Masters of their fate? Explaining MPs’ re-candidacy in the long run: The case of Italy (1987–2013)

Why are certain Members of Parliament (MPs) more likely to get re-candidacy for national legislative elections, therefore having the possibility to continue their career? This article answers this question by comparing political elites' long-debated explanations with more legislative behaviour-related factors. By focusing on more than 25 years of the Italian Lower House's history, we have built a novel dataset on the legislative behaviour and career patterns of more than 3500 Italian MPs. A multilevel logistic regression analysis shows that, with the exception of party switching, legislative behaviour does not seem to exert a significant impact on MPs' re-candidacy. On the contrary, the career status of parliamentarians, i.e., their parliamentary position or their ministerial historical record, strongly influences their chances of obtaining re-candidacy.