The Political Dynamics of Portfolio Design in European Democracies

Abstract

The design of government portfolios – that is, the distribution of competencies among government ministries and office holders – has been largely ignored in the study of executive and coalition politics. This article argues that portfolio design is a substantively and theoretically relevant phenomenon that has major implications for the study of institutional design and coalition politics. The authors use comparative data on portfolio design reforms in nine Western European countries since the 1970s to demonstrate how the design of government portfolios changes over time. Specifically, they show that portfolios are changed frequently (on average about once a year) and that such shifts are more likely after changes in the prime ministership or the party composition of the government. These findings suggest a political logic behind these reforms based on the preferences and power of political parties and politicians. They have major implications for the study of institutional design and coalition politics.

Ministerial influence on the machinery of government: insights on the inside

“…Changes in the ideological position of subsequent cabinets or the number of effective governmental parties had a negative but very weak effect on portfolio redesign. Both studies of Mortensen and Green-Pedersen (2015) and Sieberer et al (2019) confirm herewith U.S. theories of structural choice politics that the structure of central government is a function of political logics (Lewis 2002;Moe 1995).…”

“…Hence, ministries need not remain the same over a longer period; each new incoming cabinet can reshuffle ministries, rename them and then reorganise the units within ministries. Important determinants of this process are changes regarding political parties' preferences, issue and agenda dynamics, changing cabinet ideologies, the composition of the cabinet, and the role of the prime minister (Mortensen and Green-Pedersen 2015;Sieberer et al 2019;Tosun 2018;White and Dunleavy 2010).…”

“…Hence, we will examine the relationship between political turnover at the level of individual ministers and structural changes within ministries (cf. Bertelli and Sinclair 2018;Boin et al 2010;Davis et al 1999;G€ otz et al 2018;Greasley and Hanretty 2016;James et al 2016;Laegreid et al 2010;Lewis 2002;MacCarthaigh 2014, O'Leary 2015Pollitt 1984;Sieberer et al 2019). We start with the influence of political choice at the individual level and zoom out to look at the effects of the coalition's policy preferences and then the influence of the coalition's rightwing versus leftwing signature.…”

“…The Dutch case is also interesting because it has a number of characteristics that allow for the study of the effect of political volatility on administrative structure. According to Sieberer et al (2019), the Netherlands shows a high number of Ministerial reforms when compared to eight other European democracies. It regularly has changing coalition governments which makes the effect of changes in composition of government both feasible to study and likely to occur.…”

“…system where the presence of single-party minority governments allows for models on direct effects of agenda-setting processes on the number of ministries. Whereas Mortensen and Green-Pedersen examined portfolio design as a function of agenda dynamics, Sieberer et al (2019) examined the politics of portfolio design as a function of coalition formation dynamics. In a comparative study comprising in nine Western European parliamentary systems, they estimated the effects of changes in the partisan composition of the cabinet, a change of the prime minister, a change of cabinet policy positions, and the number of parties in cabinet on the change between competencies among ministries or between the heads of ministries.…”