Suchergebnisse

The research note argues that legislative turnover can be decomposed into two main sources of newcomer entry into the legislature: entry by election and entry by selection. This is demonstrated using available data on political mandates in the lower chambers of Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in the period 1945–2015. We observe that selection is the leading source of new member entry across country and across time. Most turnover happens prior to general elections. This appears to be a general rule characterizing the phenomenon. We speculate as to the reason why. The conditions under which election appears to overtake selection as a major source of new member entry are investigated.

The article examines the post-government career moves of 521 former British special advisers who served from 1997 to 2017. Analysis of an original dataset mapping the first job each special adviser 'landed-in' after leaving government shows the vast majority land in corporate lobbying and policy advocacy roles. A minority become politicians, although many continue to work in political organisations. The least popular choice is public service. The findings challenge the 'lure of power' hypothesis and lend weight to increasing concerns about former political staff revolving to shadow lobbying. The findings point to potential lobbying regulation loopholes first raised by the UK Committee of Standards in Public Life. A multi-nominal logistic regression shows how party affiliation and occupational path dependency constrain career moves. Labour special advisers are less likely to become corporate lobbyists than Conservative and Liberal Democrat ones. Special advisers also tend to revolve back to similar professional roles held before an appointment.

AbstractThis article explains legislative turnover in eight West European legislatures over 152 general elections in the period 1945–2015. Turnover is measured as the rate of individual membership change in unicameral or lower chambers. It is the outcome of a legislative recruitment process with a supply and a demand side. Decisions made by contenders affect supply, while decisions made by parties and voters influence demand. Such decisions are shaped by four political and institutional factors: the institutional context of political careers, or structure of political career opportunities; political party characteristics; electoral swings; and electoral systems. Ten specific hypotheses are tested within this theoretical framework. The structure of political career opportunities is the most decisive factor explaining variability in turnover rates, followed by electoral swings and political parties. Electoral systems show less substantive effects. Electoral volatility is the predictor with the most substantive effects, followed by duration of legislative term, strength of bicameralism, regional authority, gender quotas, level of legislative income and district magnitude.

The article investigates the substantive and dimensional aspect of advisers' policy work in the cabinets of European Commissioners. Advisers' roles are mapped using Connaughton's (2010a) typology of four adviser types and Maley's (2015) framework of three arenas. Using data collected via a survey and follow‐up face‐to‐face interviews with European Commissioner cabinet advisers in the Juncker Commission in 2015, it is shown that the majority of those agents perform policy coordination and political bodyguard functions. They are both policy managers who steer policy and political bodyguards who mind the Commissioner. It is also their core work responsibility to be highly active across three arenas: orientate and mobilize officials in the Directorate Generals, coordinate policy across Commissioner cabinets, and build political support through consulting and bargaining with external stakeholders. European Commissioner cabinet advisers are individual agents active within a variant of the ministerial cabinet system tradition.

This paper examines the influence of party change on party-level legislative turnover. Analyzing a novel dataset tracking 251 parties in eight West European democracies between 1945 and 2015, we assess how transformational party events affect the renewal of parties' parliamentary delegations. Transformational party events refers to party changes resulting from deliberate strategic decisions that redistribute power within parties, change their identity, and/or shift alliances within and between them. We focus in particular on changes in parties' leadership and name, the formation of electoral cartels, mergers and divisions, applying empirical methods suitable for dealing with fractional outcomes and multi-level data to test their impact on turnover rates. Our estimates indicate that leadership change is a key determinant of MP renewal, leading to systematically higher rates of legislative turnover. Party relabeling and divisions affect turnover as well, although their influence is contingent on other characteristics of the parties and their environment.

This unique book presents the first systematic overview of policy analysis activities in Belgium. Contributors from both sides of the Dutch-French language border (from research institutes in Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia) use original empirical data, through surveys and interviews with key players both within and outside government, to provide a comprehensive study of policy analysis in a multi-level polity. By the very nature of the Belgian experience, the volume is comparative, drawing conclusions on divergence and convergence of policy analysis, making it an important resource for both national and international scholars