Ansvarig institution r samh llsvetenskapliga institutionen. This thesis studies the combination of an actor's course of life with a field-specific career. The career is seen runs through a social room assuming an objective shape. It also runs through a field characterized by the competition for positions and resources. The field is of a relatively stable character and is closely attached to the social room.
Emphasis is laid on the municipal commissioner career and the local political field.
Becoming a municipal commissioner is not a matter of a superficial change in the work situation, but of acquiring and embodying a field-specific manner and perspective. Municipal commissioners are confronted with a range of paradoxes. The paradoxes are manifested in a structure of expectation, which permeates the entire field, and which is directed towards the position of commissioner. The expectation structure of the field creates the conditions for the commissioner career as a whole and consequently defines its framework. Within this framework the overall patterns emerge as a funnel-like process during which the career tapers off successively.