Preferred not to have succeeded in office (7)
I believe the answer is:
elected
'succeeded in office' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with social activities as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'preferred not to' is the wordplay.
'preferred' becomes 'elect' (I've seen this before).
'not to' becomes 'ed' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'elect'+'ed'='ELECTED'
'have' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for elected that I've seen before include "Chosen by ballot" , "Chose by poll" , "Put in office" , "made a choice" , "Chosen by vote" .)