Cabinet Positions Research Articles

SHRI BABU JAGJIVAN RAM: A PIONEER OF DECOLONISATION MOVEMENT IN THE INDEPENDENT INDIA

Babu Jagjivan Ram, a prominent Dalit leader and social reformer, was a pioneering force in India’s decolonization movement. Born in 1908 in a marginalized caste community, he overcame systemic discrimination and rose to become one of the most influential political figures in post-independence India. His journey from a humble background to a statesman symbolizes the resilience and determination of the oppressed classes in the fight for equality and social justice.Jagjivan Ram’s role in India's freedom struggle was marked by his commitment to eradicating caste-based injustices while fighting for the country’s independence. As a member of the Indian National Congress, he played a crucial part in the Quit India Movement and led efforts to ensure that the voices of Dalits and other marginalized communities were included in the national discourse. He was also instrumental in forming the All-India Depressed Classes League, which advocated for the political and social rights of Dalits.After India gained independence in 1947, Jagjivan Ram continued to champion the cause of the downtrodden as a key member of independent India’s government. He held several important cabinet positions, including that of Defence Minister and Agriculture Minister. His contribution to the Green Revolution, which transformed India’s agricultural landscape, is particularly noteworthy. His leadership during the Indo-Pak war of 1971, which led to the creation of Bangladesh, further cemented his legacy as a visionary leader.Beyond politics, Jagjivan Ram’s life was a testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of inclusivity in nation-building. He dedicated his life to creating an India free of both colonial oppression and caste discrimination. His legacy continues to inspire movements for equality and justice in modern India.

SHRI BABU JAGJIVAN RAM: A PIONEER OF DECOLONISATION MOVEMENT IN THE INDEPENDENT INDIA

Babu Jagjivan Ram, a prominent Dalit leader and social reformer, was a pioneering force in India’s decolonization movement. Born in 1908 in a marginalized caste community, he overcame systemic discrimination and rose to become one of the most influential political figures in post-independence India. His journey from a humble background to a statesman symbolizes the resilience and determination of the oppressed classes in the fight for equality and social justice.Jagjivan Ram’s role in India's freedom struggle was marked by his commitment to eradicating caste-based injustices while fighting for the country’s independence. As a member of the Indian National Congress, he played a crucial part in the Quit India Movement and led efforts to ensure that the voices of Dalits and other marginalized communities were included in the national discourse. He was also instrumental in forming the All-India Depressed Classes League, which advocated for the political and social rights of Dalits.After India gained independence in 1947, Jagjivan Ram continued to champion the cause of the downtrodden as a key member of independent India’s government. He held several important cabinet positions, including that of Defence Minister and Agriculture Minister. His contribution to the Green Revolution, which transformed India’s agricultural landscape, is particularly noteworthy. His leadership during the Indo-Pak war of 1971, which led to the creation of Bangladesh, further cemented his legacy as a visionary leader.Beyond politics, Jagjivan Ram’s life was a testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of inclusivity in nation-building. He dedicated his life to creating an India free of both colonial oppression and caste discrimination. His legacy continues to inspire movements for equality and justice in modern India.

The Length of Service of Cabinet Ministers in Chile's Presidential Democracy, 1990–2022

Cabinet shuffles in multiparty democracies do not equally affect all posts as they are caused by changes in the composition of government coalitions and by shifting political conditions. With data from the 340 individual cabinet appointments in Chile's presidential system in seven presidential terms (1990–2022), we find that the type of cabinet position and prior experience as cabinet ministers impact the length of service, but party members do not last longer than independents and neither do ministers with technocratic credentials. Ministers in low‐prestige positions are less likely to being sacked. As cabinet stability is associated with the delivery of public policies, studying the determinants of longer cabinet positions helps identify factors that contribute to governability and good governance.

