Professional Politician as an Oxymoronic Concept

Oxymoron is a classical rhetorical concept for claims to both affirm and deny a case. Still, it is no quasi-logical contradictio in adiecto but a political claim that combines seemingly opposed viewpoints. In the language of parliamentary politics, politicians are invited to invent possibilities which transcend the obvious ones, oxymoronic concepts are quite common. The ‘professional politician’ itself is a good example. As a ‘profession’ the parliamentary politician differs from the ‘ordinary’ ones, such as the priest, the medical doctor or the lawyer. There cannot be any common semi-academic training courses for MPS (or party functionaries or election campaigners). Still, we can without doubt distinguish professional politicians from amateurish or dilettantish ones. A politician professionalises oneself by practising. Part of the identity of professional politicians lies in facing the risk that the ‘career’ might end abruptly when not being re-elected. Whereas in other fields ‘professional’ is a word of praise, ‘professional politicians’ tend, from the beginnings of democratisation of parliaments, to increase the suspicions against politicians. It has not been uncommon to hear MPs to declare ‘I am not a professional politician’. In this paper I shall analyse digitalised parliamentary debates in some West European countries after the Second World war regarding the (self-)appraisal of MPs of professional politicians and discuss the conceptual content and rhetorical tone they give to this oxymoronic concept.