Ministerial Power Research Articles

From Gender Equity to Gendered Assignments? Women and Cabinet Committees in Canada and the United Kingdom

Abstract This article explores women's access to ministerial power in an important but understudied arena of executive politics: cabinet committees. Specifically, we analyse the gendered patterns in the distribution of cabinet committee assignments in two ‘typical’ Westminster cases, Canada and the United Kingdom, and under two prime ministers, Justin Trudeau (2015–2021) and David Cameron (2010–2016), who both made explicit gender-equity pledges. Informed by previous research into gendered allocation of ministerial portfolios, we investigate the overall extent of women's committee assignments, the gendered dimensions of these assignments and the status of assignments, namely the ‘prestige’ of committee remits, whether committees were chaired by the prime minister and the allocation of chairing responsibilities across committees. In both cases, overall assignment broadly matched shares of women ministers at the cabinet level, but less so during the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition in the UK (2010–2015). Women's shares of committee assignments were likely to be lower on ‘masculine’ and ‘high-prestige’ committees compared to ‘neutral’, ‘feminine’ and ‘low-prestige’ committees, but commitment to gender equity is more evident in the Canadian case. While our aim is exploratory and descriptive, we offer several explanations for these patterns, including the supply of women ministers, departmentalism, party branding and the low public profile of cabinet committees.

The prime minister's constitution: Cabinet rulebooks in Westminster democracies

The transformation of governance in Westminster democracies is well documented. However, one aspect of their change that has not received much attention is the creation and publication of cabinet rulebooks. The few studies of cabinet rulebooks have focused on their potential constitutional implications, leaving unclear how their emergence fits within the broader development of Westminster governance. We address this gap in the literature by examining cabinet rulebooks in five Westminster democracies: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. We analyze their features and emergence, and then set out a framework to analyze their potential effects on cabinet dynamics. We find that the appearance of cabinet rulebooks can be tied to several forces of change in Westminster systems, but most especially the growth of government. Furthermore, we find that these rulebooks project an account of prime ministerial power that is favorable to the prime minister.

Prime Ministerial powers of patronage: Ideology and Cabinet selection under Margaret Thatcher 1979–1990

This article will examine how Margaret Thatcher utilised the Prime Ministerial power of Cabinet ministerial appointment between 1979 and 1990. The article will utilise the Norton taxonomy on the Parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP) to determine the ideological disposition (non-Thatcherite versus Thatcherite) of her Cabinet members across her eleven years in office. It will assess the ideological trends in terms of appointments, promotions and departures from Cabinet and it will use archival evidence to explore the advice given to Thatcher to assist her decision-making. Through this process the article will demonstrate how Thatcher was more ideologically balanced than academics have traditionally acknowledged when discussing her Cabinet selections. Moreover, the article will also demonstrate the significance attached to media presentation skills to her decision-making, thus challenging the emphasis on ideology as a dominant determinant of Cabinet selection.

Appraising the Interpretation of the Word ‘Scientist’ under the Special Residence Requirements for Australian Citizenship

Abstract The article examines the interpretation of the word ‘scientist’ under Instrument IMMI 13/056 made pursuant to section 22B(1) of the Citizenship Act. The article considers the literal interpretation of the word scientist and the objective of the Instrument. The article provides a critique of the cases that have gone to the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal and argues that the interpretation favoured by the Tribunal is misconceived. The article contends that the Tribunal seems to be giving undue support to an arbitrary or haphazardly serendipitous exercise of ministerial power under the special residence framework in a manner that runs afoul of the tenour of section 22B(1) of the Citizenship Act.

