Cabinet ministers and parliamentary government: How institutions and internal
party politics affect ministerial accountability
Cristina Bucur1
Dublin City University
Abstract
Ministerial accountability is an important problem in political science. To account for it
scholars have usually focused on the prime minister’s ability to hire and fire cabinet
members. This paper argues that in parliamentary democracies ministers are accountable
not only to prime ministers, but also to their own parties and directly-elected presidents.
The hypothesis tested in this paper is that each principal’s ability to hold ministers
accountable depends on their formal powers and on the party relations between ministers,
presidents and prime ministers. Moreover, the presidents’ and prime ministers’ ability to
control cabinet composition under certain institutional conditions is thought to derive
from their formal or informal positions as party leaders. This expectation is tested on a
unique data set on the tenures of French, Portuguese and Romanian ministers during two
legislative terms. Survival analyses of ministerial durability find that presidents and prime
ministers who act as de facto party leaders are in a better position to influence the process
of ministerial deselection certain institutional conditions. Conversely, the party
principal’s ability to sanction agency loss declines when either of the two chief executives
is a de facto leader. These findings speak to the debate regarding the challenges faced by
the party government model in parliamentary democracies and draw attention to the
consequences of increasingly autonomous chief executives for ministerial accountability.
1
Paper prepared for presentation at the workshop “The Evolution of Parliamentarism and Its Political
Consequences”, Joint Sessions of Workshops of the European Consortium of Political Research,
Salamanca, April 10–15, 2014.
1
Introduction
Following his election as President of France in 1995, Jacques Chirac nominated Alain
Juppé, one of his closest collaborators, for the presidency of the Rally for the Republic
(RPR) party and appointed him as prime minister. Four years later, Nicolas Sarkozy gave
up running for the presidency of the Gaullist party after President Chirac warned him that
the leader of the majority party would not be prime minister in 2002. Despite Sarkozy’s
abandonment of the party leadership race, he was not appointed as prime minister in 2002
when Jacques Chirac was re-elected. In 2004, Sarkozy contested the presidency of the
Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) after Alain Juppé stepped down amid accusations
of embezzling public funds. Before new party elections were organised, though, Chirac
warned that ministers elected as party leaders must give up their cabinet seats to prevent
any damage to the prime minister’s authority over cabinet ministers. As a result, Sarkozy
stepped down from government in November 2004, when he was elected as UMP leader.
Six months later, the Raffarin government resigned following the rejection of the
referendum on the European Constitution and Sarkozy was re-appointed in government as
interior minister and second in hierarchy only to PM Dominique de Villepin.
Apart from illustrating the nature of intraparty competition in France, the events
described above raise an important question for students of party politics. Why did
President Chirac appoint the leader of the majority party as prime minister in 1995, but
refused to do so in 2004 and 2005? And why was Nicolas Sarkozy asked to step down in
2004 as a result of his election as UMP leader, only to be re-appointed in government six
months later? President Chirac’s concern about the personal loyalty of prime ministers
and leaders of the majority party suggests that party relations should be taken into account
when assessing variation in presidential and prime ministerial authority over the cabinet.
Therefore, this paper focuses on the way in which both political institutions and internal
party politics structure accountability relations between cabinet ministers and their
superiors in the government and party hierarchy.
My aim is to connect the literature on ministerial accountability to the debate on
the challenges faced by the model of party government in modern democracies (Mair
2008). Regardless of the definitions given to the concept of party government, one of the
conditions enabling parties to influence government requires that political leaders are
selected within parties and held responsible for their actions through parties (Rose 1969;
Katz 1986, 1987; Mair 2008). The parties’ ability to place their agents in public office is
2
seen as a form of institutional control that operates for the benefit of the party
organisation (Kopecký and Mair 2012: 7). However, party government scholars argue
that simply having party members appointed to cabinet is a weak measure of party control
over the executive (Andeweg 2000; Müller 2000). Andeweg (2000: 389) argued that only
a direct link from parties to individual ministers can prevent the problem of agency loss.
However, he found little evidence that the link between parties and their agents goes
beyond the appointment of party members to ministerial office and argued that only the
use of recalls and reshuffles could indicate that parties effectively control their agents in
ministerial office. Thus, the parties’ ability to contain agency loss by firing their minister
agents is a good test for the challenges that the model of party government faces in
modern parliamentary democracies.
