Changing Career Experiences: Less Political, More Technical

This chapter assesses changes in prime ministers’ career experiences across European countries and between the European regions. The empirical investigation finds that prime ministers’ political experience in positions such as member of national parliament and/or cabinet and/or party leader has declined over the past decades, albeit with regional variations. The same holds true for their duration in these political offices. The technical experiences of prime ministers, in turn, show some increase relative to their political experiences. Although the proportion of prime ministers with former experience in private enterprises, interest groups, state bureaucracies, and international organizations has increased moderately, these background characteristics remain less important than experiences gained in national political institutions and political parties for a successful prime ministerial career. In sum, our analysis confirms that the career experiences of European prime ministers have become moderately ‘less political’ and ‘more technical’.