The Political Class in Advanced Democracies: A Comparative Handbook
Jens Borchert and Jürgen Zeiss
Abstract
Professional politicians have increasingly come under public attack in most democratic countries, yet they have received surprisingly little systematic attention in political science. This is the first comprehensive overview of professional politicians in democratic countries.\par This book demonstrates that there are both striking similarities between professional politicians in different countries and notable national peculiarities. The introduction develops a common conceptual framework, which is put into use in the following chapters. Using Gaetano Mosca's term and Max Weber's seminal insi ... More
Professional politicians have increasingly come under public attack in most democratic countries, yet they have received surprisingly little systematic attention in political science. This is the first comprehensive overview of professional politicians in democratic countries.\par This book demonstrates that there are both striking similarities between professional politicians in different countries and notable national peculiarities. The introduction develops a common conceptual framework, which is put into use in the following chapters. Using Gaetano Mosca's term and Max Weber's seminal insights, it reconstructs the concept of political class to demonstrate the degree of common ground between politicians of different parties and institutions. The twenty country chapters written by scholars from sixteen countries provide information on professional politicians in their respective countries, as well as discussing the merits of the theoretical approach employed. Each chapter looks at the historical process of professionalization, the institutional context of professional politics, the size of the political class in each country, typical career paths, the remuneration of politicians, and recent reform debates.
Keywords:
advanced democracies,
institutional context,
institutional reform,
political careers,
political class,
professionalization of politics,
remuneration
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2003 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199260362 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2005 |
DOI:10.1093/0199260362.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Jens Borchert, editor
Senior Researcher in Politics, University of Goettingen, Germany
Author Webpage
Jürgen Zeiss, editor
Researcher in Politics, University of Goettingen, Germany
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