Term limits: Evidence of careerism and socialisation in the us house of representatives

This paper uses voting behaviour on term limits in the US House of Representataives to explore the complex nature of theories of socialisation and careerism. Far from being separate theories, this paper finds much in common between socialisation and careerism. Voting behaviour on term limit measures suggests that both socialisation and careerism are evident. Like socialisation, careerism is found to comprise a dynamic quality whose strength increases with seniority. However, the effects of careerism are thought to be more pronounced across policies than they are for socialisation since the effects of socialisation depend upon measures having both radical policy implications and radical institutional implications.