Personal circulation in the Dutch second chamber 1888-1993: towards institutionalization and professionalization and then?

Abstract

This article describes developments regarding institutionalization of the Dutch Second Chamber and professionalization of its members during a century, using two categories of data: on pre-parliamentarian political experience of the members on the one hand, on turnover, tenure and age at the other hand. Not all of the here investigated aspects lead to the same conclusion concerning the process of institutionalization. Institutionalization seems to be confirmed by the fact that the renewal rate points, in the postwar decades at least, more or less to some ?fossilization?. Tenure of parliamentary mandate, however, in the whole rather tends to decrease over time, at least until the seventies. In these last decades the renewal rate no longer was as strongly connected to the mean age as before. Pre-parliamentary political experience has been an important recruiting factor during the entire period. While local political experience slightly decreases, party experience among new members of parliament even increased since the thirties. MP's with previous political experience have been re-elected more frequently. Recent complaints about ?petrification? of parliament are less firmly grounded than supposed. * Address all communications to Wilhelmina P. Secker, Faculty of Law, Department of Parliamentary History, University of Leiden, Hugo de Grootstraat 27, 2300 RA Lei den, The Netherlands.