Cabinet Government Research Articles

Cabinet Government in the Twentieth Century

This paper examines the main features of the cabinet system as it had emerged during the twentieth century, and which Jennings did so much to crystallize in his pioneering study on Cabinet Government. It then assesses the main changes that have occurred over successive administrations since the late 1970s, and concludes that even if cabinet government seemed to return in 1990 and 2003, it was without the cabinet system that had underpinned and made it effective in the past.

Sir William Ivor Jennings: A Centennial Paper

It is amusing that the appearance of this extremely useful book should coincide with the abdication crisis. The forcible substitution of Edward VIII by his brother... showed us Cabinet Dictatorship in Action... All Communists, workers and trade unionists can learn a lot from Cabinet Government. Its price is prohibitive, but all public libraries will have copies. (Daily Worker, review of Cabinet Government, 6 January 1937)

The Government Agenda in Parliamentary Democracies

Lawmaking is a challenge for coalition governments because it inherently demands cooperation and compromise by parties with divergent policy goals. The jurisdictional system of cabinet government exacerbates the problem by providing parties the means to undermine the coalition bargain in the pursuit of their own policy interests. In this article, I explore whether arrangements that allow partners to police one another induce compromise on one of the most important decisions taken by a government—the organization of the policy agenda. In an analysis of original data on the timing and policy content of over 800 government bills from four European democracies, I show that coalition governments pursue a largely “accommodative” agenda. Policy initiatives dealing with issues that are more attractive to all partners in the coalition are likely to be given priority on the agenda, while those dealing with relatively unattractive issues are likely to be postponed.

The Government Agenda in Parliamentary Democracies

Lawmaking is a challenge for coalition governments because it inherently demands cooperation and compromise by parties with divergent policy goals. The jurisdictional system of cabinet government exacerbates the problem by providing parties the means to undermine the coalition bargain in the pursuit of their own policy interests. In this article, I explore whether arrangements that allow partners to police one another induce compromise on one of the most important decisions taken by a government—the organization of the policy agenda. In an analysis of original data on the timing and policy content of over 800 government bills from four European democracies, I show that coalition governments pursue a largely “accommodative” agenda. Policy initiatives dealing with issues that are more attractive to all partners in the coalition are likely to be given priority on the agenda, while those dealing with relatively unattractive issues are likely to be postponed.

Policy Advice as Crisis: A Political Redefinition of Crisis Management

The ability of governments to discern and solve different types of crisis situations is a topic of long-standing academic interest (see, for example, Pal 1985; Pollit et al. 1990; Dimock 1991; Micklethwait and Wooldridge 1996; Roe 2001). In particular, we have the protracted debates surrounding Graham Allison's (1971) analysis of the Cuban Missile crisis (see also Allison and Zelikow 1999). In conceptual terms, Allison's (1971) original monograph provided theoreticians not only with general typological categories (Models I, II, and III) but also with connections between what had been up until that time disparate ideas. In this contribution to the forum, Allison's schema is instructive in three ways. First, it treats the Missile Crisis as a committee process—a topic well-known to management scholars, academics, and practitioners alike. Second, it provides an excellent starting point for students of comparative government to explore how cabinet governments work—an issue sometimes overlooked or minimized by scholars of Western parliamentary systems (Jarman and Kouzmin 1993). Third, it gives us insights regarding how the various players involved in cabinets and committees interact in crisis situations. The intention here is not to intrude presumptively into the intriguing and long-standing Cuban Missile Crisis debate. The objective is much less ambitious but perhaps more relevant: to study “crisis management” as a multifaceted topic in which crises are acknowledged as critical to a system's survival as well as in which crises are contrived so as to gain strategic or tactical advantage, or both (Korac-Kakabadse, Kouzmin, and Kakabadse 2002). Moreover, we are more interested here in exploring policy advice as political process than with administrative output or social outcomes, and we are more concerned with model building (as contingency theory) than with historic irony, paradox, nuance, or policymaking success at the top echelons of cabinet governments. Of interest …

The Blair Government and the Core Executive

AbstractThe article contests the view that the Blair government has presided over the demise of cabinet government in the UK, and the rise of a kind of British presidentialism. By examining changes made at the very heart of government, chiefly in the Prime Minister's and Cabinet Offices, it argues that change under Labour marks the latest stage in the evolution of Britain's still functioning system of cabinet government. Moreover, recent reforms, like so many before, have been partly prompted by deep-seated administrative factors that have helped to shape the core executive for close to a century. Nevertheless, the article concedes that the Blair reforms do reflect an acceleration of pre-existing trends, with the result that the executive arm of government has been substantially enhanced. This has led to some change in the balance of power both within the core executive and across central government more widely.

