The Timing of Cabinet Reshuffles in Five Westminster Parliamentary Systems

Kam, Christopher; Indriðason, Indriði H.

doi:10.3162/036298005x201581

Cited by 71 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…We see the ex ante (adverse selection) and ex post (moral hazard) approaches as complementary, and are simply concentrating on the former in this paper. 3 The argument that the ministerial selection process is leader-driven and leader-controlled also receives support from an emerging formal literature on cabinet appointments and reshuffles that stresses how prime ministers are able to use their power to hire, reshuffle, and sack ministers to maintain control of their parties (see, e.g., Kam and Indridason 2005;Dewan and Myatt 2007;Huber and MartinezGallardo 2008;Indridason and Kam 2008;Dewan and Hortala-Vallve 2009). backbenchers, rendering them a collective principal. If so, backbenchers could retain control over policy outcomes by delegating ministerial power to individuals who had preferences that accorded with backbenchers' collective preferences (Müller 2000;Saalfeld 2000;Strøm 2000).…”

Section: Parliaments Cabinets Parties and Party Leadersmentioning

confidence: 97%

Ministerial Selection and Intraparty Organization in the Contemporary British Parliament

et al. 2010

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T his article promotes a characterization of intraparty politics that explains how rank-and-file party members control the delegation of power to their cabinet ministers and shadow cabinet ministers. Using the uncovered set as a solution concept and a measure of party members' collective preferences, we explore the hypothesis that backbenchers' preferences constrain the ministerial selection process in a manner that mitigates agency problems. Specifically, promotion is distributed preferentially to members whose own policy preferences are proximate to the uncovered set of all party members' preferences. Our analysis of ministerial appointments in the contemporary British Parliament supports this view. For both the Labour and Conservative parties, front bench appointments are more sensitive to the collective preferences of backbenchers in each party as measured by the party uncovered set than to the preferences of the parties' leaders.

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Section: Parliaments Cabinets Parties and Party Leadersmentioning

confidence: 97%

Ministerial Selection and Intraparty Organization in the Contemporary British Parliament

et al. 2010

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confidence: 99%

Worth the Wait: Determinants of Ministerial Appointment in Canada, 1935–2008

Kerby

2009

Can J Pol Sci

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IntroductionThe exploration of ministerial careers has attracted considerable attention among political scientists in recent years~Dewan and Dowding, 2005;Dowding and Kang, 1998; Martinez-Gallardo, 2004, 2008;Kam, 2006;Kam and Indridason, 2005;Laver and Shepsle, 1994;Sutherland, 1991a; Woodhouse, 1993! The purpose of this article is to present a new perspective on a burgeoning area of study by focusing on ministerial appointments rather than the determinants of ministerial exit or survival. This article introduces an original dataset of ministerial appointments for a single country, Canada, for the period 1935-2008. This dataset serves as the foundation for an event history model that highlights the causal mechanisms that underlie the ministerial appointment process while simultaneously considering the effects of time. The results of the event history analysis systematically confirm many commonly held assumptions regarding cabinet appointments in Canada; they emphasize the particular significance of gender and legal training as well as previous ministerial experience and leadership challenger status as characteristics that accelerate an appointment to cabinet. The article concludes with recommendations for continued research in this field of study.Some certainties can be put assumed when discussing ministerial appointments in Canada. First, most elected representatives to the House of Commons are ambitious and would welcome a seat at the cabinet table.Acknowledgments: The author would like to thank Kenneth Benoit, Keith Dowding, Patrick Dumont, Kelly Blidook, Eoin O'Malley, and Denise Ledoux, as well as the editors and anonymous reviewers of the CJPS, for their comments and suggestions.

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“…Much of the literature on ministerial resignations deals with AngloSaxon countries that have a Westminster-type parliamentary system, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland or New Zealand (Dewan and Dowding, 2005;Kam and Indridason, 2005;Berlinski et al, 2007;Indridason and Kam, 2008). In Westminster systems, the prime minister has ample possibilities to hire and fire ministers and to reshuffle his or her cabinet.…”

Section: A U T H O R C O P Ymentioning

confidence: 99%

Political death and survival in the Netherlands: Explaining resignations of individual cabinet members 1946–2010

2014

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Resignation by individual cabinet ministers is a major political event. Little is known, however, about the incidence, the patterns and the causes of ministerial resignations. This article works towards a political survival model of individual (junior and senior) ministers in the Netherlands, a country characterized by proportional representation and coalition governments. It does so on the basis of data for all 719 cabinet members serving between 1946 and 2010. It first establishes the turnover rate of individual cabinet members. On average, 15.0 per cent of all ministers step down individually before the end of their term. A total of 5.3 per cent resigns for political reasons, such as an internal conflict within the cabinet or losing the confidence of the party or parliament. With regard to political resignations, the Balkenendeera was the most turbulent of Dutch post-war political history. We then tried to explain the resignation hazard for individual ministers on the basis of recent comparative research. The analysis shows that previous experience in parliament makes the largest difference. Ministers lacking such experience are currently 51 per cent less likely to survive in office. Acta Politica advance online publication, 21 February 2014; doi:10.1057/ap.2014.1 Keywords: cabinet government; ministers; accountability; duration; Dutch politics Ministerial Resignation and SurvivalResignations by cabinet members are major political events. Invariably, a ministerial resignation is covered on the front page of newspapers and is prime time footage for the television networks. It is a source of speculation and a hotly debated topic. In the Netherlands, these debates are highly normative in nature. Many political commentators argue that cabinet members should step down more often. Resignation is seen as the ultimate, and in fact, mandatory sanction in the system of ministerial responsibility and political accountability to parliament. However, in the Netherlands the system of coalition government arguably stands in the way of politically motivated resignations.

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The Timing of Cabinet Reshuffles in Five Westminster Parliamentary Systems

Cited by 71 publications

References 31 publications

Ministerial Selection and Intraparty Organization in the Contemporary British Parliament

Ministerial Selection and Intraparty Organization in the Contemporary British Parliament

Worth the Wait: Determinants of Ministerial Appointment in Canada, 1935–2008

Political death and survival in the Netherlands: Explaining resignations of individual cabinet members 1946–2010

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