Cabinet Duration Research Articles

Foreign Military Intervention and Cabinet Government Stability

Cabinet governments are the most prevalent form of democratic rule and studies of cabinet government duration are common. These studies tend to focus on the domestic influences associated with cabinet longevity, not the impact that foreign policy decisions may have. We begin to address this gap in the literature by analyzing the effect that one particularly visible foreign policy decision, the initiation of a foreign military intervention, has on cabinet duration. We argue that the consequential decision to send troops abroad and possibly into harm’s way holds the potential to reset a country’s policy agenda. Such a reset can, in turn, prove beneficial for cabinet longevity. In Cox proportional survival analyses of 563 cabinets from 26 European countries between 1946 and 2008, we find that foreign military intervention does have a significant impact on government duration. Governments that dispatched soldiers overseas on supportive or neutral missions lasted significantly longer than those that did not, even after controlling for numerous alternative explanations of cabinet duration. Research on cabinet stability would thus benefit from looking beyond the domestic conditions commonly associated with longevity. The impact of foreign policy decisions should be considered as well.

Pre-electoral coalitions and cabinet stability in presidential systems

Previous research on coalition stability in presidential systems has relied to a substantial extent on the parliamentary literature. By focusing on the post-electoral bargaining environment, these approaches have neglected the key role played by pre-electoral agreements formed around the winning presidential candidate in the making and breaking of coalitions under presidentialism. We claim that cabinets derived from pre-electoral coalition should foster trust and reduce uncertainty regarding partners’ future behaviour. However, the positive effect of pre-electoral coalitions over cabinet duration is conditional on cabinet status, that is, the control of a legislative majority or near majority. Therefore, we argue that pre-electoral coalition cabinets holding a majority or near majority of seats will be more durable than purely post-electoral majority coalitions, whereas minority pre-electoral coalition cabinets congruent should endure less than minority post-electoral coalition cabinets. We test these hypotheses using a dataset of pre- and post-electoral coalitions in 11 Latin American countries.

Stability of minority governments and the role of support agreements

How does the minority status of a government influence cabinet duration? This article analyzes the influence of minority status on cabinet duration by differentiating between different types of minority governments. Minority governments are not in general less stable than majority ones but different types of minority governments have different effects on cabinet duration. The main theoretical argument is that substantive minority governments without support agreements are less stable than majority governments, while contract minority governments that rely on written support agreements with non-cabinet parties which secure majority support in parliament are as stable as majority ones. Drawing on survival analysis, the effect of different minority cabinet types on cabinet stability is tested for 471 cabinets in 30 countries from 1977 until 2019. The results show that only minority governments without support partnerships have a substantially higher risk of early government termination than majority cabinets. The findings of this analysis have important implications for the coalition theory and the evaluation of minority governments.

Government termination in Europe: a sensitivity analysis

The aim of this article is to examine which factors robustly influence cabinet duration in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In this respect the article investigates the role political institutions (including vote of no-confidence procedures), parliamentary and cabinet attributes, and various contextual factors have on cabinet stability. By using a type of sensitivity analysis (i.e. Extreme Bounds Analysis) on a panel of about 180 cabinets in CEE, it is possible to examine which factors consistently predict the probability of government survival. It is found that only a few factors are robust to alternative model specifications, namely: government type, fragmentation in parliament, the level of unemployment, and restrictive no-confidence votes procedures which make it more difficult for the opposition to bring down a government. Thus, the results indicate that cabinet duration in CEE is not primarily affected by sui generis factors to the region, but by factors of more general relevance.

How women in the executive influence government stability

ABSTRACT Does the gender of prime ministers and cabinet ministers influence cabinet duration? We argue that the risk for early termination of cabinets decreases with women’s presence in the executive. As scholars of social psychology indicate, women apply more consensual and compromise-oriented conflict resolution strategies. Disputes between or within governing parties, which ultimately lead to early termination, should therefore be less likely to emerge and escalate if the government is led by a woman or includes numerous female members. To test this rationale, we analyse a newly compiled, comprehensive dataset covering 676 governments in 27 European countries between 1945 and 2018 by relying on event history analysis. The results suggest that cabinets with a higher proportion of female cabinet members experience a lower risk of early cabinet termination. This article contributes to the study of women as political leaders through additional evidence for the gendered nature of leadership styles.

Government instability and the state

Governmentinstability(cabinet duration) is an important feature of parliamentary democracy. Over time, the research on cabinet duration has improved in technical and theoretical sophistication. However, we note that little attention has been paid to the relationship between governments and the state itself. Our main hypothesis is that state capacity, e.g., factors such as state bureaucratic effectiveness and law and order, shape how easy it is for governments to implement the new policy and thus how well they can achieve policy objectives. We also argue that when state capacity is low, the ability to adequately respond to external shocks goes down, and instability increases. When testing this empirically we find that low state capacity does indeed help us predict an increased risk for early termination—in particular, whether the government ends through a replacement (but not by an early election). Using interaction effects, we also demonstrate that the effect of external shocks, such as an increase in unemployment, is conditional on state capacity. An increase in unemployment only has a significant effect on cabinet stability when state capacity is low, suggesting that the cabinet’s (in)ability to address the economic problems is an important factor for understating cabinet durability.

