1,720,965 research outputs found
Political Careers of Ministers and Prime Ministers
No full textThe concept of career, while ubiquitous in elite research, has hardly received any comprehensive analytical treatment in the study of political executives. This chapter will summarize and develop the basic theoretical and methodological approaches as well as empirical findings of studies investigating political careers of cabinet members in democratic parliamentary and semi-presidential systems at the national level. It is divided into three sections. The first provides a sketch of the basic research questions that have been raised (and discussed) in the field of executive careers studies over the past decades. The second part offers a systematic survey of the current state of the literature concerned with ministers’ and prime ministers’ political careers. The third section presents some avenues for future research, including the potential for further theoretical and methodological improvement, followed by some concluding remarks
The Comparative Study of Governments and Ministers: Jean Blondel’s Legacy
No full textJean Blondel’s academic impact in the field of comparative governments was enormous, but difficult to measure. Over the past 60 years, his publications have fuelled the work of several generations of colleagues around the world. In this short essay, we first introduce his most influential publications. Second, we introduce the empirical findings of major comparative studies which stand ‘on the shoulders’ of his research on governments and ministers in parliamentary democracies. Overall, we state that Jean Blondel’s comparative research was not designed to leave behind an enduring theory of his own. Instead, he was more interested in looking for more unexpected measurable facts and merge them into generalizations about the future of cabinet governments and political leaders
Prime Ministerial Careers in the European Union: Does Gender Make a Difference?
No full textThis article presents empirical findings on two questions: what are the ‘political stepping stones’ on the way to the prime ministerial post? Are there any differences between female and male prime ministers on their way to the chief executive? These questions are primarily linked to the literature on women’s recruitment in top political offices. The data for this analysis stem from unique biographical records of 76 prime ministers in those 10 member states of the European Union where women have been in prime ministerial positions from 1979 to 2015. Consistent with theoretical expectations, the empirical findings show that there is indeed a gender difference in the pathways to the prime ministerial post. Female prime ministers are predominantly recruited in centre-right parties. They have more political experience in parliament and cabinet than their male counterparts, but a shorter duration in office once becoming prime minister
The Background of Prime Ministers: Who They Are
No full textThis chapter sets the scene by providing a novel comparative exploration of similarities and differences in the individual background characteristics of prime ministers in Europe. It investigates prime ministers’ socio-demographic composition, their political experience, their partisan background, and their duration in office over the past seven decades. The descriptive analysis shows that prime ministers in Europe are not an internally coherent and homogeneous group of politicians, as previous research has claimed. On the contrary, prime ministers differ remarkably across European democracies in regard to their individual background characteristics and their duration in office
Conclusion: What Have We Learned and What Needs to Be Done?
No full textThis chapter summarizes the major empirical findings of this study and considers the implications of changing prime ministers’ career experiences and profiles on democratic representation and democratic governance across the various European democracies. It is argued that the different types of experiences that prime ministers bring with them may result in different balances of responsive and responsible government. The chapter finally also proposes some new directions for future research on prime ministers’ careers in liberal democracies
Studying Prime Ministers’ Careers: An Introduction
No full textThis chapter highlights the changing role of prime ministers in European party governments. It argues that the career experiences and profiles of prime ministers change in times of changing job requirements. Departing from a review of existing research on prime ministers’ careers in liberal democracies, this chapter presents the theoretical and empirical innovations of the book as well as additional research questions that go beyond the origin and the political effect of different career types. It also defines the geographical focus and the sample of prime ministers in 26 European democracies from 1945 to 2020
Prime Ministers in Europe: Changing Career Experiences and Profiles
No full textThis book examines the changes in the career experiences and profiles of 350 European prime ministers in 26 European democracies from 1945 to 2020. It builds on a theoretical framework, which claims that the decline of party government along with the increase of populism, technocracy, and the presidentialization of politics have influenced the careers of prime ministers over the past 70 years. The findings show that prime ministers’ career experiences became less political and more technical. Moreover, their career profiles shifted from a traditional type of ‘party-agent’ to a new type of ‘party-principal’. These changes affected the recruitment of executive elites and their political representation in European democracies, albeit with different intensity and speed
Changing Career Profiles: From Party-Agents to Party-Principals
No full textThis chapter examines the development of prime ministers’ career profiles over time. Based on a factor analysis, we identify two primary types of career profiles: party-agents and party-principals. Overall, the analysis shows that prime ministers with a party-principal career profile have become more common than prime ministers with a party-agent career profile. In fact, the party-principal profile became the dominant career profile in the 1990s, following the decline of party government and the increase of the presidentialization of politics. The chapter’s sections examine several additional relevant factors that may affect career profiles, including the form of government, electoral volatility, prime ministers’ formal agenda-setting power, party family membership, and gender. Our empirical findings suggest that all five factors affect prime ministers’ career profile, albeit in different directions
Replication Data for: Prime Ministers in Europe. Changing Career Experiences and Profiles
No full textThis dataset contains career and sociodemographic data on prime ministers in Europe starting with 1945 or the respective democratization years of European countries (prime minister Winston Churchill was also included despite his earlier investiture). The data includes one observation for each prime minister and tracks career data until their first time of investiture into office. Additional variables track prime ministers governance of different types of government, interruptions and overall time in office. This data has been tracked past their first investiture into office until the last year of observation (2019). It includes data used in the Monograph: "Prime Ministers in Europe. Changing Career Experiences and Profiles.
Change of Prime Ministers’ Careers: Theoretical Considerations
No full textThis chapter presents the theoretical framework for studying changes in the career experience and the career profiles of prime ministers that will be applied to the empirical analysis in Chaps. 4 and 5. Our basic argument states that the decline of party government has supported the emergence of populist, technocratic, and presidentializing trends in European democracies. These trends have been jointly conducive to decreasing levels of prime ministerial political experience and increasing levels of technical experience, as well as to shifting prime ministers’ career profiles from a ‘party-agent’ to a ‘party-principal’ type
- …