Cabinet Instability and the Accumulation of Experience: The French Fourth and Fifth Republics in Comparative Perspective

Drawing on arguments about politics during the French Fourth Republic, the concept of cabinet instability is reconsidered. Rather than studying cabinet duration, the article examines the accumulation of experience by individual cabinet ministers. Two variables are measured in nineteen parliamentary democracies: portfolio experience the experience of cabinet ministers in the specific portfolios that they hold) and political experience (the experience of cabinet ministers in any significant portfolio). The results cast doubt on existing claims about cabinet government in the Fourth and Fifth Republics. They also uncover substantial cabinet turnover in majoritarian systems, suggesting that existing claims about stability in such systems may be overstated.

Cabinet Government: An Elusive Ideal?

This article will explore the proposition that cabinet government is dead by examining the different ways in which cabinet government is conceptualized and by suggesting that the lack of precision in the debates has undermined much of the criticism. It will seek to draw the strands of research together in a way that can emphasize how cabinet government has evolved while remaining at the core of government. The article will draw evidence from three countries, Australia, Canada and Britain, in each of which, despite the common heritage, cabinet has evolved in different ways.

Leadership, Politics and Accountability: G.W. Jones' Contribution to Local Government

In response to the PAC's project on Volumes of Influence (referring to the contribution made by political scientists to the study and development of public policy/public administration) this article attempts to evaluate the influence of G. W. Jones' contribution to local government over the last thirty years or so. It analyses his groundbreaking works on the development and importance of party politics in Wolverhampton (Borough Politics, 1969) and on political leadership and the developing political processes in the ‘running’ of London under Herbert Morrison (Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician, 973). It also attempts to evaluate Jones' contribution to the defence of local government over this period. The article suggests that Jones led a crusade for over 30 years on behalf of local government for its political processes to be understood and valued. In so doing he challenged conventional wisdom on the role of local political parties and political leadership as well as helped to set the agenda for study and research into these areas. Recent developments, relating to the importance of the political processes in local government (e.g. Widdicombe Committee) and the emergence of a cabinet or mayoral government, have vindicated Jones' views on these issues.

Japan's ‘Un-Westminster’ System: Impediments to Reform in a Crisis Economy

AbstractJapan's Prime Minister Koizumi is attempting a bold program of ‘structural reform’ in order to revive a moribund economy. However, his actual achievements after more than a year in office have fallen far short of his original goals. Such lack of progress for a prime minister bent on reform can only be understood in the context of Japan's ‘Un-Westminster’ system in which the cabinet is not an authoritative decisionmaking body for government policy. Although modelled along Westminster lines, Japan does not have strong cabinet government; it has party-bureaucratic government. In practice this means that Koizumi's push for reform faces the de facto veto power of bureaucrats and his own ruling party.

The challenges of energy — response to Moody-Stuart

Sir Mark has lucidly addressed the growing demand for accessible energy throughout the world, the need for basic provision of energy to one third of the world's population and the con- flicts that arise between the ways in which energy is supplied and used and the constraints of sus- tainability. It is, of course, the innovation, creativity and activity of industry that will provide solutions to the problems we face. It is therefore appropriate and helpful to hear from one of the leaders of the energy industry. The vision he presents is one of a vibrant, innovative, market-driven industry oper- ating within a regulatory framework that gives the maximum flexibility for creative solutions. The greatest challenges faced by the world energy sector are concerned with environmental sustainabil- ity. Because the emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide spread rapidly around the globe, sustainability has to be considered on a global basis and global solutions are required. Inter- national agreements concerning action, for instance the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), need to be based on sound science and on 4 widely accepted principles, namely the Pre- cautionary Principle, the Polluter Pays Principle and the Principles of Sustainable Development and Equity. The challenge to the FCCC is to devise mechanisms and arrangements that will bring about substantial reductions in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and that also satisfy these principles. A recent Energy Review from the Policy Innovation Unit of the UK Government's Cabinet Office has considered in detail how a sustainable energy strategy can be developed. Finally, reasons are given for optimism that, given the necessary commitment by the world community, a sustainable energy strategy for the world can be developed and realised during the 21st century.