Stability through control? The influence of coalition agreements on the stability of coalition cabinets

Why do some coalition cabinets terminate early and others run until the end of the legislative term? This article analyses whether coalition agreements lower the risk of early government termination. The main argument is that coalition agreements can increase the stability of coalition cabinets as they lower the probability of intra-cabinet conflict. The theoretical expectations are empirically evaluated on the basis of a newly compiled comprehensive dataset on cabinet duration and control mechanisms in coalition governments. Drawing on event history analysis, the effect of coalition agreements on cabinet duration is tested for 420 coalition cabinets from 1945 until 2015 in 23 Western and Eastern European countries. The results show that the existence and duration of a coalition agreement lower the risk of early government termination. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the interaction between coalition governance and coalition termination.

Partisan differences and the interventionist state in advanced democracies

AbstractWe present new evidence on whether political parties still matter in economic policy-making. We investigate four policy instruments (changes in product market regulation (PMR), subsidies, business taxation, social spending) in 21 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries between 1980 and 2015. We systematically consider how cabinet duration and the challenges of globalization, the European Union and economic problems (debt, unemployment, economic growth) condition partisan differences. Partisan differences only really make themselves felt after about one term in office. Moreover, with the exception of PMR, partisan differences tend to become more pronounced as globalization increases while European integration does not condition partisan effects. The conditioning effect of domestic economic problems on partisan differences depends on a policy instrument’s salience. In highly salient issue areas (social expenditure, corporate taxation), we only find partisan differences when problems are low; in contrast, economic problems emphasize partisan differences in non-salient issue areas (PMR, subsidies).

The impact of bicameralism on the disproportionality of cabinet portfolio allocation

This study examines whether bicameralism affects cabinet composition in parliamentary democracy. While previous studies have examined the effect of bicameralism on the legislative process and cabinet duration, little is known about its effect on cabinet post allocation. Therefore, this study examines how and why the institutional and partisan strengths of upper chambers affect the outcome of coalition bargaining and post allocation. Theoretically, I argue that partisan strength in upper chambers enhances a party’s bargaining position, resulting in disproportionality between the party seat and cabinet portfolio share of the lower chamber in coalition gov ernments. The empirical results indicate that the level of disproportional ity in cabinet portfolio allocation is higher in countries with strong upper chambers than in countries with weak or no upper chambers. I also investi gate party level data in countries with strong upper chambers. After control ling for the party share of lower chambers in these countries, the advantage accrued by the upper chamber in terms of party seat share is likely to result in obtaining a higher share of cabinet portfolios.

Government formation and breakdown in Western and Central Eastern Europe

In this article, we use a new data set describing governments, political parties and institutions to make an explicit comparison between Western Europe (WE) and Central Eastern Europe (CEE) in the investigation of three different topical issues found in the coalition literature, namely, coalition formation (that is, which factors affect who forms the winning coalitions), the number of cabinet members (that is, what affects the number of ministers in a cabinet) and cabinet duration (that is, which factors affect how long a new government lasts). Our findings indicate that, regardless of all the discussions about how CEE is different from WE because of the post-communist heritage or the volatility of voters in the CEE region, structural attributes such as the size and number of political parties are important determinants of coalition formation and cabinet duration patterns in both the West and the East. In fact, precisely because of the unsettled nature of CEE party politics, structural attributes tend to matter even more in the East.

Cabinet Duration in Presidential Democracies

Cabinet Duration in Presidential Democracies

How population size affects party systems and cabinet duration

This study develops and tests theoretical formulas for linking country size and party system characteristics. For countries using one-seat electoral districts or nationwide districts, the averages of the largest seat-share, effective number of assembly parties and mean duration of cabinets can be predicted based solely on population. For countries allocating seats by PR in multi-seat districts, the averages of these characteristics can be predicted based on population and district magnitude. We show that first-past-the-post countries of less than one million tend to have highly dominant largest parties and one-and-a-half party assemblies, rather than a balance of two parties. For larger countries, and PR countries of any size, population is not destiny, as far as party system is concerned.

TERRORISM AND CABINET DURATION*

Terrorism can strengthen or weaken electoral support for ruling governments. We show in a simple model of coalition formation that, regardless of the direction of a public opinion shock, the impact of terrorism on cabinet duration is ambiguous. However, in an analysis of a data set including 2,400 cabinets in over 150 countries in the period 1970–2002, we find that terrorism, on average, shortens cabinet duration. This result is robust for a range of alternative terror measures and is present in both democratic as well as autocratic political regimes.

