Down with Career Politicians!

Abstract

Abstract The book opens with a brief history of the term “career politicians.” The chapter shows that worries over “political professionalization” are consubstantial with the rise of democracy from its inception, in Europe as well as in the United States. In the 19th century, as hereditary claims to political office gave way to popular suffrage, more and more candidates could not afford to perform their duties without pay. Disputes over the legitimacy of financial remuneration for political service continued into the next century. The controversy would eventually quiet, but it bequeathed a nagging suspicion that politicians are motivated by monetary gain. This chapter traces the arc of the history of opposition to career politicians, from the right-wing criticism against workers entering politics to the stylized opposition between the people and the elites that took hold in the latter half of the 20th century. But why did this rhetoric acquire such resonance at that particular moment? And how did such a pure product of the French establishment as Macron manage to pass as an “outsider”? Drawing on an original, extensive data set, it identifies the central transformations of the political field since the 1970s, and in particular the closure of the French political field.