To capture variation in ministerial accountability to different principals in the
government and party hierarchy, I employ a multiple-principal model of ministerial
accountability. One-principal models are the industry standard in the literature of
ministerial turnover (Dewan and Dowding 2005; Fischer et al. 2006; Dewan and Myatt
2007, 2010; Huber and Martinez-Gallardo 2008; Indridason and Kam 2008). However,
their use outside Westminster systems is problematic. The institutional rules governing
the hiring and firing of ministers vary considerably in coalition systems, where ministers
report separately to prime ministers and their own parties (Dowding and Dumont 2009;
Fischer et al. 2012). The involvement of multiple principals in the origin and survival of
cabinets in semi-presidential system further blurs the lines of ministerial responsibility
and accountability (Protsyk 2006; Schleiter and Morgan-Jones 2009). Therefore, a
multiple-principal approach is a more adequate choice for the study of ministerial
accountability outside Westminster systems and one that can also take into account the
party relations between ministers-agents and their competing principals.
To take advantage of the largest intra- and inter-case variation in principal-agent
relations that enable presidents, prime ministers, and political parties to act as competing
principals for cabinet members, I test the multiple-principal model of ministerial
accountability in three semi-presidential countries, France, Portugal, and Romania. The
core of the empirical analysis consists of survival analyses of ministerial durability that
take into account personal characteristics and performance indicators such as resignation
calls and conflicts with the three principals. I find that chief executives who act as de
facto party leaders reduce the party principals’ ability to hold cabinet members
accountable. Presidents and prime ministers who deliver electoral victories as party
3
leaders are in a better position to control cabinet composition under certain institutional
conditions. These findings highlight the impact that formal and informal hierarchies of
party leadership have on the ability of presidents and prime ministers to limit agency loss
and explain the discrepancy between the formal powers held by political actors and their
actual influence over the cabinet.
This paper is structured conventionally. The next section discusses theory,
singling out the factors that explain variation in ministerial accountability in semipresidential systems and outlining the expectations regarding the variation in the authority
of presidents, prime ministers and party principals over the cabinet. Then I explain the
case selection and the time period under analysis, and I introduce the measures and
methods with which I test for the variation in the ability of principals to control cabinet
composition. After presenting the survival analysis, which is the main method of
empirical analysis, I summarise the findings and I discuss the implications of the results
for the comparative study of ministerial accountability in parliamentary democracies.
Theory
To explain variation in ministerial accountability in semi-presidential systems, one needs
to focus on the factors that account for the variation in presidential and prime ministerial
authority over the political system. Three research approaches are available. The first one
adopts a purely institutional view on the relationship between institutional conditions and
the extent of presidential and prime ministerial influence. This idea has been inspired by
the operation of semi-presidentialism in France. Even before the first occurrence of
cohabitation in France, there was an expectation that if the president ever had to put up
with an opposing parliamentary majority, then semi-presidentialism would work not as a
synthesis of parliamentary and presidential systems, but as an alternation between
presidential and parliamentary phases (Duverger 1980: 186). Arend Lijphart also defined
semi-presidential systems as an alternation of presidential and parliamentary phases,
where the political power shifts from the president to the prime minister depending on
whether the president’s party has a majority in the legislature (Lijphart 1992: 8). This
argument, according to which presidents are powerful when they are on the same side of
the parliamentary majority (a situation known as unified executive) and weak when they
oppose the majority (the situation defined as cohabitation), has been embraced by many
French scholars (Parodi 1997; Portelli 1997; Ardant and Duhamel 1999; Peyrefitte 1999).
4
Despite its popularity in France, the idea that one should expect presidential
leadership under unified executive and prime ministerial leadership under cohabitation
has not received unanimous support. For example, Margit Tavits (2008) reckons that
presidents have few incentives to be politically active during periods of unified
government, when policy preferences are likely to be compatible across all branches of
government. She thinks that presidents are likely to pursue their objectives more actively
during periods of cohabitation, when their party is not in power and they face opposition
both in the government and parliament (Tavits 2008: 16). Cindy Skach (2005, 2007) also
expects presidents to be more active when they do not enjoy the support of the legislature
and during periods of minority government. These competing explanations suggest that
the variation in presidential and prime ministerial influence under different executive
scenarios should not be taken at face value. Moreover, the occurrence of unified
executive and cohabitation may not make any difference for the extent of presidential and
prime ministerial authority. For example, in countries like Ireland, Austria, Iceland, or
Slovenia, presidents are always weak regardless of their relationship with parliamentary
majorities and prime ministers have full control over the cabinet (Elgie 2009: 261).
