Which Path to Choose? Trajectories of German Länder Ministers

In this paper I will introduce a new project that analyzes political careers of German Regional Ministers in a comprehensive way. From the positions before entering the Länder government through their time as a minister to the post ministerial career the project will be able to give a holistic overview of the different steps these politicians walked through in their careers. The paper develops an analytical framework to research ministerial careers. It will furthermore introduce a dataset which will – after completion – include all regional ministers from 1946 until 2017. It encompasses yearly data on their occupation/position before, during and after leaving the cabinet. Applying descriptive statistics, sequence analysis and further statistical techniques this project will test – among other things – which early career paths help ministers to survive in cabinet for a long time and which ministerial positions can be regarded as a stepping stone for an even more prestigious political position, e.g. at the federal level. In a later stage of the project these sequence data could also help to explain certain policy outcomes or the stability of whole cabinets.