In the scarce literature on ministerial careers in Germany, the career structures between regional and national cabinets have hardly received any scholarly attention yet. Whereas recent research focuses on linkages between parliamentary and ministerial careers within the federal level (Vogel 2009, Kaiser/Fischer 2009), the study of ministerial moves across territorial levels is lacking. We want to fill this gap by identifying the career linkages between regional and national executives in Germany.

To be more concrete: we are analyzing career movements from the regional to the national executive and vice versa. Our main aim is to establish career patterns with regard to the direction of career movements, i.e. whether ministerial careers in Germany follow a springboard or an alternative careers pattern (cf. Stolz 2003). Furthermore, we are looking for variations between individual German Laender, between the cabinets of different heads of government as well as across time.

The proposed paper will be a substantially revised and updated version of our paper presented at the 2010 Canadian Political Science Association Annual Conference.