Search

An exploration of cabinet leadership in Mexico has always provided insights into political recruitment trends for leading policymakers. An examination of the present cabinet from 2012 through 2016 is valuable for four reasons. First, to what extent does the current leadership reflect changes in compositional patterns of the most influential policymakers as a result of a democratic electoral process dating from 2000? Second, does the return of the PrI reflect traditional patterns established by the last two PrI presidential administrations, or has the present cabinet taken on features that can be attributed to the two previous PAN administrations? Third, have significant patterns emerged, reflected in recent appointments, that suggest influential characteristics exercising broader influences in the future? Fourth, will the most influential cabinet figures under the PrI presidency reestablish their dominance as leading contenders for their party's presidential election in 2018? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What determines partisan portfolio allocation in African democracies? Despite the vast literature on government formation in Europe and Latin America, there have been no studies of partisan portfolio allocation in Africa. Although coalition governments are increasingly common in Africa, most studies focus on national leaders, and, thus, we know little about how ministerial posts are divided among cabinet parties. Using an original dataset of coalition governments in Africa from 1990 to 2014, we show that existing theories of partisan portfolio allocation can be successfully applied to African democracies. We find that African parties receive ministerial portfolios in rough proportion to their size, that formateur parties in Africa receive more ministerial portfolios than their European counterparts, and that the “formateur bonus” is greater in Africa’s presidential democracies than in its parliamentary ones. Our analyses suggest that scholars can benefit from paying more attention to both coalition governments and legislatures in their analyses of African politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the political careers of the ministers in the Chilean cabinets from 1990 to 2010. We consider data from a survey of 386 members of the political elite who held top positions within Chilean government during the mentioned period. Considering this sample, only 108 cases were appointed as ministers, which represents more than 60 per cent of the appointments for the whole period. We describe the group and present a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (qca) of their political careers with long-standing trajectories. We also carry out a trajectory and post-ministerial careers analysis in order to find common circulation patterns. One of the main findings of the analysis is that a group of individuals share social circles and specific forms of capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the composition of European commissioners’ private offices (cabinets) in order to explain their intended behaviour when deciding between serving European or member states’ interests. The article conceptualizes the relationship between the home country and the commissioner as a principal–agent relationship. It also accounts for contextual impacts on cabinet composition. This article analyses the biographical information of 1,343 members of 149 individual cabinets, as well as data from 11 expert interviews. It finds that both the relationship to the home country and the context in which a commissioner works affect her cabinet composition. Surprisingly, member states’ selection efforts do not have the intended effects. The Commission is neither completely independent nor a member state agent. The growing importance of supranational actors and a more regulated context can impede individual commissioners from serving the interest of the ‘country they know best’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyses the transformation of European commissioners’ private offices (cabinets) from national enclaves to supporting offices. Structural changes were caused by a reform by then-Commission President Prodi in 1999. To analyse this reform, a typology based on management literature is developed. The reform is characterised as ‘big bang’: it was strategically planned by a leader, transformational and affected the entire cabinet system. The most important measures were that at least three nationalities and three Commission officials were required in cabinets. These and other measures anticipated changing demands towards cabinets caused by the 2004/7 enlargement and the Kinnock reforms. This article closes a gap in research on the Commission, in which cabinets are seldom analysed in their own right. It complements earlier evidence on change in cabinets by explaining why and how structural changes evoked a functional transformation. This contributes to the broader research agenda on change in the functioning of the Commission. Content analysis of primary sources (Prodi’s speeches and publications, expert interviews and a biographic database) and recent academic publications contribute to the analysis.

This paper focuses on the process of coalition formation in presidential systems. It shows that party positions and institutions influence the formation of government coalitions. We argue that presidents will tend to include parties positioned close to their policy positions in their cabinets, and will be more inclined to do it when relative institutional authority is more advantageous to congress. We corroborate our arguments with data from 13 presidential countries in the Americas.Este artículo se centra en el proceso de formación de coaliciones en sistemas presidenciales. El artículo demuestra que las posiciones de los partidos y las instituciones influencian la formación de coaliciones gubernamentales. Argumentamos que los presidentes tienden a incluir dentro del gabinete a aquellos partidos que tienen posiciones cercanas, y que esta tendencia es más fuerte cuando la autoridad institucional es relativamente más favorable al congreso. Corroboramos nuestros argumentos con data de 13 países con sistemas presidenciales en las Américas.

Many recent museum displays show a renewed interest in the idea of the cabinet of curiosities, or Wunderkammer. Allowing institutions to celebrate their eclectic origins, they also seem to reflect [...]

