Parliamentary Recruitment Research Articles

Parliamentary Recruitment in the UK House of Commons: De-Gendering Workplace Structures, Gendering the Applicant

Abstract Recruitment to key positions in institutions can be viewed as one way to introduce strategic reforms; however, little research has been conducted as to the effectiveness of the practice within parliaments. Even less has been written about the recruitment practices for non-elected parliamentary actors. Applying a feminist discursive institutionalist analysis, this article highlights the main discourses prominent in discussions around the recruitment to the Clerk of the House of Commons in 2014. It is argued that there are three discourses that rhetorically de-gendered career structures in the UK House of Commons, while two discourses explicitly gendered the applicant to the position of Clerk. The article discusses the broader significance of these insights for analysing parliaments as gendered workplaces, and for member engagement with parliamentary administrations.

Introduction to the Debate: Does Descriptive Misrepresentation by Income and Class Matter?

Introduction to the Debate: Does Descriptive Misrepresentation by Income and Class Matter?

The Historical Changes and Continuities of Swiss Parliamentary Recruitment

The Historical Changes and Continuities of Swiss Parliamentary Recruitment

LEGISLATIVE TURNOVER IN THE BALTICS AFTER 1990: WHY IS IT SO HIGH AND WHAT ARE ITS IMPLICATIONS?

This article discusses the causes and potential consequences of the high legislative turnover in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the period from 1990 onwards. The main findings from the subject-related literature are being confronted with the data on the Baltic parliamentary recruitment. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the path dependence (length of the previous non-democratic regime) and the supply-side volatility are the most convincing explanations for the high turnover among Baltic legislators.

The social anchoring of Portuguese MPs, 1975–2009: Ttrade union participation during 35 years of democracy

The main purpose of this article is to analyse the relationship between trade unions and political parties. Based upon the concept of political field proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, this study centres on the evolution of parliamentary recruitment among trade union leaders. It is a study that, being based upon the historical relation between these two social and political actors, aims to reflect upon the ideas of politics and representation.

Clientelism and Political Recruitment in Democratic Transition: Evidence from Romania

Legislative recruitment patterns can serve as an important source of information on clientelistic practices of political parties. These practices are often a product of parties' deliberate strategies to foster clientelistic type of linkages between politicians and society. The difficulties of conceptualizing and measuring these practices, which frequently have a highly informal character, impede comparative work on the subject. Current studies offer a number of research strategies to overcome these difficulties, but pay little attention to the potential contribution of political recruitment research in addressing these challenges.1 Clientehsm involves contingent direct exchanges between political actors and both vote-rich and resource-rich constituencies. Refining and modifying conceptual tools developed by political recruitment studies can provide important insights into the dynamics of exchange between political parties and resource-rich constituencies that are especially valuable for understanding party development and the dynamics of politi cal representation in transitional societies. This article uses an original dataset on Romanian parliamentary representatives in order to test a number of propositions about the parties' use of parliamentary recruitment for structuring clientelistic exchanges. Scholars of political recruitment have long argued that social background charac teristics are important factors in explaining who gets elected to public office and how elected representatives subsequently behave. Werner Patzelt provides a major overview of this literature and its findings in relation to Western Europe.2 Parliamentary recruit ment has also been one aspect of a more general research agenda on political elites in post-communist Europe.3 The amount of attention paid to social background characteristics either as depen dent or independent variables in cross-country comparative research, however, has not been very significant. This can be explained partly by the prevalence of similar demo graphic, educational, and professional background characteristics of representatives in Western European democracies, the study of which tends to dominate political recruit ment literature.4 Recent work on political recruitment in Latin America also under explores the variation in social background characteristics.5 Convergence in terms of political representatives' social background across different national contexts and its

Does Personality Matter in Politics? Personality Factors as Determinants of Parliamentary Recruitment and Policy Preferences

Abstract This article inquires into the impact of personality factors on the selection and self-selection of parliamentary elites. I compare personality profiles of German MPs and the German population obtained through survey research, and for some comparisons I utilize elite and mass samples matched for education, gender, and age. I ask further if MPs’ personalities have an impact on their preferences for expansionist or restricted government budgets and welfare state benefits, the extension or limitation of civic rights, and several other policies. Party affiliations of MPs are used as a control variable. I find that MPs’ personality traits differ strikingly from those of the German population and from those of followers in most of the parties with which MPs are affiliated.