MENDESAIN HUBUNGAN KABINET DENGAN GUBERNUR DALAM SISTEM PRESIDENSIAL INDONESIA

Article 4 paragraph 1 of the 1945 Constitution concerning the President of the Republic of Indonesia holds governmental authority under the Constitution. However, Governor elected sometimes set up policies ultra viresfor they thought that they held legitimacy to exercise the power from their consituents. Poor coordination between Cabinet and the Governor and program mismatched implicated in bad development program and public service in the region. President, in the context of presidentialism, is the apex of hierarchy. The Cabinet must be loyal to the president not to other patrons. Proposal to grant a ministerial power level of position and role to the Governor or to provide seats for Governor and Deputy Governor at the cabinet meeting is worth a consideration. In addition to lessen the miscommunication with the Cabinet, it is also to ease the works of the Cabinet in the regions. Governor and the Cabinet would have a good relationship whenever the program and policy of the Cabinet are transparently conveyed to all governors and when people are also informed. Participation should be developed on the ground of freedom of speech. Therefore, the decision-making process in the Cabinet that was formerly hierarchical will shift to the process involving the entire people of Indonesia. Certainly, the mechanism of this participation would be easier if the representative of the governor or the Governer seats in the Cabinet and vice versa

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.

Bercy, un vrai premier ministère ?

Le ministère chargé du budget a longtemps été considéré comme une puissance ministérielle opposée aux ministères dépensiers, leurs intérêts divergeant de fait. Derrière ces antagonismes, on retrouve l’histoire d’un ministère qui s’est trouvé obligé de composer avec le politique, l’économique et le juridique. De cette histoire ont résulté de nouveaux rapports (de force ?) qui ont conduit à redéfinir le rôle de ce ministère par rapport à l’administration, au politique et, in fine , à la société.

Dyplomacja Francji: ewolucja relacji na osi władzy Elysee-Matignon w układzie koabitacji

The paper analyzes the decision-making process with respect to foreign policy and defense in the French Fifth Republic. The author discusses the constitutional rights of the President, Prime Minister and Parliament to emphasize that the notion of the exclusive domain (domaine réservé) of the head of the state has no legal grounds. In particular, she stresses the variations in the practice of exercising power in these terms under two distinct political situations: when the president and government are from the same political option, and when they are not. She notes that given the political homogeneity of the President and the majority in the National Assembly, the President, as the actual head of the unified party, becomes the focal point in the creation and implementation of the policies for ‘his’ France, in particular of the country’s foreign policy. This defies the stipulations of Articles 20 and 21 of the Constitution, by virtue of which the government, headed by the Prime Minister, “determines and conducts the policy of the nation.” The paper devotes considerable space to an analysis of the political influence of cohabitation, i.e. the coexistence of a President of the Republic and a majority in the National Assembly who represent different political orientations. This characterized the political system of France for nine years (1986–1988, 1993–1995, 1997–2002) during the evolution of the actual dependency on the Presidential and Prime Ministerial power axis (or the Elysée–Matignon axis, as these state organs are commonly referred to) in the process of shaping and conducting the international and European policy of the state. The role of the Minister of Foreign Affairs is taken into account regarding the outcome of these changeable relations.

Democratization and women’s representation in presidential cabinets: evidence from East and Southeast Asia

ABSTRACTThis article examines patterns of women’s cabinet representation across all presidential democracies in East and Southeast Asia since democratization. It demonstrates how the choice of female ministers differs across career backgrounds in presidential systems and further examines why young presidential systems in Asia are conducive to women’s access to ministerial power through professional career tracks. We argue that despite women’s successful performance in national legislative elections, women have been restricted to access the power resources necessary to target other political goals, such as cabinet positions, whereas democratic transition has provided broader avenues for women to emerge as professionals outside party politics. By analyzing original data on female ministers in East and Southeast Asia, the study finds that the share of women among professional ministers has increased over time, but women’s share among political ministers has not changed significantly. Additionally, the different qualifications of female politicians and professionals also make them eligible for appointment to different types of policy areas in terms of prestige and gender. Our analysis suggests that women’s cabinet representation has improved overall since democratic transition in Asia, but this improvement disguises contrasting outcomes in women’s cabinet status according to their career backgrounds.

