What Revolving Door in the European Parliament? MEPs and Assistants after their Mandate

The concept of ‘revolving door’ refers to the movement of people into and out of key policymaking posts in the executive and legislative branches and regulatory agencies. This can carry the risk that it increases the likelihood that those making policies are overly sympathetic to the needs particularly of business either because they come from that world or they plan to move to the private sector after working in government. So it can lead to the more general question of the conflicts of interest. But the lack of reliable, systematic data leaves activist organizations free rein to use widely publicized individual cases to push reforms aimed at preventing what they see as “problems”. Indeed, it is necessary to characterize these phenomena, assess their scope and identify their causes. The objective of this paper is to establish the scope of the revolving door effect and the forms it takes in practice. It focuses on the case studies of the European Parliament, both on the MEPs and their assistants. It will use a political sociology approach that considers their sociological properties and retraces their trajectories before and after public office.