Political ambition under adverse circumstances: institutional and personal contexts.

Authors

  • MARÍA DEL MAR MARTÍNEZ ROSÓN

Keywords:

ambition, political career, Parliament, Central America.

Abstract

This article studies the political ambition of parliamentarians. More specifically, it seeks to identify which roles they would like to perform, once their term in office ends, and which variables affect their plans to carry on with their political careers. The structure of opportunities in which parliamentarians find themselves has an important impact on their political options. By the structure of opportunities or context we refer to institutional and personal aspects. However, certain structures of opportunities produced by unitary, one-chamber systems as well as the prohibition of immediate re-election prevent the continuity of political careers and modify parliamentarians’ political ambition. The aim of this study is to explain the impact of adverse contexts on the future political careers of legislators. The results of analyses carried out with data from the Parliamentary Elites database (PELA), suggest that the majority of personal variables that the literature has identified as relevant have different levels of importance in political contexts that do not encourage political ambition.

Published

2009-11-18