Understanding the power of the prime minister: structure and agency in models of prime ministerial power

Understanding the power of the prime minister is important because of the centrality of the prime minister within the core executive of British government, but existing models of prime ministerial power are unsatisfactory for various reasons. This article makes an original contribution by providing an overview and critique of the dominant models of prime ministerial power, highlighting their largely positivist bent and the related problem of the prevalence of overly parsimonious conceptions of the structural contexts prime ministers face. The central argument the paper makes is that much of the existing literature on prime ministerial power is premised on flawed understandings of the relationship between structure and agency, that this leads to misunderstandings of the real scope of prime ministerial agency, as well as its determinants, and that this can be rectified by adopting a strategic-relational view of structure and agency.

From ‘fire-brand’ to ‘water-brand’: The caste politics of Uma Bharati

ABSTRACTThis paper uses a case study of Uma Bharati, a woman political leader, to argue that despite appropriating multiple-axis thinking to mask casteism inherent in their ideology, Hindutva politics essentially lays bare its brahmanical allegiance and lineage, with its larger agenda to redefine India as a Hindu rashtra or nation. Bharati, a 'fiery sanyasin’ (female ascetic) of Other Backward Classes (OBC) background, had been awarded a portfolio to clean the 'polluted' Ganga river in the Narendra Modi cabinet in 2014. This paper points out the significance of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in granting this responsibility to a 'radical' who had strategically deployed her caste identity to gain power in Hindutva politics. Bharati had gone against the party to demand caste-based quotas in women's reservation in parliament, and succeeded in rupturing the monolithic identity of upper-caste womanhood in the BJP. While this resulted in the patriarchal upper-caste leadership of the party expelling the 'indisciplined' Bharati on more than one occasion, they have not been able to ignore her. Instead they have 'domesticated' the politically ambitious lower-caste Bharati by conferring her with ministerial power, and compelling her to change focus from the controversial issue of caste to that of cleaning the Ganga, which is a symbol of national and Hindu religious interest.

Arbitrary ministerial power under the Migration Act: Permanent residents beware!

Under recent amendments to the Migration Act, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection may cancel or refuse a visa if they suspect that a person belongs to a group, other members of which they suspect are involved in criminal conduct. A visa may be cancelled without first hearing the person affected and there is only limited opportunity for judicial review: confidential police and intelligence information forming the basis of the decision may be withheld from both the person affected and the Court. The operation of this set of statutory powers diminishes the rule of law in Australia. This is demonstrated by examining the 2016 Federal Court of Australia’s decision in Roach v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2016] FCA 750 in light of Martin Krygier’s definition of arbitrary power .

Prime Ministers in Greece: The Paradox of Power by Kevin Featherstone and Dimitris Papadimitriou

