Pathways to Power: The Role of Preparliamentary Careers and Political Human Capital in the Obtainment of Cabinet Positions

Understanding the rise to power is central to the study of politics. Yet, we still know little about the career paths of influential politicians like ministers. The literature assumes that dominant preparliamentary occupations (e.g., lawyer, local offices) predict promotion. We move beyond this potential ecological fallacy and suggest a perspective that emphasizes the role of gatekeepers and political human capital like national political experience and education. We leverage complete career data of all Dutch MPs (N = 1,263; 1945–2012) and study their (N = 4,966) opportunities to obtain a cabinet position. A sequence analysis with fuzzy clustering reveals eight career paths in both the professional and political domain. A logistic regression analysis that uses these career paths as predictors shows that prominent occupations and communicative experience do not constitute the pathway to ministerial power; a university education and preparliamentary national political experience do. Findings support the value of political human-capital theory to understand political promotion.     

Speed,Wealth and Power

In many of his texts French cultural critic, city planner and philosopher Paul Virilio emphasises that speed is not a phenomenon, but a relation between phenomena. The difference between contemporary society and societies of the past consists in the fact that earlier speed used to be mainly connected with transport, now it concerns relations within information. The question of speed is central. Speed and wealth go hand in hand. To give a philosophical definition of speed, we can say that it is not a phenomenon, but rather the relationship between phenomena. In other words, it is relativity itself. Virilio’s influential books analyses new problems resulting from the fact that the development of industrial capitalism has reached the stage in which wealth and power in society have been interconnected with ever increasing speed. In view of Virilio’s statement that wealth is an aspect of speed it has become necessary to consider speed and all its aspects and consequences through a prism of a new discipline – dromology. Dromology originates from the Greek word dromos. Hence dromology is the science of the ride, the journey, the drive, the way. This means that speed and riches are totally linked concepts. And that the history of the world is not only about the political economy of riches, that is, wealth, money, capital, but also about political economy of speed. Text analyzes the two main themes. Firstly, the treatise attempts at an philosophical analysis of – dromology. Dromologic revolutions cause artificial acceleration of speed in the form of steam or combustion engine, or, nowadays, nuclear energy and they immediately form both e.g. waging wars and kinds of communication. The second part of the study discusses the difference between contemporary society and societies of the past. Vehicles of speed create new dromospheric chronology, new tracks and nodal points (ports, roads, airports, telecommunications etc.) through which things, goods, money, weapons, people or information will start flowing within a different structure.     

Teachers as Builders of Respectful School Climates: Implications for Adolescent Drug Use Norms and Depressive Symptoms in High School

Positive school climates have been found to have favorable effects on adolescent health risk behaviors and mental health outcomes. However, the mechanisms by which teacher behavior may promote such effects in high schools have not been extensively studied. Based on social control theory and a social developmental-contextual model, it was predicted that by respecting students’ points of view and decision making capabilities, teachers can help build respectful school climates that encourage healthy norms of behavior. Structural equation modeling with a nationally representative sample of 476 youth ages 14–18 supported the model. Adolescents who reported higher teacher support and regard for student perspectives in their high schools were more likely to see their schools as having respectful climates and healthy norms of drug use which was associated with lower levels of personal drug use. Students in such schools also reported greater social belonging and fewer symptoms of depression.

Can ‘Citizen in Uniform’ Survive? German Civil–Military Culture Responding to War

This article points out the role of perceptions, hereafter referred to as ‘civil– military culture’, that German society holds about the German armed forces. Analysing the discourse in German newspapers concerning Bundeswehr missions abroad since the early 1990s, and the engagement in Afghanistan in particular, it is argued that options to use the military abroad were circumscribed mainly to humanitarian tasks. This was so because German soldiers have been perceived in accordance with the official concept of a ‘citizen in uniform’, which has strong ethical implications, and consequently the Bundeswehr was seen as a humanitarian and rescue organisation. However, since the discourse in 2009 made it clear that the internalised civil–military culture no longer provides adequate guidance regarding how to approach a war-like situation such as that in Afghanistan, the entire German civil–military culture is challenged.     

Federal and State Public Forest Administration in the New Millennium: Revisiting Herbert Kaufman's The Forest Ranger

Herbert Kaufman's 1960 investigation of federal forest rangers provided important insights into administrative discretion, agency culture, and natural resource policy making. Subsequent studies of Forest Service administration have documented that agency's change over time, mirroring broad changes in federal public administration. But little is known about state forest administration. This article describes results from a survey of line officers in 48 state forest agencies, as well as state forest statute analysis. Results indicate systematic state–federal differences in legal constraints, citizen interactions, and the forest administrators themselves. Though these differences foster state administrator decision making based on professional expertise, they do not encourage the incorporation of stakeholder views into agency policy making, nor do they yield a bureaucracy that represents a diverse constituency. State forest administrators perceive substantial external challenges to their professional discretion, but it remains to be seen whether state forest agencies will change to more closely resemble their federal counterpart.