Women's Work: The Gendered Nature of Appointment Politics in Subnational China

Abstract While comparative research on gender and politics has produced a sizable literature on the appointment of women to cabinet positions in democracies, we know surprisingly little about appointment practices in authoritarian contexts at subnational levels. We address this gap with the resumés of 3,681 political appointees in subnational China (2003–2020). Our analysis reveals that subnational Chinese politics meets most of the criteria scholars put forward as being indicative of gendered institutions: (1) women and men's career patterns are different; (2) women are assigned to more feminine posts, while masculine posts provide more promotion opportunities; and (3) regarding backgrounds, women are younger, better educated and more likely to be ethnic minorities as a result of the implementation of tandem quotas. The findings advance the literature on gender and politics, showing that gender's effect on appointment transcends regime types and the dichotomy of national/subnational politics.

Multiparty Coalition Governments, Portfolio Allocation and Ministerial Turnover in Morocco and Algeria

Abstract The article analyzes multiparty coalition governments under authoritarian tutelage in Morocco and Algeria. While in Morocco multiparty coalition governments are just a means for the King to dress their windows, in Algeria they represent a new arena of power bargaining. In both cases, portfolio allocation follows the Gamson’s law but cases of advantage for the formateur are also given. Nonetheless, the parties included in multiparty coalition governments are almost always regime-controlled ones, as is the case in Algeria, or encounter reserved domains constitutionally defined, as is the case in Morocco. Moreover, in both cases the democratic potential intrinsic to multiparty coalition governments is defused by preventing grassroots parties to access top-weighted ministerial portfolios and by envisaging a relevant role for non-party ministries. This renders cabinet positions hardly contestable and adds up to the durability of multiparty coalition governments while making them barely apt at channeling grassroots demands for political change.

Be careful what you wish for: Portfolio allocation, presidential popularity, and electoral payoffs to parties in multiparty presidentialism

We know little about how coalitional strategy affects the electoral fates of political parties in presidential democracy. The literature on coalitions in parliamentary systems shows a negative impact of entering government, while the coattail effects literature on presidential systems suggests some benefits. Combining elements from both approaches, we argue that there is a conditional electoral effect of joining the cabinet under coalitional presidentialism. Even considering presidentialism’s heightened attribution of responsibility to a unipersonal executive, we find that coalition parties do indeed place a meaningful electoral wager whenever they choose to enter the president’s cabinet as identifiable allies. Leveraging data on Brazilian elections held at national and local levels over 24 years and employing an innovative measure of portfolio salience, we show that the payoff of this wager is contingent on control of the most highly-valued cabinet positions and on the popular approval of the president.

Polarisation versus Convergence: Senior Female Diplomats’ Views on Feminism, Religion and Women’s Rights in US Foreign Policy

Summary This article is among the first to probe the views of seven women who held foreign policy cabinet positions in Democratic and Republican administrations in the United States between 1981 and 2018. Grounded in debates over a polarising ‘culture war’ versus converging social attitudes, the study uses autobiographical sources to gauge cross-party differences over time in leaders’ understandings of feminism and anti-feminism, levels of secularism and religious orthodoxy, and views of women’s rights in foreign policy. The study also examines questions of intersectionality, notably whether appointees from racial minority backgrounds expressed distinctively transformative views about inequality and discrimination. The findings confirm left/right polarisation arguments with respect to attitudes towards women’s movements but show that nominees, regardless of party or racial background, were deeply committed to liberal individualism. The conclusion discusses the implications of these results and proposes directions for further research.

Gendering Coalitional Presidentialism in Brazil

Coalitional presidentialism is a power-sharing strategy deployed in multiparty presidentialist democracies that entails the distribution of cabinet positions to coalition partners to facilitate governability. This model of governance is increasingly common worldwide, gaining growing scholarly interest. The consequences of coalitional presidentialism for women’s cabinet representation, however, have received scant attention. In this article, we provide a gendered analysis of the Brazilian experience with coalitional presidentialism. Through the quantitative analysis of an original dataset of all ministerial appointments ( N = 597) under eight Brazilian presidents (1985–2019) and a descriptive assessment of the coalitional dynamics during that period, we evaluate the Brazilian experience with coalitional presidentialism through the lens of Feminist Institutionalism. We show that coalitional presidentialism restricts women's access to cabinet seats, with the demands of multiparty coalition formation and management often overriding presidential considerations about descriptive representation, and coalition parties rarely advancing women to fill portfolios allocated to them by the president.

