Untangling the Conceptual Web of Political Professionalism. A Framework for Empirical Analysis

The concept of political professionalism is essential for understanding the interaction between staff and elected officials. This paper offers a nuanced overview of the different aspects of professionalism and discusses how theoretical insights on the individual characteristics of staff members can be applied empirically. Following Panebianco’s seminal work on political staff (Panebianco, 1988), consequent party models have acknowledged professionalization as an ongoing development (Katz & Mair, 1995; Hopkin & Paolucci, 1999). This theoretical interest induced scholars of both party organization (Farell & Webb, 2000; Krouwel, 2012; Poguntke, Scarrow & Webb, 2016) and political communication (Gibson & Rommele, 2009; Karlsen, 2010; Tenscher & Mykkanen, 2014) to study the subject empirically. As a result, the conceptual bandwidth of political professionalism has been stretched. It now covers research subjects ranging from media attention for spindoctors (Panagopulos, 2009) to campaign techniques (Lisi, 2013) and career patterns of party staff (Webb & Fisher, 2003). In doing so, scholars have applied the concept with varying degrees of consideration and depth. The aim of this paper is to create conceptual clarity in this diverse field to enable more focused empirical research. In the theoretical part of the paper, existing literature will be united within a single conceptual framework, consisting of two areas of expertise and three analytical levels (table 1). Based on party goal literature (Strom, 1999), the columns address the role of staff members. What kind of expertise do they bring to the table? Do they focus on votes (campaigning, public relations) or policy (legislation, parliamentary assistance)? Furthermore, professionalism can be studied on three analytical levels: what is the unit of analysis? Does our interest lie with systemic factors (state funding, media system, ...), parties (ideology, electoral size, …) or individual staff members (training, seniority, …)? Votes Policy Individual level A B Party level C D Systemic level E F Table 1: Structure of conceptual framework The framework developed in part one will serve as a building block for the methodological part of the paper, which will deal with the empirical measurement of political professionalism. While existing literature emphasizes the party level and largely focuses on campaigning (cell C), this paper will specifically target cells A and B. These cells tackle the main subject of the panel, as we are interested in the causal mechanisms that shape interaction between individual staff members and political officials. The five elements discussed by Panebianco (social background, skills, organizational role, relation to leadership and control system) will be translated into qualitative and quantitative empirical indicators. To conclude the paper, we’ll address how these indicators can be used for future research, which aim to study professionalism as either an independent or dependent variable.