The party soldier, the young careerist, and the outsider: How distinctive career paths affect party dissent

Parties are not unified entities, yet research on intra-party dissent has focused on legislators while overlooking the broader pool of candidates and the distinct career paths that bring them into politics. Drawing on theories of careerism, representation, and spatial competition, I argue that pre-parliamentary careers shape both whether candidates dissent from their party and in which direction. Using the Comparative Candidates Survey across thirteen country-elections, I find that party soldiers with local roots are the most loyal, whereas young careerists who have never worked outside politics are the most likely to dissent. Crucially, when careerists break with their party, they move toward the centre rather than the extremes, and they do so most when their electoral chances are high. These findings link the professionalisation of political careers to party cohesion and candidate-voter congruence.