Power in the Post-Civil War Period: The Effect of Armed Conflict and Gender Quotas on Women in Political Leadership Positions

Abstract While research has shown that civil wars often significantly increase women's representation in politics, we know little about the long-term effect on women holding political leadership positions in post-civil war countries. We develop a new theoretical approach to explain how quotas affect women's long-term representation in post-civil war governments. We observe a higher share of women in cabinets after the end of civil wars. We argue that the interaction of civil wars and gender quotas that provide a legal framework for a certain share of women in political office makes it especially likely that women can retain long-term political power. In contrast, the effect on women's leadership over time is smaller in post-civil war countries without a quota. Utilizing a novel data set of female executive-branch leaders in sub-Saharan African countries from 2001 to 2018, we empirically test whether women in post-civil war countries have managed to gain a long-term hold on the progress they made in representation. Our findings show that for cabinet positions, the interplay of gender quota and civil war explains female political leaders’ longevity in post-civil war countries. This research has implications for understanding post-civil war situations and the conditions under which women retain political power.

Spatial Change in Bulgaria’s Political Elite, 1878–2014

Abstract The question of who should, and who actually does, govern has long been at the centre of empirical and theoretical analyses. This article focuses on the evolution of regional inequality in Bulgaria in terms of political representation. A specially created gis data set facilitated the assessment of changes in the composition of different Bulgarian governments during a long period of political transformation. The database incorporates information about the positions occupied, the time spent in government, the political affiliations, and the places of birth of more than 600 individuals who held cabinet positions in more than 1500 ministerial tenures. Combining different layers of information within the gis allowed the authors to map the evolution of the Bulgarian political elite, to identify historical centres of political influence, and to visualize the transition of power from the provinces of the interior to the capital, Sofia.

The Party Personnel Datasets: Advancing Comparative Research in Party Behavior and Legislative Organization Across Electoral Systems

This paper introduces eight country‐level datasets with >50,000 observations that can be used to analyze novel comparative questions concerning party personnel strategies—how parties recruit candidates and allocate members across party, legislative, and cabinet positions. We make these datasets public to inspire comparative research, especially from an electoral systems perspective; electoral systems shape constituency representation and influence how parties recruit candidates and organize members in legislative and government bodies. In this paper, we first briefly review the relevant literature on electoral nomination and post‐election appointment and then describe our motivations for constructing multi‐country datasets that can be used to further comparative research. To illustrate the possibilities in these new datasets, we show how recruitment and placement of parliamentarians with particular personal characteristics correlates with their placement onto specific committees and cabinet posts. A conclusion identifies other areas of research that might benefit from using the party personnel datasets.

Democratic Subversion: Elite Cooptation and Opposition Fragmentation

Incumbents in electoral regimes often retain power despite having to regularly compete in multiparty elections. We examine a specific channel through which incumbents can seek to prevent the emergence of a strong opposition that might threaten them in future elections. We present a formal model demonstrating that incumbents can strategically induce opposition fragmentation by appointing some opposition members to ministerial cabinet positions. Opposition politicians who have the opportunity to secure a cabinet position in an incumbent’s government tend to compete for office independently rather than coalescing into broad-based parties or electoral alliances. The model shows that weaker incumbents are more likely to rely on this cooptation strategy. Using original data on presidential elections across African countries during 1990–2016, we show that past cooptation of opposition politicians is associated with a more fragmented opposition field in subsequent elections.

