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What Comes after Cabinet? Post-Cabinet Careers of German Regional Ministers between 1945 and 2014

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  • Sebastian Jäckle

    (Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg, 79085 Freiburg, Germany)

Abstract

Political elite studies so far have often dealt with career paths before entering a particular political position, focusing mostly on individual states of a career. However, they have consistently neglected what comes after a political office and the temporal–sequential character of biographies. This paper addresses these two issues. Using sequence analysis techniques, it examines the post-cabinet careers of ministers from the German states in the period 1945–2014 using a newly created, original dataset containing 1400 trajectories and over 12,000 coded person years. The descriptive analysis shows partly significant differences in post-cabinet careers by gender, state, decade, and last ministerial portfolio, but less so by party membership. Three of the five clusters found represent comparatively homogeneous post-cabinet career structures. Whereas in the early years of the republic most politicians did not have a subsequent (long) professional career after leaving office, switching to the private business sector and, above all, remaining in politics at the state level, represent the two most prominent career paths. A springboard career in federal politics, on the other hand, is rare, but certainly possible. From a methodological point of view, this study shows the potential, but also the problems of sequence analysis for research on political elites and offers ideas on how to continue with this approach.

Suggested Citation

  • Sebastian Jäckle, 2023. "What Comes after Cabinet? Post-Cabinet Careers of German Regional Ministers between 1945 and 2014," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-34, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:12:y:2023:i:11:p:601-:d:1269510
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicola Barban & Francesco C. Billari, 2012. "Classifying life course trajectories: a comparison of latent class and sequence analysis," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 61(5), pages 765-784, November.
    2. Cees H. Elzinga, 2005. "Combinatorial Representations of Token Sequences," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 22(1), pages 87-118, June.
    3. Huber, John D. & Martinez-Gallardo, Cecilia, 2008. "Replacing Cabinet Ministers: Patterns of Ministerial Stability in Parliamentary Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(2), pages 169-180, May.
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