among others, Der Spiegel, 51/2000: “Verlierer mit goldener Nase” [“Losers with a Golden Nose”]; or Die Zeit, 18 Apr 2002: “Konsens beim Thema Kormorane” [“Consensus on the Cormorants”].

The ‘Party of Democratic Socialism’ was the successor organization to the old SED (‘Socialist Unity Party’), East Germany's governing party under socialist rule. After unification, it became mostly an East German regional party rather than a left alternative. In 2005 it renamed itself “The Left Party” and, in 2007, it merged with the WASG to form “The Left”.

The states of Berlin and Hamburg have a dual status, being both states and cities. The state of Bremen is comprised of the cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven.

Only Bremen, Hamburg and Saarland have pure list systems, while Baden-Württemberg elects all of its representatives in constituencies with additional seats for the best losers of those parties under-represented after the distribution of directly won seats.

Historically, staff positions are the newest addition to the structure of opportunity. It was only when the institutional professionalization of legislatures proceeded that this became an option for entry to a political career.

Numbers for party chairs always include deputy chairs.

Only the city states of Bremen and Hamburg have incompatibility rules requiring ministers (called “Senators” here) to resign from the legislature.

The numerous positions of party spokespersons for various policy fields constitute the lowest ring of career options for state legislators.

This point is confirmed by yet unpublished research on the intra-party nomination process conducted by Marion Reiser (University of Frankfurt). We would like to thank her for sharing this information with us. Jens Borchert is currently planning a research project looking at local pools of would-be candidates and the choices they make.

Private life is a serious point for many. The Liberal party whip in the Bundestag, Jörg van Essen, pointed out in a round-table discussion in December 2004 that almost none of the colleagues entering the Bundestag with him in 1990 have managed to preserve their marriages.