Patterns of political career movements in multi-level systems: a cross-national comparison of twenty-seven countries

We introduce the special issue and provide an extensive review of the career patterns of politicians in twenty-seven multi-level countries worldwide, the largest number ever analyzed. Based on the wider evidence we provide a new synthesis and explanation of those patterns. While supporting previous claims on some of those factors our analysis shows that political, party, and electoral system features provide the strongest explanations for divergence in the development of career movement patterns in multi-level systems worldwide. We also introduce a set of novel factors, most notably, the existence of a dominant party, power-sharing agreements, and asymmetrical federal design. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our research and identify new avenues of research on political careers and comparative federalism.