Strategic roles and career outcomes: evidence from the Italian Chamber of Deputies

This article empirically tests Kaare Strøm’s strategic approach to role theory, assessing whether MPs’ role choices correlate with their subsequent career outcomes. Strøm defines a parliamentary role as a “consistent pattern of political behavior” that functions as “an endogenous prescription” for how parliamentarians “may operate to maximize the likelihood of whatever political career outcomes they favor.” From this perspective, deputies strategically adopt roles as “game plans” to optimize their chances of re-candidacy, re-election, or advancement to party or legislative office. Using cluster analysis of deputies’ activities in the Italian Chamber of Deputies during the 17th legislature (2013–2018), this article identifies three role types: Constituency Members, Specialists, and Show Horses. It then estimates multinomial logit models to assess whether these roles predict re-election, legislative office, or governmental office in the subsequent legislature. Contrary to Strøm’s expectations, the results show no statistically significant relationship between role type and subsequent career advancement. By contrast, role adoption is more closely related to seniority, local political experience, and prior office-holding. These findings suggest that, at least in the Italian case, parliamentary roles are shaped less by forward-looking career calculation than by accumulated political experience.