Abstract
The article aims at understanding the determinants of ministerial turnover in presidential systems. There are essentially three key factors that govern the propensity for ministerial turnover in a presidential system: 01. political ambition - reflected in the individual or collective strategies and tactics employed by the party-affiliated actors represented in the cabinet; 02. the presence or absence of a governing coalition - which has bearing on the degree of ideological distance between the president and such political parties as form part of any governing coalition, with consequences for ministerial scrutiny; and 03. accountability - a determinant in responding to such external pressures as may be brought to bear by public opinion. In order to investigate the impacts of these factors, this inquiry seeks to analyze the new and dynamic democracy of Brazil. Brazil's presidential system presents interesting features that make it an excellent laboratory in which to test hypotheses concerning every aspect of ministerial turnover. To this end, this paper employs a multivariate methodology, as well as descriptive and survival analyses, based on a comprehensive and original database of cabinet ministers that draws on three presidencies over five democratically elected governments from 1995 to 2014. Among other results, our most original finding was that there is an inverse correlation between the degree of ministerial politicization (political ambition) and ideological distance from the president during political scandals (interaction between the governing coalition and accountability) on the one hand, and the length of ministerial tenure on the other.
Highlights
Today, Gone Tomorrow - Political Ambition, Coalitions, and Accountability as Determinants of Ministerial Turnover in the Brazilian Multiparty Presidential System
There are essentially three key factors that govern the propensity for ministerial turnover in a presidential system: 01. political ambition - reflected in the individual or collective strategies and tactics employed by the party-affiliated actors represented in the cabinet; 02. the presence or absence of a governing coalition - which has bearing on the degree of ideological distance between the president and such political parties as form part of any governing coalition, with consequences for ministerial scrutiny; and 03. accountability - a determinant in responding to such external pressures as may be brought to bear by public opinion in response to unsatisfactory performance or media reporting of a corruption scandal
Brazil's presidential system presents interesting features that make it an excellent laboratory in which to test hypotheses concerning every aspect of ministerial turnover
Summary
Pedro Lucas de Moura Palotti https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9071-9726 Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada, Brasília, Distrito Federal, Brazil. When confronted with sandals exposed by the media, presidents tend to fire ministers from parties whose ideologies diverge most from their own This finding represents an original explanation for minister turnover in coalition governments faced with external shocks. The literature on cabinet formation in presidential systems Ministers are key actors in the functioning of governments They are political agents empowered to influence the legislative and executive agendas, and occupy positions of leadership in their organizations and policy areas. Since 1988, multiparty coalition has been a strategy used by Brazilian presidents to form governments They typically abide by an informal rule, according to which cabinet positions are allocated among different political parties. Principal-agent theory provides a suitable mechanism for explaining the Brazilian political system Another possible explanation for minister turnover lies in how the chief of the executive responds to external shocks.
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