The effects of bridging business and politics – A survival analysis of German Federal ministers

Previous studies provide evidence for the mutual impact of the triangular relationship between politics, business and bridging individuals. So far, only little is known about the effects for politicians who bridge governments and corporations. Building on Burt's (1992) social capital theory, I...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European Journal of Political Economy 2018-12, Vol.55, p.433-454
Main Author: Scharfenkamp, Katrin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business
Career
Companies
Nonprofit organizations
Political economy
Politicians
Politics
Social capital
Survival
Survival analysis
Tenure
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Summary:Previous studies provide evidence for the mutual impact of the triangular relationship between politics, business and bridging individuals. So far, only little is known about the effects for politicians who bridge governments and corporations. Building on Burt's (1992) social capital theory, I predict that politicians who bridge governments and corporations have a significantly higher survival rate than those without bridging capital. The empirical results reveal robustly that German Federal ministers from 1949 to January 2015 with previous corporate key positions in non-political non-profit organisations or corporate executive or supervisory boards have a significantly higher survival rate than ministers without this qualification. However, German Federal ministers from 1990 to January 2015 do not significantly benefit from previous corporate key positions in terms of a higher survival rate so that the finding for the full sample is driven by the subsample from 1949 to January 1989.
ISSN:0176-2680
1873-5703
DOI:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2018.04.004