Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T19:44:22.799Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Knife's Edge: Public Officials and the Life Cycle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

Burdett Loomis
Burdett Loomis*
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

LaRuth, at forty, was on the knife's edge. Another two years and he'd be a man of influence, and therefore ineligible for any politics outside the House–or not ineligible, but shopworn, no longer new, no longer fresh. He would be ill-suited, and there were other practical considerations as well, because who wanted to be a servant for twelve or fourteen years and then surrender an opportunity to be master? Not LaRuth. So the time for temporizing was nearly past. If he was going to forsake the House and reach for the Senate (a glamorous possibility), he had to do it soon.

Ward Just, The Congressman Who Loved Flaubert

Ward Just's fictional congressman LaRuth faces two distinct, but related pressures. First, for members of the House, there are few opportunities for advancement. This truncated “structure of opportunities” forces tough choices upon ambitious politicians. The second pressure is no less profound. Ticking away are the dual clocks of chronological age and congressional seniority. Most members seek higher office early in their congressional career (though this may be changing some), when their ties to the House are least strong and the fires of ambition burn the hottest. Much as the externally imposed structure of opportunities affects career choices, so too do the roughly defined internal mandates of human development.

Type
Generational Politics
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , Summer 1984 , pp. 536 - 542
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Rohde, David, “Risk-Bearing and Progressive Ambition: The Case of the United States House of Representatives,” American Journal of Political Science 23 (1979), 1–26 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hibbing, John, “Voluntary Retirement from the U.S. House: The Costs of Congressional Service,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 7 (1982), 57–74 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bullock, Charles S., “House Careerists: Changing Patterns of Longevity and Attrition,” American Political Science Review 66 (1972), 1295–1305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Schlesinger, Joseph, Ambition and Politics (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

3 Black, Gordon, “A Theory of Political Ambition: Career Choices and the Role of Structural Incentives,” American Political Science Review 66 (1972), 144–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Rohde, op. cit., and Kritzer, Herbert, “The Senatorial Ambitions of U.S. Representatives: A Reexamination of Some of Rohde's Findings,” paper presented at Southern Political Science Association meetings (1978).Google Scholar

5 Jacobson, Gary and Kernell, Samuel, Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 22.Google Scholar

6 Frantzich, Steven, “Opting Out: Retirement from the House of Representatives,” American Politics Quarterly 6 (1978), 251–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 John Hibbing, op. cit.; Cooper, Joseph and West, William, “The Congressional Career in the 1970's,” in Dodd, Lawrence C. and Oppenheimer, Bruce I. (eds.), Congress Reconsidered, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1981), pp. 83–106 Google Scholar; and “Voluntary Retirement, Incumbency, and the Modern House,” Political Science Quarterly (1981).

8 Steven Frantzich, op. cit.; “Derecruitment: The Other Side of the Congressional Equation,” Western Political Quarterly 31 (1978), 105–126; and Hibbing, op. cit.; and Cooper, op. cit.

9 See Slik, Jack Van Der and Pernacciaro, Samuel I., “Office Ambitions and Voting Behavior in the U.S. Senate: A Longitudinal Study,” American Politics Quarterly (1979)Google Scholar; and Peabody, Robert L., Ornstein, Norman J., and Rohde, David W., “The United States Senate as a Presidential Incubator: Many Are Called, but Few Are Chosen,” Political Science Quarterly 91 (1976), 237–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Frost, Murray, “Senatorial Ambition and Legislative Behavior,” Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1972 Google Scholar; and Payne, James L., “Career Intentions and Electoral Performance of Members of the U.S. House,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 7 (1982), 93–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Van Der Slik and Pernacciaro, op. cit., and Loomis, Burdett, “Congressional Careers and Party Leadership in the Contemporary House of Representatives,” American Journal of Political Science (February 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Hibbing, op. cit., p. 66.

13 See Fenno, Richard, Home Style (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978)Google Scholar; Peabody, Robert, Leadership in Congress: Stability, Succession, and Change (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976)Google Scholar; Dodd, Lawrence, “Congress and the Quest for Power,” in Dodd, Lawrence C. and Oppenheimer, Bruce I. (eds.), Congress Reconsidered (New York: Praeger, 1977), 269–307 Google Scholar; and “Congress, the Constitution, and the Crisis of Legitimation,” Congress Reconsidered (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1981), pp. 390–420.

14 Erikson, Erik, Childhood and Society (New York: Norton, 1950)Google Scholar; Vaillant, George E., Adaptation to Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977)Google Scholar; and Levinson, Daniel J., The Seasons of a Man's Life (New York: Bailamme, 1978).Google Scholar

15 Schlesinger, op. cit., p. 192.

16 Prewitt, Kenneth and Nowlin, William, “Political Ambitions and the Behavior of Incumbent Politicians,” Western Political Quarterly 22 (1969), p. 306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Hain, Paul, “Age, Ambitions, and Political Careers: The Middle-aged Crisis,” Western Political Quarterly 27 (1984), 274.Google Scholar

18 Levinson, op. cit., p. 91.

19 Roberts, Steven V., “The Provocative Saga of the $400 Hammer,” The New York Times 13 (June 1984), A22.Google Scholar