Intergovernmental Relations in Canada: The Emergence of Collaborative Federalism

“Executive federalism” or “federal-provincial diplomacy” has long been considered the defining characteristic of Canadian federalism, which combines federalism and Westminster-style cabinet government. However, these processes have come under increasing stress in recent years from a number of forces that have affected the nature and conduct of federalism and intergovernmental relations in Canada. Executive federalism has not been displaced, but has been increasingly informed by a set of practices that we call “collaborative federalism,” characterized more by the principle of co-determination of broad national policies rather than by the more traditional pattern of federal-leadership. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

CHURCHILL AND THE PREMIERSHIP

A POLITICAL and literary life of such extraordinary longevity, variety and richness of vocabulary leaves anyone seeking a consistent theme among any of Winston Churchill’s verbal puddings with a bowlful of paradox. The conduct of the premiership and the management of cabinet government are no exceptions. Among the papers his no. 10 private office produced for Harold Macmillan in the summer of 1960 when his appointment of a peer (Alec Home) to the foreign secretaryship led to accusations of excessive prime ministerialism, is a Hansard extract for 1938 in which Churchill defends the appointment by Chamberlain of Lord Halifax to the same post on the grounds that the prime minister sat in the House of Commons. ‘What is the point of crying out for the moon’, Churchill inquired of the Lower House, ‘when you have the sun and you have that bright orb of day from whose effulgent beams the lesser luminaries drive their radiance?’ And his most famous characterisation of the premiership seems to treat it as a post of licensed overmightiness. ‘The loyalties’, he declared in his war memoirs, ‘which centre upon number one are enormous. If he trips he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes they must be covered. If he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good he must be pole-axed’ – a case, to adopt a phrase of John Ramsden’s, of ‘autocracy tempered by assassination’.

Public Management Morality and the Employment Relationship in the Westminster Style of Cabinet Government: Developing a Conceptual Framework for Empirical Study with Special Reference to Australia

Public Management Morality and the Employment Relationship in the Westminster Style of Cabinet Government: Developing a Conceptual Framework for Empirical Study with Special Reference to Australia

The programme to policy linkage: The fulfilment of election pledges on socio–economic policy in The Netherlands, 1986–1998

Abstract. To what extent are the contents of party election programmes congruent with subsequent government policy actions? Existing research on the fulfilment of pre–election pledges focuses on systems of government in which executives formed by a single parties are the norm. This study extends this research to coalition systems of government. Specific policy proposals made by the main Dutch parties in their recent election programmes are identified and compared with subsequent government policy actions. Hypotheses about the conditions under which pledges are more likely to be acted upon are formulated and tested. Although clear linkages between election programmes and subsequent policies are found, pledges made by prospective coalition parties in the Netherlands are less likely to be acted upon than those made by prospective governing parties in the United Kingdom. Prominent features of cabinet government, such as the allocation of ministerial portfolios and the coalition policy agreement, are found to influence the likelihood of pledges being fulfilled. In addition, consensus between parties is also found to increase the likelihood of government actions responding to election pledges.

Beyond Westminster: The New Machinery of Subnational Government: Adapting the Westminster Model: Provincial and Territorial Cabinets in Canada

Key elements of the Canadian ‘model’ of cabinet differ markedly from the structures and processes of cabinets in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. This article outlines features of the Canadian provincial cabinet organization and operation which are unique or unusual in Westminster systems and suggests that important lessons for the new national institutions may be found in the experience of cabinet government in Canada. The five distinctive aspects of Canadian cabinets are outlined: their size and structure; the ‘representational imperative’ in their composition; the ramifications of party leadership selection processes; the prominence of political staff; and the widespread lack of political and parliamentary experience among ministers.

The Established Principles of Cabinet Government

The Established Principles of Cabinet Government

The Rise of Court Government in Canada

AbstractThe article challenges long-established conventions about how Canada's federal government works. It argues that Cabinet has joined Parliament as an institution being bypassed. In the late 1990s, political power is in the hands of the prime minister and a small group of carefully selected courtiers rather than with the prime minister acting in concert with his elected cabinet colleagues. The article reviews the forces that have led to the rise of court government and the policy instruments and administrative tools that enable it to function. National unity concerns, the role of the media and lobbyists, as well as reforms at the centre of government and globalization, have all served to reshape how policy and decisions are made in the government of Canada. The changes hold important implications, not just for cabinet government, but also for the public service and Canadians themselves.

The Judge and the Talents: An Episode in the History of Cabinet Government*

The Judge and the Talents: An Episode in the History of Cabinet Government*

The Blair Style of Government: An Historical Perspective and an Interim Audit

MAY I BEGIN WITH A DASH OF HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE? I DO SO AS A health warning, to myself as much as to anyone else. Just as the great Lord Salisbury once said that too much poring over maps tended to drive nineteenth-century ministers and military chiefs mad, an excessive concentration on prime-ministerial styles can propel scholars and commentators smack bang into the Tommy Cooper school of analysis – here you have collective cabinet government then, just like that, when the premiership changes hands, you switch to overbearing prime-ministerial government. There has been a good deal of this since Tony Blair entered No. 10 exactly 214 days ago.