The electoral connection of ministerial selection in the UK

Klein, E.; Umit, Resul

doi:10.1080/13572334.2015.1134904

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(30 reference statements)

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“…This reasoning seems more driven by vote-seeking considerations than by ideological ones. Almost all federal ministers are mobilized by their parties during electoral campaigns and appear on the lists (Pilet and Fiers 2013), and we know from previous empirical studies that incumbent ministers perform electorally better than other candidates (see for instance Klein and Umit 2016; Ladwig III 2019). This element may explain the party focus on some provinces rather than others: parties tend to appoint ministers that will deliver them an electoral advantage in the future election or that will help protecting the party’s electoral base in particular regions (see for instance Nikolenyi 2015 for the Indian case).…”

Section: Understanding Provincial Disproportionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Linguistic Peripheral Elites: The Provincial Imbalance of Cabinet Ministers in Belgium

Dandoy

2023

Nationalities Papers

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Despite the creation of regions and communities in the second half of the 20th century for resolving ethnic tensions between the French- and Flemish-speaking communities, provinces are still relevant to understand contemporary Belgian politics. Observing provincial political dynamics is essential to understand multi-level political elite dynamics and territorial cleavages in contemporary Belgium. For instance, political parties are internally structured in provincial federations, and federal elections rely on provincial electoral districts. Combined with constitutional factors such as language and region, this article investigates the provincial origins of ministerial elites in all Belgian federal cabinets between 1980 and 2020. It observes that provinces are far from being perfectly present in a balanced manner in the federal government: some provinces are overrepresented while others – in particular large provinces – are underrepresented. This provincial imbalance is stable over time and independent on the types of cabinet but can be explained by party strategies and vote-seeking considerations.

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Section: Understanding Provincial Disproportionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Linguistic Peripheral Elites: The Provincial Imbalance of Cabinet Ministers in Belgium

Dandoy

2023

Nationalities Papers

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“…What Strøm (1997) also highlights is the need for election and re-election for an MP to pursue either policy or office, in this respect incumbency and length of tenure is an important aspect to take into account when it comes to representation. Indeed, Klein and Umit (2016) conclude that the desire for re-election is the most important motivation for an MP and that to fulfil ministerial ambition MPs from 'safer' seats are more likely to be rewarded with a senior ministerial office than those with smaller majorities.…”

Section: Representation Constituency and Localness In The Ukmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing the Importance of Localness for MP Campaigning and Legislative Performance

Sällberg

Hansen

2019

Representation

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Understanding how MPs use ties to their constituency, or localness, is important for understanding the nature of the MP-constituency relationship. MPs are expected to actively focus on their constituency in their work to help their campaign and gain reelection. To explore the relationship between MPs and the use of localness we examine the use of localness in their legislative activity. Combining the focus on constituency and parliamentary behaviour data is not often done and we utilise a dataset allowing us to test the impact of localness on parliamentary behaviour. We support the quantitative findings with qualitative interviews with MPs. We find that, above all, MPs with local ties will seek to signal their localness to the electorate in terms of constituency focus, but not in their parliamentary contributions.

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“…These variables form the basis of our hypotheses -see belowbecause issues relating to personal attributes (see Rose, 1975;King, 1981;and Heppell, 2012) and ideological preferences (Heppell, 2005;Kam, Bianco, Sened and Smyth, 2010) have long been identified as the central determinants of ministerial preferment. The hypothesis on marginality is included as it is a new and emerging determinant in ministerial preferment (see Martin, 2015 andKlein andUmit, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservative ministers in the Coalition government of 2010–15: evidence of bias in the ministerial selections of David Cameron?

Heppell¹,

Crines²

2016

The Journal of Legislative Studies

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The article uses a dataset of the 2010-15 Parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP) Keywords:Cameron Coalition, Conservative Party, Government Ministers, Ministerial backgrounds. IntroductionThere is a considerable academic literature on ministerial selection within British Government. by Ed Miliband who bemoaned the fact that there were as many Etonians in the Cameron Cabinet as female (HC Deb, 2013-14, 14 February 2014. It was also made by Conservative parliamentarian, Nadine Dorries. Overlooked for ministerial office she accused Cameron of relying on a 'narrow clique' made of a 'certain group of people' and that those people were 'arrogant posh boys ' (Orr, 2012). This paper aims to explore these issues (and others) raised by Miliband and Dorries. The paper is organised around four sections. The opening section considers the literature on ministerial selection within British government in order to position the paper and to identify its contribution to the existing literature. In the second section we outline our hypotheses before explaining issues of data collection and our methods for testing our hypotheses. The third section presents the results and identifies whether our hypotheses were substantiated. In our conclusion we summarise our key findings and relate them to areas for further research development. Academic Literature on Ministerial SelectionOur interest in studying the representativeness of ministers' vis-à-vis the PCP under Cameron stems from a desire to test the media driven assumptions of elitism within ministerial ranks -i.e. the elite-theory driven argument that implies that ministerial advancement is part of a 'selfreinforcing' process, in which the leadership promotes and protects like-minded people from similar backgrounds to the exclusion of those outside the elite inner sanctum (Sandbrook, 2011). This is a particularly pertinent theme to explore as Cameron had pledged to lead a more representative government by committing himself to a target of one third of ministers being female by 2015, and the difficulties that he would experience in hitting this target (Heppell, 2012;Annesley and Gains, 2012, see also Annesley 2014and Childs and Webb, 2012.However, before examining Cameron's record in terms of appointments and dismissals it is important to situate our study within the body of academic literature on ministerial selection. The rationale for analysing ministerial selection, whether scholars are considering ministerial longevity, turnover or dismissals, is that they all engage in some way with the principal-agent debate between the leader (principal) and the minister (agent) (Berlinski, Dewan, and Dowding 2012, pp. 1-3; see also Alderman and Cross, 1985; Dowding 2007, 2010; Huber and MartinezGallardo, 2008;Indridason and Kam, 2005;Bright, Doring and Little, 2015). The principalagent debate intrigues scholars as it provides an insight into the importance of reshuffles, through which Prime Ministers seek to reaffirm their dominance over their party colleagues, and limit the capacit...

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The electoral connection of ministerial selection in the UK

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 6 publications

References 29 publications

Beyond Linguistic Peripheral Elites: The Provincial Imbalance of Cabinet Ministers in Belgium

Beyond Linguistic Peripheral Elites: The Provincial Imbalance of Cabinet Ministers in Belgium

Analysing the Importance of Localness for MP Campaigning and Legislative Performance

Conservative ministers in the Coalition government of 2010–15: evidence of bias in the ministerial selections of David Cameron?

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