Political Islam in South Asia: A critical appraisal of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami

The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI) is the largest Islamist Party in Bangladesh. It was founded in 1941 in British-India, by Maulana Mawdudi, a prominent South Asian Islamist leader. The BJI has undergone political vicissitudes during its eight-decade-long political history. The most notable political success of the Party was to have a couple of cabinet positions as a coalition partner in the Nationalist–Islamist Government between 2001 and 2006. Since the beginning of the 2010s, the Party has been in severe crisis: most of its national leaders were convicted of war crimes and put to death in the period 2011–2016. This article aims to examine the BJI’s growth and development and role in political Islam in Bangladesh. It also explores the challenges to, and responses of, the Party and their sociopolitical implications for the future of political Islam in Bangladesh. The methodology of the article is a critical analysis based on an exhaustive review of published secondary literature about the Party. The author argues that the BJI has generated a massive Islamic movement and made an enormous contribution to political Islam in Bangladesh. Yet it has failed to reform its almost-century-old organizational structure and modus operandi and effectively respond to the changed social and political contexts of Bangladesh, which has affected its organizational mobility and success.

Cabinet size and governance in Sub‐Saharan Africa

AbstractThere is frequent public and media concern over the cost of bloated cabinets in many Sub‐Saharan African countries. Scholarship on elite clientelism links cabinet positions with corruption and practices that undermine sound policymaking. This article presents new data on the number of ministers in African governments and documents a robust negative association with several measures of governance, both across countries and in a regression framework that exploits within‐country variation over time and accounts for various potential confounders. This suggests policymakers, donors, investors, and citizens should pay close attention to the number of ministers appointed to the cabinet. Although the article cautions against simplistic policy prescriptions, a sizable increase in the number of ministers is likely bad news for governance.

Cook Islands

Cook Islands Christina Newport (bio) This review covers the two-year period from July 2018 to June 2020 and tracks a range of ongoing and emerging concerns. Election politics, climate change, homosexuality law reform, and ocean management all drew attention during this period. The impacts of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (covid-19) also made their mark on the Cook Islands this time around. When the period began, the results of six petitions lodged after the June 2018 election had not yet been decided. However, the outcome of the petitions had little effect on the overall result, with the Cook Islands Party forming and maintaining a coalition government. They were able to win over the support of the One Cook Islands Party and two independent election winners. George Maggie, Rose Toki-Brown, and Robert Tapaitau were offered cabinet positions, which effectively gave the incumbent government the majority to govern by adding 3 more seats to its previous 10. With its 11 seats, the Democratic Party failed to strike the necessary deals to secure a governing majority (cin, 7 July 2018). One petition that was not quickly or easily resolved concerned the seat of Atiu. The late Nandi Glassie, deposed politician and former minister of health, began the review period by contesting his election defeat by first-time candidate Te-Hani Brown. By November 2019, the Tengatangi-Areora-Ngatiarua seat would be contested three times, following two elections and three legal battles. However, an unfortunate turn of events saw the seasoned statesman withdraw, too ill to contest the seat for a third time (cin, 8 Oct 2019). Instead, the Democratic Party fielded June Baudinet, fifty years the senior to her younger opponent. Nearly eighteen months since the June 2018 general election and many months without representation, it was the independent candidate Te-Hani Brown who won three-quarters of the votes. She was finally elected to represent voter interests as a member of the Cook Islands Party coalition (cin, 15 Nov 2019). Despite adversity, Glassie kept busy and established a new political party: Cook Islands United Party. In his speech launching the party, he [End Page 182] called for political reform, stating, “It is [about] looking for a new system of government. A new paradigm shift. A new democracy that suits us today, not yesterday” (cin, 27 Nov 2018). Similarly, ex-politician, traditional leader, diplomat, and lawyer Iaveta Short, who led the 1998 commission to review the Cook Islands political system, echoed the call for reform. In his 2020 memoir, Short wrote that he believed the reforms recommended back in 1998 remained relevant more than twenty years later. He pointed out that in adopting the Westminster system of Parliament, the Cook Islands had also taken on the troubles of such an arrangement, whereby “the two-party, first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all system was divisive and concentrated power for a small number of people whose inclination was to hold on to power at all costs” (Short 2020, 348). Adopting a nonparty system, such as those taken up by English Channel Islands—the Isles of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey—was proposed (Short 2020). Such a system would involve electing constituency representatives to a legislative body to govern as committees without party affiliations. Whether these calls get taken seriously remains to be seen. It is more likely, as Short contended, that a lack of political will and understanding will continue to prevail (Short 2020, 351). Glassie also kept busy as he continued to pursue a PhD through the University of the South Pacific. His study examines the Cook Islands public sector reforms from 1995 to 2015. His research found that public sector reforms in 1996, which included downsizing an oversized public service in response to the financial crisis of the 1990s, also had negative impacts. The loss of skilled personnel, the privatization of services, and low staff morale resulted. The detrimental effects of these reforms saw many families migrate overseas. Twenty years on, Glassie warned of a potential repeat of the crisis if public sector performance was not managed properly to address funding shortages, capability gaps, structural inefficiencies, system and process inadequacies, and poor work practices. He pointed out that the number of public...