Reviewed by: Prime Ministers in Greece: The Paradox of Power by Kevin Featherstone and Dimitris Papadimitriou Neovi M. Karakatsanis (bio) Kevin Featherstone and Dimitris Papadimitriou, Prime Ministers in Greece: The Paradox of Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2015. Pp. vii + 270. 21 tables. Cloth $95. In their coauthored book Prime Ministers in Greece: The Paradox of Power, Kevin Featherstone and Dimitri Papadimitriou explore a challenge faced by executives everywhere: "how to establish a system of operational control and coordination of the (government) administrative machine in order to better achieve the objectives set" (1). By analyzing the main Greek premierships from 1974 to 2009, the authors expose a Greek "paradox": the Greek constitution affords the country's prime ministers exceptional powers and few restraints, yet other forces—including operational structures, processes, and available resources—undermine that power and the ability of each prime minister to manage government. Effective leadership is constrained. The Greek Prime Minister "is an 'emperor without clothes'" (28). Looking at both structural- and individual-level explanations to account for this paradox, the authors focus on the impact of individual leaders. They use various constructs from leadership literature to explore how individual personalities, leadership styles, and political standing contribute to the control and coordination of government. They also conclude that institutional setting matters, in that it structures elite interests, working relations, and norms. Crafting an argument that draws from both structure and agency, Featherstone and Papadimitriou maintain, on the one hand, that institutional settings (characterized in Greece by a lack of trust and weakly established procedures) privilege certain "rule-based behavior" and "cultural repertoires" (4), but, on the other hand, that actors also "structure" and "are 'structured'" by the setting in which they operate (5). At the end of the day, it is this intermingling and interaction of structure and agency that has led to the paradox of power in Greece. Thus, despite attempts by some prime ministers to bring about increased coordination, a consistent pattern of low coordination and centralization persists. [End Page 580] Featherstone and Papadimitriou maintain that this phenomenon is based on two constraints that undermine prime ministerial power: first, individual ministers are highly autonomous, and second, prime ministers have few resources at their disposal. Prime ministers of Greece have very small offices—staff and advisors—relative to other comparable states, and the state's "core executive"—the executive branch—is segmented, contributing to a lack of coordination, monitoring, and planning (3). As a result, networks around the prime minister tend to be personalistic and temporary rather than routinized and formal. As Featherstone and Papadimitriou put it, "The 'core executive' in Greece is one of 'segmented government' … with a 'solitary centre'" (36). Since this is the first in-depth study of Greek prime ministers and their governments in Greece, the authors devote five of nine chapters (chapters 3–7) to a series of case studies of the major premierships since the fall of the Colonels' regime in 1974: Constantinos Karamanlis, Andreas Papandreou, Constantinos Mitsotakis, Costas Simitis, and Costas Karamanlis. Following a common structure in each of these chapters, the authors carefully examine the approaches, performances, and outcomes of each premiership. By focusing on each prime minister's leadership style and approach to management, as well as a number of other variables, the authors are able to construct a relatively complex account of each leader's ability (or inability) to bring about change. The chapters on Constantinos Karamanlis and Andreas Papandreou—two prime ministers about whom much has been written in scholarly and popular literature—are interesting but offer few fresh insights. The conclusions that Karamanlis created a solitary center according to his own messianic self-image (and other calculations) and that this legacy has had a long-lasting impact upon the Greek core executive are hardly surprising. Equally unsurprising is the authors' conclusion that the control and coordination of government worsened under the premiership of Papandreou, who "saw politics as a struggle with a systematic agenda" and "the exercise of power … [as] a very personal affair" (115), and who faced many political and personal challenges during his tenure as premier, including the deterioration of his health. By comparison, the remaining case studies offer greater substantive and...

Multiparty government and economic policy-making

Multiparty government has often been associated with poor economic policy-making, with distortions like lower growth rates and high budget deficits. One proposed reason for such distortions is that coalition governments face more severe ‘common pool problems’ since parties use their control over specific ministries to advance their specific spending priorities rather than practice budgetary discipline. We suggest that this view of multiparty government is incomplete and that we need to take into account that coalitions may have established certain control mechanisms to deal with such problems. One such mechanism is the drafting of a coalition agreement. Our results, when focusing on the spending behavior of cabinets formed in 17 Western European countries (1970–1998), support our claim that coalition agreements matter for the performance of multiparty cabinets in economic policy-making. More specifically, we find clear support for an original conditional hypothesis suggesting that coalition agreements significantly reduce the negative effect of government fragmentation on government spending in those institutional contexts where prime ministerial power is low.

Rethinking social pacts in Europe: Prime ministerial power in Ireland and Italy

In Ireland and Southern European countries, social pacts were widely seen as a mechanism to mobilize broad support for weak governments to legitimate difficult reforms in the context of monetary integration. I retrace the politics of these pacts in Ireland and Italy to argue that it was less the condition of ‘weak government’ that enabled the negotiation of tripartite pacts, than the intervention of a ‘strong executive’: the prime minister’s office. Social pacts were pursued as a political strategy to enhance prime ministerial executive autonomy. In the aftermath of the euro crisis, this means of enhancing executive autonomy has been replaced by the negotiation of grand coalition governments, with the exclusion of unions; but this continues the trend towards the prime ministerialization of politics.

