Initial Ambition: Motivations for Starting a Political Career

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze nascent political ambition in three Central America countries: Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador. According to Fox and Lawless (2005) even though politicians’ ambitions are a response to a political opportunity structure, nascent ambition is motivated by other aspects. Gender, age, education, political socialization and ideological motivations are, among others, factors that affect nascent ambition. This article analyzes the impact of several variables over citizens’ nascent ambition, but also studies the effect among deputies. The results show that just political socialization has an impact in both groups of study. Analyses are based in two data sets, first from Latin American Elites Project (PELA), from University of Salamanca, and the Americas Barometer (LAPOP) from Vanderbilt University.