BEYOND THE ELECTORAL TRIUMPHALISM: REFLECTIONS ON LESOTHO'S COALITION GOVERNMENT AND CHALLENGES

1. Introduction: 2012 election results Among the 18 political parties which contested Lesotho's 26 May 2012 National Assembly elections, the All Basotho Convention (ABC) led by Thomas Motsoahae Thabane, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), by Mothetjoa Metsing and the Basotho National Party (BNP) under Thesele 'Maseribane's leadership fortuitously, yet neither unconstitutionally nor surprisingly, won governmental power and thus jointly rule the country as aptly a triumvirate. Until the actual voting day there was nothing discernibly common between any of these political parties. Indeed, they had squared up against each other as mutually hostile entities frantically trying to maximise their individual chances of winning the elections. Section 87(2) of the Constitution of Lesotho reads: The King shall appoint as Prime Minister the member of the National Assembly who appears to the Council of State to be the leader of the political party or coalition of political parties that will command the support of the majority of the members of the National Assembly. With 30, 26 and five seats respectively in the National Assembly, the ABC, LCD, and BNP achieved the required absolute majority by one seat to claim governmental power. This development ended the one-party dominance that had been for decades a feature of Lesotho's democracy. Catapulted to state power by an overwhelming majority vote in previous elections, then ruling LCD was an unrestrained force. It used its parliamentary majority to forestall debates on important national issues and passed bills as law before they had been properly scrutinised by its opposition counterparts (Makoa 2005: 69). LCD lost governmental power in a bizarre fashion to a third of its splinter parties since being formed 15 years ago, the Democratic Congress (DC). Its erstwhile leader and then Prime Minister Mosisili, together with the majority of LCD members of parliament (MPs) resigned from the party and formed, inside the house of parliament in February 2012, the DC, which immediately took over the administration of the country as the ruling party. LCD had similarly been formed in June 1997 to the chagrin of the opposition by the late Ntsu Mokhehle, then prime minister and leader of the then ruling Basutoland Congress Party (BCP), who continued to rule until 1998 under the banner of his newly formed LCD. Together, the ABC, LCD and BNP captured 61 of the total 120 parliamentary seats, a minimum required to form government. After the elections results had been announced the ABC, LCD and BNP triumvirate presented itself as a coalition. newly formed DC led by the former Prime Minister Pakalitha Bethuel Mosisili had won only 47 parliamentary seats. A coalition with the small political parties remaining outside the ABC, LCD and BNP partnership would yield only 59 parliamentary seats. Able to muster the number, the ABC, LCD and BNP thus coalesced into a bloc in accordance with the provisions of Section 87(2) of the constitution and claimed the governmental power that had clearly eluded the DC. three parties are in coalition of a type variously dubbed office-driven, office seeking or office-oriented, that is, the one that motivated by the quest for office, (Kadima 2006: 5) rather than by a convergence in parties' ideologies or policies--the payoffs, spoils or benefits being cabinet positions. quest for office and state power was clearly the key motivation and a bond that holds the formation together. Not only have cabinet positions been shared among these parties but also some of the government ministries have been subdivided and parceled into separate ministerial units ostensibly to increase their number so as to meet the individual demands of the members of the triumvirate. combined number of the coalition government's cabinet ministers and deputy ministers is a whopping 30, a far cry from the previous administration's 23 and thus a greater budgetary burden for a nation that is buffeted by grinding poverty. …