The Politics of Government Reform in Korea

Government reforms in South Korea, beginning in the 1980s, moved toward deconcentration and deregulation in the 1990s and 2000s. However, the contents of the reforms under the “transformational” presidencies following democratization, which aimed to raise the quality of government and respond to increasing social polarization and political discord, did not significantly reduce state power or depoliticize policy making. Instead, state strength was consolidated through tripartite politicization: the rise of ministers as a third force in policy making vis-à-vis the president and legislature. Under the “post-transformational” presidencies of Lee Myung-Bak and Park Geun-Hye, government reforms can be summarized as bipartite politicization between the president and legislature, as ministerial power has been reduced.

The shifting landscape of prime ministerial accountability to parliament: An analysis of Liaison Committee scrutiny sessions

Prime ministerial power is always contingent, based on the utilisation of personal and institutional resources, subject to various formal and informal constraints. Parliament is both a political resource to be utilised, but also a veto-player. In the absence of formal mechanisms setting out the requirements for the UK prime ministerial accountability to parliament, a fluid and essentially personalised relationship has developed. Regular prime ministerial appearances before the House of Commons Liaison Committee, begun in 2002, have added to parliament’s scrutiny toolkit. This article considers the accountability of the prime minister to parliament by analysing the emergence and development of the Liaison Committee evidence sessions, and draws on interviews with participants and examination of the session transcripts, in order to assess the value of this scrutiny mechanism within the broader framework of prime ministerial-legislative relations.

The ministerial power to set up a public inquiry: issues of transparency and accountability

The Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was left in crisis following intense pressure from survivors and their families, the public and media. Two senior legal figures, Baroness Butler-Sloss and Fiona Woolf, both resigned from the position of chair to the inquiry following concerns over their links with the establishment. Questions were raised over the independence of a process convened by the Home Secretary, to investigate apparent failures on the part of institutions, which would include scrutinising the actions of a former Home Secretary in handling allegations of child sexual abuse in the past. Demands for an inquiry with greater statutory powers, including the power to compel the giving of evidence on oath, ultimately resulted in the Independent Panel being disbanded and a new public inquiry, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, being convened. Against the background of this and other inquiries, this article examines the serious questions raised about the powers of a minister to set up a public inquiry, the lack of open and transparent decision-making processes and the extent to which those ministerial decisions are open to public scrutiny and accountability.

Presidentialization and the politics of coalition: lessons from Germany and Britain

IntroduzioneIn this article, we seek to re-consider the ‘presidentialization of politics’ argument in the light of recent developments in Germany and the United Kingdom. The experiences of coalition government suggestprima faciegrounds for the erosion of the presidentialization process in each country. Germany has operated with a Grand Coalition in which domination of the executive by the Chancellor would seem less likely, whereas the long history of single-party governments in the United Kingdom gave way to a rare experiment in coalitional power sharing between 2010 and 2015, circumstances which should limit prime ministerial power. However, it is our contention that the presidentialization thesis retains its purchase in these two countries. German Chancellors and British prime ministers have been increasingly able to mobilize power resources, which allow them to govern more independently of their own parties and their coalition partners, and this seems to hold across a variety of political circumstances.

Tony Blair: Leadership Capital Squandered?

This paper examines Tony Blair’s use and loss of leadership capital between January and May 2005. Despite concern that Blair had earlier ‘squandered’ his authority, according to the Leadership Capital Index (LCI) Blair still possessed a series of advantages that gave him ‘capital’ to ‘spend’. This included his personal skills, eight years’ experience in office and, crucially, a continued polling lead and huge parliamentary majority. So why in this period did Blair achieve so little and appear so beleaguered? The LCI demonstrates how these attributes proved superficial. The ‘credit’ parts of the LCI were waning and isolated while the ‘debit’ parts fed off each other as a continuously eroding cycle. While his skills remained, Blair’s relations and reputation were eroded: the presence of a serious rival in Gordon Brown, party rebellion and increasing loss of trust over Iraq worked together to reduce and erode any leadership capital his advantages could bring. Moreover, these factors reinforced each other in a negative cycle. We place leadership capital and Blair’s premiership within the context of ever shifting academic debate on prime ministerial power in the British political system.