Therefore, executive scenarios do not fully capture the variation in presidential and prime
ministerial powers in semi-presidential systems.
Secondly, some scholars focus on contextual factors. For example, Tavits (2008)
does not believe that whether presidents are directly elected or not makes a difference for
the extent of their activism. She thinks that the level of presidential activism depends on
the framework of political opportunities. Presidents are more likely to be active when the
level of political consensus is low, during periods of cohabitation. The incentives for
activism should be even stronger under conditions of minority government, irrespective
of whether the cabinet is ideologically opposed to the president, as the other
policymaking institutions, the government and parliament, are likely to be weak and
fragmented (Tavits 2008: 39–40). Using the share of non-partisan ministers as a measure
of presidential activism in both parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, Tavits
(2008: 49) finds that presidents are more active in the case of minority government and
during periods of cohabitation irrespective of their mode of election. Therefore, the
determinant for the variation in presidential authority does not always (or necessarily)
reside in the institutional structure of semi-presidentialism.
The third option is to take into account the combined impact of institutional
scenarios and contextual factors on the extent of presidential and prime ministerial
5
powers. Here I focus on internal party politics. The party relations between presidents,
prime ministers, and cabinet members play an important role in the process of delegation
and accountability in parliamentary democracies. Although political parties take part in
each step of the delegation process from voters to elected politicians and bureaucrats,
their direct intervention to control agents in public office is often limited by legitimate
public concerns regarding the independence of national institutions from anonymous
party machines (Müller 2000: 311). As a result, party principals have to share control
over cabinet members with presidents and prime ministers who own the formal or
informal power to fire ministers.
The balance of power between party principals and party agents varies across
different types of political systems. In pure parliamentary systems, where political parties
retain the power to recall prime ministers, intraparty politics determines who runs the
government (Samuels and Shugart 2010: 120). This balance of power can change in semipresidential systems. A highly valued presidency loosens the party-government
relationship, as political parties have no ex-post control mechanisms for their agents in a
directly elected presidential office (Schleiter and Morgan-Jones 2009: 668). Under certain
circumstances, presidents may be able to keep a strong grip on the cabinet. Samuels and
Shugart (2010) argue that the presidents’ influence over the political system derives from
their de facto position as party leaders. From a principal-agent perspective, ‘when
presidents are de facto party leaders, the importance of parliamentary confidence to the
chain of delegation […] vanishes, because the premier becomes an agent of the president’
(Samuels and Shugart 2010: 43). Presidents who carry on in their role as de facto leaders
reverse the party-leader principal-agent relationship by turning prime ministers into their
own agents, which deprives political parties of the ability to control either of their two
agents (Samuels and Shugart 2010: 121). If parties lose control over the prime minister,
then they are also likely to lose control over cabinet members to the benefit of the head of
state. This is how the party hierarchy between presidents and prime ministers may explain
the asymmetry between weak formal powers and de facto control over the executive.
To test the hypothesis that the chief executives’ influence over the government
derives from their de facto position as party leaders, I operationalise the concept of de
facto partisan authority by taking into account the positions held by presidents and prime
ministers in the party hierarchy before they take office. Thus, I expect that presidents who
step down as party leaders, only to be sworn in as heads of state continue to control their
parties. By contrast, I expect that presidents who did not contest the presidential race as
6
party leaders have little or no impact on cabinet composition regardless of executive
scenarios. Consequently, I do not expect them to control the cabinet either. This
expectation is in line with Duverger’s anticipation that a de facto party leadership position
is the sine qua non condition for strong presidents during periods of unified executive: ‘If
the president is not the head of the majority party, while belonging to it or coming under
it, this means that the party has decided to give its leader the office of prime minister, to
whom the real power then belongs’ (Duverger 1980: 184). This is how Duverger explains
the figurehead positions of Austrian and Irish presidents, who have never been regarded
as leaders of parliamentary majorities, although they have usually been part of it.
