Public Office as a Stepping-Stone? Investigating the Careers of Ministerial Advisors
| Published date | 01 November 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920906991 |
| Date | 01 November 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920906991
Political Studies Review
2021, Vol. 19(4) 539 –557
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1478929920906991
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Public Office as a
Stepping-Stone? Investigating
the Careers of Ministerial
Advisors
Jostein Askim1, Rune Karlsen2
and Kristoffer Kolltveit1
Abstract
Ministerial advisors have become an essential aspect of executive branches worldwide, thus
making the ministerial advisor office a potential route for young politicians aspiring to an
expanding political class. The article studies which professions ministerial advisors migrate to
following their ministerial careers, how ministerial advisors’ post-ministerial careers compare to
their pre-ministerial careers, and if the variance in careers can be explained by the resources that
ministerial advisors obtain while in government. Empirically, the article draws on a cohort of 139
ministerial advisors in Norwegian governments between 2001 and 2009; it covers positions in the
political sphere and the public, private and voluntary occupational sectors over a period from each
ministerial advisor’s youth to the end of 2017. The bibliographic data are combined with surveys
and elite interviews. The results show that more than expanding the political class as a recruitment
ground for future Members of the Parliament and ministers, ministerial advisor appointments
serve as stepping-stones to careers outside of politics. Most ministerial advisors experience shifts
between occupational sectors and upwards to higher positions. However, ministerial advisors’
attractiveness in the labour market is surprisingly unaffected by what they actually did in office;
rather, it rests on resources such as insider knowledge and networks.
Keywords
ministerial advisors, careers, political class, revolving door, executives
Accepted: 24 January 2020
Introduction
According to some scholars and critical observers, a political class has emerged in estab-
lished democracies. Consisting of people with lifelong political careers, this class is
1Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
2Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Corresponding author:
Kristoffer Kolltveit, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1097, Blindern, 0317 Oslo,
Norway.
Email: kristoffer.kolltveit@stv.uio.no
906991PSW0010.1177/1478929920906991Political Studies ReviewAskim et al.
research-article2020
Article
540 Political Studies Review 19(4)
detached from the people they are elected to represent (Allen and Cairney, 2017: 19;
Borchert, 2003). Politicians increasingly surround themselves with advisors, be it at party
headquarters (Webb and Kolodny, 2006), in parliament (Karlsen, 2010; Karlsen and
Saglie, 2017) or in government ministries (Diamond, 2011; Eymeri-Douzans et al., 2015;
Shaw and Eichbaum, 2018; Yong and Hazell, 2014). The growth in the number of advi-
sors suggests that these are positions for an expanding political class or stepping-stones
for aspiring top politicians.
Such advisors and ministerial advisors (MAs) in particular, used to ‘live in the dark’
(Blick, 2004), but after 10–15 years of considerable scholarly attention, we now know
that MAs are a growing group of powerful actors at the core of executive government.
They advise ministers, liaise across ministries and with parliament and oversee the
bureaucracy’s policy implementation (Askim et al., 2017; Craft, 2015; Eichbaum and
Shaw, 2010; Eymeri-Douzans et al., 2015; Hustedt et al., 2017). However, it remains
unclear the extent to which MAs remain in politics or migrate to other arenas and whether
service in high public office pays off career-wise. Scholarship utilizing a career rewards
perspective has shown that monetary and visible rewards for high public office ‘do not
extinguish with [the] end of tenure but rather provide new credentials which expand [poli-
ticians’] ability to fulfil their career ambitions’ (Claveria and Verge, 2015: 819; see also
Brans and Peters, 2014). The potential revolving-door problem refers to former politi-
cians migrating to jobs where their insights entail a competitive advantage for employers
(Boucher and Cooper, 2019; Parker et al., 2012; Selling and Svallfors, 2019).). However,
little is known about what aspects of their work in the core of executive government make
MAs attractive to outside employers (Hustedt et al., 2017; Wilson, 2016).
This article thus addresses a gap in political science scholarship by analysing MAs’
careers before and after politics and the effect that political service has on their careers.
We ask three interrelated questions. First, which professions do MAs migrate to following
their ministerial careers? For example, is the predominant pattern to remain in or transi-
tion out of politics? Second, how do MAs’ post-ministerial careers compare to their pre-
ministerial careers? For example, is the predominant pattern that MAs obtain higher
professional positions afterwards or that they stall or regress? Third, can the variance in
careers be explained by the resources that MAs obtain while in government? For exam-
ple, do MAs with independent executive power advance to higher professional positions
than those who only counsel ministers or perform menial duties do? And does it help an
MA’s career if they have worked in a prestigious ministry?
Empirically, this article is based on the coding of biographical data from 139 individu-
als who were MAs in Norwegian governments between 2001 and 2009. It covers, in
detail, positions in the political sphere and the public, private and voluntary occupational
sectors over a period from each of the individuals’ youth to the end of 2017. Thus, the
article responds to calls for career research to cover the positions held in various occupa-
tional sectors (Blach-Ørsten et al., 2020) and the multiple positions held before and after
a period in office, not just those held immediately before and after (Claveria and Verge,
2015). We study career development based on individual-level calculations of occupa-
tions before and after serving as MAs. We combine this innovative use of biographical
data with a comprehensive survey and elite interviews. High response rates in surveys
and access to elite sources such as MAs enable such methodological triangulation.
The results show that the predominant pattern is for MAs to transition out of politics.
MAs’ attractiveness in the job marked is less a result of what they actually do while in
office and more a question of the insider knowledge and networks they acquire. As such,
To continue reading
Request your trial