Does Personality Matter? Personality factors as determinants of legislative recruitment and legislators’ policrecruitment and policy preferences

Abstract

The paper inquires into the impact of personality-factors on the selection and self-selection of recruits for parliamentary mandates by comparing the personality profile of German MPs with a matching sample of the general population (matching in terms of education, gender, age and party preferences). It further determines whether MPs personality has an impact on their policy preferences (expansionist vs. restrictive budget policies, expansion vs. restriction of welfare state benefits, limitation vs. extension of civic rights etc.). Party affiliation of MPs will be used as a control variable. The paper will make use of data from the Jena Parliamentarians study which have been collected under direction of the author and provide information on a broad spectrum of issues like MPs family backgrounds, recruitment and career experiences and policy preferences. The second wave of the Jena Parliamentarians study was carried out in 2007 and also included a shortened version of the ‘Big Five’ (identical to a version used in general population studies) for about 1500 actual (1100) and former (400) German MPs at federal, state and European level.