The far-right and asylum outcomes: Assessing the impact of far-right politics on asylum decisions in Europe

Despite decades of efforts to harmonize asylum procedures, large unexplained differences in asylum outcomes persist across European Union member states. Unfortunately, relatively little empirical literature has examined the causes of disparities in asylum recognition rates. In this paper, I suggest that domestic politics impact how asylum claims are adjudicated. I analyze origin-specific asylum recognition rates in 27 European Union member states from 2000-2018. The findings show that right-wing parties in government are associated with lower asylum recognition rates. This effect is strongest for far-right parties. When far-right parties gain legislative seats and cabinet positions, there is a substantive reduction in recognized asylum claims.

Pathways to Power: The Role of Preparliamentary Careers and Political Human Capital in the Obtainment of Cabinet Positions

Understanding the rise to power is central to the study of politics. Yet, we still know little about the career paths of influential politicians like ministers. The literature assumes that dominant preparliamentary occupations (e.g., lawyer, local offices) predict promotion. We move beyond this potential ecological fallacy and suggest a perspective that emphasizes the role of gatekeepers and political human capital like national political experience and education. We leverage complete career data of all Dutch MPs (N = 1,263; 1945–2012) and study their (N = 4,966) opportunities to obtain a cabinet position. A sequence analysis with fuzzy clustering reveals eight career paths in both the professional and political domain. A logistic regression analysis that uses these career paths as predictors shows that prominent occupations and communicative experience do not constitute the pathway to ministerial power; a university education and preparliamentary national political experience do. Findings support the value of political human‐capital theory to understand political promotion.

Fairness and qualitative portfolio allocation in multiparty governments

How do political parties divide coalition payoffs in multiparty governments? Perhaps the most striking answer to this question is Gamson’s Law, which suggests a strong fairness norm in the allocation of office payoffs among coalition partners. Building upon recent advancements in portfolio allocation research, we extend this approach in three important ways. First, we study fairness with regard to the allocation of policy (rather than office) payoffs. Second, we introduce measures to assess the fairness of the division of policy payoffs following two norms: envy-freeness and equitability. Third, we explore why some allocations of ministerial portfolios deviate from fairness norms. Based on an original data set of party preferences for individual portfolios in Western and Central Eastern Europe, we find substantial variation in the fairness of policy payoffs across cabinets. Moreover, coalitions are more likely to arrive at envy-free and equitable bargaining outcomes if (1) these fair allocations are based on an allocation of cabinet positions that is proportional to party size and if (2) the bargaining power is distributed evenly among government parties. The results suggest that fairness is not a universal norm for portfolio allocation in multiparty governments, but in fact depends on the cabinet parties’ bargaining positions.

Evaluación de la presencia de mujeres en gabinetes subnacionales de Argentina (1992-2016)

?Cuales son los factores que explican la inclusion de las mujeres en puestos politicos subnacionales? La literatura convencional ha examinado las designaciones de mujeres en gabinetes nacionales, pero escasa atencion se ha prestado a los gobiernos provinciales. Para abordar este vacio, adoptamos el enfoque de oferta y demanda. De este modo, utilizando una base de datos sobre las 24 jurisdicciones subnacionales argentinas desde 1992 a 2016, encontramos que los factores del lado de la demanda son mas relevantes. Esto se explica, en primer termino, ya que la probabilidad de que sean nombradas ministras aumenta junto al tamano del gabinete, cuando hay una gobernadora mujer y, finalmente, si el gobernador pertenece a la coalicion peronista. Por otro lado, se ven perjudicadas a medida que aumenta el contingente legislativo del partido del gobernador.