Abstract
Presidents face a dilemma of whom to appoint for cabinet positions. They need to secure legislative support for their government and at the same time achieve their goals in terms of public policy. This work analyzes the portfolio allocation of Brazilian presidents in Brazil’s multiparty system. This study tests some hypotheses using multinomial logistic regression to identify appointment strategies adopted by the presidents in four different governmental sectors from 1990 to 2016. To do so, first, we create an index of ministerial politicization (IMP) and aggregate the ministries in these four sections, employing cluster analysis. The results show that appointments to the core positions in government tend to be less politicized. Moreover, the president’s personal nominations were greater in the presidential units that carry out the political coordination and typical functions of the State.
Highlights
In multiparty presidential systems, it is common for the president’s party to have minority in parliament
This paper uses a comprehensive and original database of cabinet appointments that covers the recent democratic presidential terms in Brazil from 1990 to 2016. It employs the index of ministerial politicization (IMP) and the indicators of ministerial political attractiveness proposed by Mauerberg Jr. (2016) to test our hypotheses regarding the types of appointments in four different areas of ministry: a) core; b) policy delivery; c) political coordination and State functions; and d) presidential office
This section addresses the variety of political attractiveness inside the Brazilian executive branch in order to explore how the president appoints the ministries among members of his or her party, coalition allies, and non-partisan affiliated candidates
Summary
It is common for the president’s party to have minority in parliament In this sense, the president appoints ministers from other political parties to become part of a coalition government. This paper uses a comprehensive and original database of cabinet appointments that covers the recent democratic presidential terms in Brazil from 1990 to 2016 It employs the index of ministerial politicization (IMP) and the indicators of ministerial political attractiveness proposed by Mauerberg Jr. The president’s party peers, those supporting the coalition, or ministers without partisan affiliation, as well as their level of politicization, are important dimensions of portfolio allocation in Brazil In this sense, the minister profile changes according to the policy area. The outputs of the multinomial logistic regression are presented followed by some final remarks
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