Joseph Schlesinger's Ambition And Politics

When Joseph Schlesinger wrote Ambition and Politics in 1996, everything changed (Fox and Lawless 644). He created a “rational choice paradigm” to help understand potential candidates’ decisions to run for political office (Fox and Lawless 644). The rational choice paradigm recognizes that political ambition is a “strategic response to a political opportunity structure” and that citizens have a higher likelihood to decide to run for office when they have favorable political and structural circumstances (Fox and Lawless 644). Based on previous studies, “the number of open seats, term-limit requirements, levels of legislative professionalism, partisan composition of the constituency, and party congruence with constituents” are all considered when potential candidates make their decision (Fox and Lawless 644). These factors are relatively exogenous, meaning they influence the decision, and the decision does not influence the factors. Contrarily, “general languages of political interest, financial security, and political experience” are endogenous. These …show more content…
The first is the “strategic” considerations expectation where potential candidates maximize their likelihood holding a higher office position, have voluntary congressional retirement, maintain their current position, or have perceptions of their electoral success (Fox and Lawless 644, 645). Most of these “strategic” variables are short term and can be “linked to the external political environment” (Fox and Lawless 645). As an example of the “strategic” consideration expectation, if a person does not believe that they are qualified to run for political office, it is very unlikely that they will ever decide to run. In this study, they “…expect individuals’ estimates of their personal attributes and feelings of efficacy as political candidates, in general, to exert an impact on considering entering the electoral arena” (Fox and Lawless