38. Sub-national Political Elites

The diffusion of multi-level political arrangements in formerly unitary states has recently led to numerous studies being conducted of sub-national political elites, in addition to those devoted to traditional federal states. Most of these studies have focused on the formation of regional political classes distinct from national ones, and on the emergence of alternative career paths to the traditional, unidirectional bottom-up pattern. More recently, the influence of different career paths on the attitudes and behavior of legislators has also been hypothesized. However, while political science has made significant progress in analyzing and describing multi-level career patterns, much remains to be done in regard to the explanations for such patterns and their consequences.