Government survival the Italian way: The core and the advantages of policy immobilism during the First Republic

During its nearly fifty years of history, the First Italian Republic has been characterised by the highest rate of cabinet turnover in Western Europe. There are several convincing explanations for this exceptional feature; nevertheless, merely looking at the average figure risks overlooking the variety in the Italian government experience. Focusing on the spatial determinants of Italian cabinet duration shows that the presence of a core party has a positive, albeit conditional, impact on government duration, largely depending on the degree of intra-cabinet conflict. Moreover, whenever the core is absent, the inability of cabinets to change the status quo appears to lengthen, rather than shorten, their duration. This outcome appears in line with works stressing the substantial policy immobilism of Italian governments throughout most of the postwar period. The analysis relies on a new dataset based on a coding of the investiture debates of all the Italian cabinets. This allows one to track the evolution of parties’ preferences in a policy space that can change between (rather than only across) elections. The results show the importance of in-depth case studies to better analyse some puzzles within the cabinet duration literature that might otherwise be averaged out in large-N comparative analysis.

Political Polarization and Cabinet Stability in Multiparty Systems: A Social Networks Analysis of European Parliaments, 1945–98

Bargaining theory predicts that as a political system’s polarization increases, parties have fewer opportunities to form coalitions without resorting to elections, inducing constraints on the management of political crises. This study tests the hypothesis that political polarization has a positive effect on cabinet duration, and draws on Social Networks Analysis to conceptualize and measure political polarization. Combining information about party ideology, inter-party distances and party size, this polarization index measures the structure of political systems in terms of possible and actual coalitions, and identifies proto-coalitionsex ante. The propositions regarding the effect of the bargaining environment on cabinet survival are tested with data covering sixteen European states in 1945–99, and are fairly robustly supported. The measure of political polarization outperforms alternative measures of this concept.

Parsimonious Model for Predicting Mean Cabinet Duration On the Basis of Electoral System

This study joins two existing logical models and tests the resulting predictions of mean cabinet duration (C). One of these models predicts C based on effective number of parties (N): C = k/N2, where k is found to be around 42 years. The other predicts N on the basis of number of seats in the assembly (S) and district magnitude (M). The new combined model leads to a prediction for the mean cabinet duration in terms of these two institutional factors: C = 42 years/(MS)1/3. Three-quarters of the actual mean durations agree with the prediction within a factor of 2. For the purposes of institutional engineering, the model predicts that doubling the district magnitude would reduce the mean cabinet duration by 21 percent ceteris paribus.

Replacing Cabinet Ministers: Patterns of Ministerial Stability in Parliamentary Democracies

We examine the stability of individual ministers across parliamentary democracies. Our data show that this stability is only loosely related to the stability of cabinets, making it impossible to rely primarily on arguments about cabinet duration to explain patterns of individual stability. We argue that to explain patterns of individual stability, it is useful to focus on the problems that party leaders have in identifying which individuals have the qualities necessary to do their jobs well. The institutional powers of ministers, coalition attributes, and party-specific variables should affect the uncertainty that party leaders have about which individuals will be successful ministers, on one hand, and the ability of party leaders to replace unsuccessful ministers, on the other. Our empirical tests support these arguments. The analysis therefore has implications for expectations regarding the circumstances under which minister stability should positively or negatively influence the policymaking performance of government.

Survival of the Fittest? Cabinet Duration in Postcommunist Europe

Studies of government duration in transitional democracies are critically important in that they have profound implications for stability, democratic representation and accountability, and the prospects for continued democratic consolidation. For example, there is a long-standing debate on the different effects of presidential and parliamentary systems on the survivability of regimes.1 Examining government duration in postcommunist Europe addresses some key questions about institutional choice in transitional democracies, principally, how specific institutional arrangements are effective in constraining or extending the tenures of postcommunist governments. Yet the majority of studies of cabinet duration focus on western Europe and ignore the interesting cases of transitional democracies.2This article tests whether theories used to explain cabinet duration in western Europe can be transported to the postcommunist context. Although postcommunist states may not exhibit the strongest institutions or the most predictable mass behavior, their governments are still constrained by institutional arrangements that give domestic actors an oppositional role and are lengthened by strong economic performance. Analyses of the postcommunist states of the eastern Europe and Baltic states have been mainly comparative case studies.3 Although there have been attempts to compare them with the western democracies, scholars have argued that different histories, developments, and characteristics represent obstacles to these attempts. Hypotheses developed for the western democracies can address the same characteristics and processes for cabinet duration in eastern European and Baltic states. They are tested using duration models on a sample of ten postcommunist countries from the date of their independence through 2003. Similar to western European governments, tenure in office is determined by a mixture of institutional constraints (effective number of parties, type of government) and policy success (inflation).

Sustaining European Monetary Union: confronting the costs of diversity

The Puzzle of European Monetary Union. Adjustment Mechanisms. The Economic Costs of EMU. The Political Costs of EMU. Cabinet Duration and Institutions. The Burden of Adjustment. Meet the Neighbors. Conclusion.

Terrorism and Cabinet Duration: An Empirical Analysis

We examine the relationship between terrorism and cabinet duration. Our data set includes more than 2,400 cabinets in over 150 countries in the period 1968-2002. We find a small, but significant effect of terrorism on the probability of government failure. Furthermore, we find that the impact of terrorism depends on the type of attack and is larger in case of more severe attacks. Marginal effect calculations show that the impact of terror on cabinet duration is larger than the impact of economic variables such as economic growth, but less than the impact of a civil war or a government crisis. Our results suggest that cabinets in countries with high levels of terrorism are particularly vulnerable to terrorist attacks.