Career Patterns in Multi-level Quebec and Wallonia: Towards a Sub-State and Federal Political Class?

The process of regionalisation in Western Europe has renewed the interest in political careers, not only for newly regionalised unitary states but also for established federations (Stolz 2003). Recently, Docherty (2011: 186) rightly stated that “there has been little analytical work on the Canadian political career ” . And, arguably, even less on political careers in Quebec. Though, since the end of the 1990s, Walloon political careers have received greater attention (Fiers 2001a, 2001b; Pilet, Fiers and Steyvers 2007; Vanlangenakker, Maddens and Put 2010). Based on an original dataset, this chapter proposes a comprehensive analyses of federal and regional careers since the 1990s in Quebec and in Wallonia. More specifically, it presents and explains the circulation of members of parliament (MPs) in the two federations, with a specific focus on career maintenance at a single level of government (professional political careers) and career advancement (level-hopping movements between political arenas).