This article analyses the transformation of European commissioners’ private offices (cabinets) from national enclaves to supporting offices. Structural changes were caused by a reform by then- Commission President Prodi in 1999. To analyse this reform, a typology based on management literature is developed. The reform is characterised as ‘big bang’: it was strategically planned by a leader, transformational and affected the entire cabinet system. The most important measures were that at least three nationalities and three Commission officials were required in cabinets. These and other measures anticipated changing demands towards cabinets caused by the 2004/7 enlargement and the Kinnock reforms. This article closes a gap in research on the Commission, in which cabinets are seldom analysed in their own right. It complements earlier evidence on change in cabinets by explaining why and how structural changes evoked a functional transformation. This contributes to the broader research agenda on change in the functioning of the Commission. Content analysis of primary sources (Prodi’s speeches and publications, expert interviews and a biographic database) and recent academic publications contribute to the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes cabinet turnover and factors that had an influence on the survival of 180 ministers in Chile between 1990 and 2010. With survival analysis, specifically, proportional hazards models and Cox regressions with sharedfrailty, the individual characteristics of ministers, such as survival/risk predictors and the influence of institutional factors and critical events, are evaluated. It reveals that there were different individual predictors for ministers during the first and second decade of the period, as well as the fact that critical events such as economic crises and corruption scandals influenced the survival of ministers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some countries with low levels of women’s legislative representation have high levels of women’s cabinet representation? We focus on sub-Saharan Africa to show that countries with high levels of women’s legislative representation do not necessarily have high levels of women’s cabinet representation and discuss how legislative laggards can emerge as cabinet leaders through a case study of Ghana. We argue that three factors—a conducive institutional environment, an international context stressing gender-balanced decision making, and an autonomous domestic women’s movement—promote women’s incorporation into cabinets, even when pathways to legislative incorporation remain blocked. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As semi-presidentialism has become increasingly common in European democracies, so have the debates about the consequences of several of its political and institutional features. In particular, in those regimes, cohabitation between presidents and cabinets of different parties and cabinet dismissal powers on the part of presidents are thought to be a source of inter-branch conflict and government instability. However, so far, most empirical work on government survival has failed to confirm any of these expectations. This article addresses this disjuncture between theory and empirical results by making a twofold contribution. First, it takes into account the internal diversity within semi-presidentialism, modeling the implications for government survival of different configurations between presidential powers' of cabinet dismissal, parliament dissolution and cohabitation in European semi-presidential systems. Second, it reconsiders traditional government survival using the competing risks framework by adding a distinction between two different types of non-electoral replacement: those where replacements imply a change in the party of the prime minister and those where they do not. Once such an approach is adopted, that presidential powers of parliamentary dissolution and cabinet dismissal indeed emerge as highly relevant for explaining government survival in these regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-office occupation of former cabinet members remains basically unexplored in both single-case and comparative studies. Is being a minister just a career tout court, or does serving in executive office facilitate movement to other positions? This article sheds new light on this question by advancing the theoretical development and empirical understanding of the various types of post-ministerial occupation. The analysis takes into account ex-ministers' ambition, political capital resources and the institutional opportunity structures that might well affect both ambition and individual resources. Additionally, given that access to executive office is profoundly gendered, the article addresses the central question of whether post-ministerial occupations similarly present differential patterns for women and men. The empirical results of a cross-national comparison of 23 advanced industrial democracies show that, for most departing ministers, serving in executive office is indeed a stepping stone to other positions. Post-office trajectories are not only shaped by ex-ministers' political capital resources such as seniority, party office, policy expertise and type of portfolio held while in cabinet, but also by different institutional factors that present country-specific combinations. Specifically, systemic variables shape the relevance of political capital resources and affect how ambition is constructed and towards which goals. Strong gendered post-office patterns are not found, although some intriguing gender differences are observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions can cabinet ministers affect the government’s policy agenda? Existing literature provides conflicting answers to this question. In this article, I show that some politicians are more likely than others to influence policy. Specifically, I consider three types of ministers: loyalists, who are loyal to their party leader and prioritize office over policy; partisans, who are party heavyweights and aspiring leaders; and ideologues, who have fixed policy ideas and are unwilling to compromise over office perks. I argue that ideologues and partisans will affect policy more than loyalists do. Using a novel data set on ministerial backgrounds, and examining the area of social welfare policy in 18 countries, I find support for my theoretical expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Presidential cabinets include on average more nonparty ministers than governments in any other form of democracy, and critics of presidentialism have argued that this compromises representativeness, accountability, and governability. Yet cabinet partisanship in presidential democracies remains poorly understood. Existing studies argue that the partisan composition of cabinets reflects the degree to which presidents prioritize building legislative support. We demonstrate that a better understanding of government formation requires attention to a second dimension of choice: agency risks. Focusing on the relationship between presidents and their own parties, which is at the core of every presidential government, we show that party-affiliated ministers are not always reliable agents for presidents and that presidents appoint nonpartisan ministers to limit agency loss. We test this argument using original data on the partisanship of single-party cabinets in 12 Latin American countries and find support for the key claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes ministerial duration and inter-party negotiations during Concertación's democratic governments in the case of Chile. The objective is to establish explanatory variables that explain the probability that a minister stays the whole administration in his/her post. This paper is structured in two parts: the first one deals with the theoretical framework in which this analysis is built on; and the second tests empirically the hypothesis that there are three specific variables that account for ministers' appointments and duration. These variables are: the survival of political elite that comes before 1973 military coup d'etat and been close to power circles within the coalition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have identified the crucial role of government characteristics in studies of political behavior, comparative institutions, and political economy. An invaluable data source for government characteristics is the Woldendorp et al. (2000)Party Government in 48 Democracies data set. We describe our update to this data set from the late-1990s through 2011. We then present a variety of additions to the data set that are intended to increase its usage by reducing the obstacles associated with using the data in conjunction with other popular data sets. We illustrate the utility of this update by providing a variety of means of conceptualizing government stability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]