Professionalisation of parliamentary roles in germany: An aggregate‐level analysis, 1949–94

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Abstract
The professionalisation of parliamentary politics and the rise of the career politician is one of the most important changes in post‐war German parliamentarism. In the first part of this article, aggregate data are used to describe the nature and extent of this trend over time (1949–94). In the second part, Robert K. Merton's concept of ‘role‐set’ is used to examine how professionalisation affects the strategies to reduce disturbances within role‐sets. First results, which are only tentative at this stage, suggest that the great emphasis on committee work in the Bundestag is consistent with Merton's strategy of ‘abridging role‐sets’ and ‘insulating role activities from observability’, while the high degree of voting cohesion and party solidarity could be explained with Merton's strategies of mutual ‘social support’ and ‘differences in power’.

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