Political careers I

Abstract

Interest in the academic study of political careers dates back to social science classics such as Weber’s essay (1919) ‘Politics as a Vocation’, and Mills’ (1956) ’The Power Elite. Works following this tradition have so far however remained relatively focused on macro-level observations. Indeed, for some time already, the literature has reflected on the need for a ‘micro-level turn’ or ‘behavioral revolution’ in political career research (Putnam 1976 , Box-Steffensmeier and Jones, 1997 Patzelt 1999, Cairney 2003, Krook and Mackay 2011). Realizing this ambition, however, turned out to be difficult, mainly due to a lack of detailed biographical political data and methods to collect and analyze these data. Thanks to new (online) data sources and better software, this situation is now changing. Building on this key development in this panel we welcome papers that study the careers of politicians in the widest sense. We in particular welcome papers that study... • individual career transitions across levels (e.g. the promotion from municipal council member to alderman, from MP to minister) • complete career trajectories • the post-parliamentary/post-ministerial careers of politicians • macro-level outcomes of political career dynamics like gender composition, professionalization e.t.c.

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