Workplace Networks and Political Selection

Do social networks at workplaces function as cues into the political arena? We consider this question using the case of Sweden, which has many leisure politicians who work in the regular labour market. Restricting our networks to small cells of individuals within the same occupation and workplace, we find that an individual is more likely to become a politician in the future if that person has a colleague who was a politician. We further find that these newly enrolled individuals are placed higher up on the party lists – which to a very large extent dictates which party nominees are elected – in subsequent elections. Our mechanism analysis indicates that the effect is stronger if we consider political party bloc networks and that high-ability party officials are more prominent than low-ability officials in terms of recruiting from their workplace networks.