professionalization
Getting ‘sucked into parliament’: Tracing the process of professional political socialization
Introduction
People change when they become professional politicians; if we follow public opinion, they often change for the worse. Long before the current surge in populist resentment against ‘the elite’ all over the Western world, the opaque proceedings of politics were seen as having a corrupting effect, transforming idealistic newcomers into professional politicians with questionable morals and eventually alienating the public. It is a widely accepted view that people turn into the worst versions of themselves once they take up politics.
