Who gets what in coalition governments? Predictors of portfolio allocation in parliamentary democracies

Bäck, Hanna; Debus, Marc; Dumont, Patrick

doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.2010.01980.x

Cited by 227 publications

(264 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…All line ministers also have strong incentives for portfolio-specific spending regardless of their ideologies. 8 Portfolio allocation according to party policy saliency, a typical feature of coalition governments (see, e.g., Bäck et al 2011), strengthens this tendency further.…”

Section: Coalition Governance and Hypotheses About Public Spendingmentioning

confidence: 97%

Multiparty government and economic policy-making

2016

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Multiparty government has often been associated with poor economic policymaking, 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 , 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.

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Section: Coalition Governance and Hypotheses About Public Spendingmentioning

confidence: 97%

Multiparty government and economic policy-making

2016

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“…Eine der empirisch fundiertesten Analysen zur Äm-terkumulation in Regierungssystem und Sozialpartnerschaft findet sich bei Müller et al (1994 Zur Hypothesenbildung wird nicht nur die Literatur zur österreichischen Sozialpartnerschaft herangezogen, sondern auch Forschung zur Besetzung von Ministeräm-tern (Bäck et al 2011;Dowding/Dumont 2015;Ecker et al 2015). Dabei gliedern sich die Einflussfaktoren in drei Kategorien, nämlich Charakteristika der Regierungen, der Parteien und der zu besetzenden Regierungsämter.…”

Section: Personelle Und Organisatorische Verflechtungen In Der Sozialunclassified

Die personelle Verflechtung zwischen Sozialpartnern und Bundesregierung in Österreich, 1945–2015

Ennser‐Jedenastik

2017

ozp

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Die personelle Verflechtung zwischen Parteien und sozialpartnerschaftlichen Organisationen ist einer der zentralen Gründe für die Stabilität des korporatistischen Institutionengefüges der Zweiten Republik. Dieser Beitrag liefert die bis dato umfangreichste und systematischste Analyse der personellen Verflechtungen zwischen der Bundesregierung und sozialpartnerschaftlichen Organisationen (Kammern und Gewerkschaften). Basierend auf biografischen Angaben zu allen 242 MinisterInnen und StaatssekretärInnen zwischen 1945 und 2015 zeigt sich, dass Sozialpartner-FunktionärInnen vor allem unter großen Koalitionen und Einparteienregierungen in Regierungsämter ernannt werden, und dass sie mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit in sozial- und wirtschaftspolitischen Ressorts tätig sind. Zwar schwankt der Verflechtungsgrad im Zeitverlauf, jedoch ist auch in jüngeren Jahrzehnten kein abnehmender Trend zu verzeichnen.

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“…The emphasis is on debating proportionality (the numbers of Conservatives vis-à-vis Liberal Democrat ministers) or the prestige of the portfolios between the parties; or the renegotiation of those numbers and prestige when reshuffles occur (see, Quinn, Bara and Bartle 2011;Debus 2011;Bäck, Debus and Dumont, 2011).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

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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Who gets what in coalition governments? Predictors of portfolio allocation in parliamentary democracies

Cited by 227 publications

References 38 publications

Multiparty government and economic policy-making

Multiparty government and economic policy-making

Die personelle Verflechtung zwischen Sozialpartnern und Bundesregierung in Österreich, 1945–2015

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

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