Survival of Ministers in Central Europe – New Parties, New Trends?

Survival of ministers is one of classical topics in the study of political careers. Long-term survival of ministers is usually explained as a result of institutional factors, critical events, or unpredictable scandals of ministers. Personal characteristics, like age, gender, or education, play their role as well. Previous political experience and their party membership increase the chance of survival. In this paper, I will examine the length of functions of ministers in governments in Central Europe after 1989 (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary). Current changes of politics in Europe, i.e. the decline of party membership, entrance of new and populist parties that enable rapid political career of their politicians, lead to the expectation of possible change of the trends in life-cycle of party ministers. In the paper, I ask if the chance of survival of ministers of new parties differs from the chance of ministers of mainstream parties. The analysis will use the Cox hazard models to look on the chance for survival of party ministers, and the effect of explaining variables. To the usual structural variables will be added the personal and political characteristics of ministers, and their party affiliation. I generally expect the change in the chances of ministerial survival – decrease of their chance of survival in time, especially for inexperienced ministers of new and populist parties.