New Challenges, New Elites? Changes in the Recruitment and Career Patterns of European Representative Elites

AbstractLong term changes in the recruitment patterns of European representative elites can be described as the aggregate result of selectorates' responses to a sequence of fundamental problems challenging polities since the emergence of modern representative political institutions in the 19th century. Recent data show that some long-term trends of (Western) European parliamentary recruitment like the increase of MPs with a public sector background have reversed or plateaued since the late 1980s. At the same time a rise in turnover, a decrease of incumbency and a growing diversity of recruitment patterns can be seen in the same group of polities. This paper explores whether and to what extent these changes are linked to changes in the party systems of Western European polities and whether new trends of parliamentary recruitment are emerging. It introduces the proposition that after the 'consensus challenge' of the post Second World War era a 'legitimacy challenge' is now shaping European legislative recruitment, increasing the value of social and cultural assets of candidates that are related to their expert-status and favouring properties signalling their moral integrity.

Comparing houses of representatives: parliamentary recruitment in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico

The essay aims at comparing differences in patterns of parliamentary recruitment for federal legislatures in Latin American countries. Those patterns as well as the political performance of state delegations were analyzed from the viewpoint of levels of stability in the control of seats. The Chilean House of Representatives is the case presenting the highest level of stable political careers in a context of moderate political turnover.. By contrast, Mexico and Argentina present high rates of political turnover among elected representatives, a condition facilitating the access of politicians lacking previous experience at the federal sphere of politics. Brazil is a intermediary case, displaying long periods of high rates of turnover, followed by reversals of such trend, as it occurs since 1998. When changes in the composition of party representation in federal legislatures resulting from voter’s behavior are discarded, one may conclude that, with the exception of Chile, the high rates of political turnover are only marginally connected with electoral variations among the competing parties. Intra-party politics determining strategies for choosing and promoting candidates appear to be the most relevant variable explaining rates of parliamentary turnover. Key-words: Houses of Representatives; parliamentary recruitment; political parties, political careers; parliamentary turnover

Still a Traditional Political Class? Patterns of Parliamentary Recruitment in Brazil (1946–2002)

This article aims at identifying patterns of parliamentary recruitment in Brazil. Fifteen legislatures elected between 1946 and 2002 to the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies are investigated. Data on the path and political experience of every Brazilian federal representative are examined, including the representative's point of entry into politics, offices held, and length of career before achieving a parliamentary seat. Results show that parliamentary recruitment in Brazil demonstrates a pattern of lateral entry into a legislative career. A high and continuous parliamentary renewal rate is the most prominent feature and is a phenomenon common to different regions, states, and parties. The marked turnover does not take place only in caucuses of urban and electorally competitive states. Neither is it a phenomenon unknown among more conservative party caucuses. Even traditional, conservative parties, over this time period, have experienced significant levels of turnover inside their caucuses in the legislature.

Recruitment and Retention in Western European Parliaments

This article reviews and evaluates recent research on parliamentary recruitment in Western Europe. It illuminates the particular difficulties of doing comparative legislative research in Europe and summarizes several important studies and their methodologies. Next, it presents a country-by-country overview of comparative and case studies on legislative recruitment. Included are the Mediterranean countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece), France, the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden), Belgium and the Netherlands, the German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), and the European Parliament. Additionally, studies on gender effects in legislative recruitment are reviewed. A final section evaluates several major substantive and methodological issues. These include the strengths and shortcomings of European recruitment research; the types of data collected and research questions answered; the common research methods and their limits; the theoretical frameworks applied; and the neglect of normative research.

Fishing from the same schools: Parliamentary recruitment and consociationalism in the first and second Italian republics

Starting from the assumption that political recruitment systems have an effect on elite behaviour, the hypothesis is advanced that a restriction of the ‘political opportunity structure’ from an early age facilitates consociationalism. The initial stages of the political careers of the MPs elected in Italy in the eleventh legislature (1992) ‐ generally described as consociational ‐ are contrasted with those of their successors elected in the twelfth legislature (1994), commonly singled out as more conflictual. Evidence shows that the ruling bodies of the party youth organisations functioned as an apprenticeship for more than 30 per cent of the MPs in 1992 and more than 50 per cent of the parliamentary ‘super‐elite’. It is argued that the ‘activation’ of Italian political elites through party youth organisations homogenised their status (as political professionals), and lowered their social distance (as old acquaintances). The first factor brought about equivalence of interests, the second, personal trust. ...

Mass Mobilization and the Transformation of Parliamentary Elites in Norway

The article considers two aspects of the establishment in Norway of a mass participatory parliamentary democracy: the changing national and regional patterns of recruitment to parliamentary positions, and the long‐term processes of democratization and political mobilization. The influence of high social status upon parliamentary recruitment was replaced by that of high political status. This changeover, however, was modified by a distinct centre‐periphery dimension in both social substitution and the process of political professionalization, corresponding to regional variations in the timing and tempo of mass mobilization.

A Computer Simulation Model of Multiparty Parliamentary Recruitment

A Computer Simulation Model of Multiparty Parliamentary Recruitment