If presidents are de facto party leaders, then they should also be relatively strong
during periods of divided executive. This is the situation when the president and the
prime minister belong to different parties in the ruling coalition. This expectation is also
supported in the literature. For example, Samuels and Shugart (2010: 101) find that
presidents are able to dismiss prime ministers who are not their co-partisans in semipresidential systems. The president’s unexpected capacity to hold accountable other
parties’ agents is put down to the functions of alliance-formation: ‘In multiparty systems,
parties sometimes form coalitions in which one party gets the presidency while another
gets the premiership. When entering such alliances, parties apparently accept a deal in
which the president determines how long the premier and the cabinet stay in office’
(Samuels and Shugart 2010: 105). Hellwig and Samuels (2007: 70) also assume that the
president leads the government when s/he and the prime minister belong to the same
ruling coalition but not necessarily to the same party.
Unless the president enjoys formal constitutional powers over the government
and/or individual ministers, I do not expect partisan sources of authority to matter for her
ability to hold cabinet members accountable under cohabitation. Intra-party politics are
likely to matter more under this executive scenario, when presidents lack both formal and
partisan means of influence over the cabinet. As a result, ministers no longer need to act
as presidential agents. To sum up, once de facto leadership positions are taken into
account, one may expect presidents to be less influential during periods of divided
executive than under unified executive, but more powerful than under cohabitation.
Similarly, prime ministers who are party leaders should be able to keep a tighter
grip on the cabinet. If prime ministers are not party leaders, then I expect them to be
relatively weak irrespective of whether there is unified executive, divided executive, or
cohabitation. However, as opposed to presidents, prime ministers enjoy a range of formal
7
powers over the cabinet, including the right to fire ministers. Due to this institutional
feature, I expect that prime ministers who are party leaders take advantage of both
constitutional powers and intraparty mechanisms of control and hold cabinet members
accountable irrespective of executive scenarios. However, their authority may decrease
during periods of divided executive if they share executive power with presidents who
also act as de facto party leaders.
Lastly, due to their centrality in the chain of democratic delegation in
representative democracies, party principals should retain a certain amount of influence
over the cabinet under all circumstances, as long as they can hold accountable their agents
in government, including the president and the prime minister. Thus, if neither the
president, nor the prime minister is a party leader, I expect party principals to keep a tight
grip over cabinet ministers at all times. However, if the president and/or the prime
minister are party leaders, then party principals will lack the means of sanctioning agency
loss during periods of unified executive and divided executive. All else equal, party
principals should be more influential under cohabitation even when the president and the
prime minister are party leaders. In this case, the president is opposed to the
parliamentary majority and has fewer means to compete for control over the cabinet,
while parties can sanction agency loss by replacing the prime minister. Table 1
summarises the expectations outlined above.
Table 1 Presidential, prime ministerial, and party influence over cabinet ministers across
executive scenarios and as a function of de facto party leadership
Unified
+++
0
Unified
+++
0
Unified
0
+++
PRESIDENT
President party leader?
Y
N
PM
PM party leader?
Y
N
PARTY
President and PM party leaders?
Y
N
Divided
++
0
Divided
++
0
Divided
0
+++
Cohabitation
+
0
Cohabitation
+++
0
Cohabitation
+
+++
Controlling for the party hierarchy between presidents and prime ministers allows
one to determine to what extent and under what circumstances de facto party leadership
positions account for the discrepancy between the formal powers held by political actors
8
and their actual influence over the decision-making system. The distinct focus on the joint
impact of executive scenarios and internal party politics on the balance of power between
party principals and party agents differentiates this study from other works that associate
the variation in the authority of presidents and prime ministers over cabinets with the
occurrence of executive scenarios.
Case selection, data and variables
The empirical analysis is carried out on a new data set on the tenure of French,
Portuguese and Romanian ministers. These countries have been selected according to the
principles of the most-similar system design. They belong to the premier-presidential subtype of semi-presidential systems, where cabinet members are formally accountable only
to the legislature (Shugart and Carey 1992). The aim of the empirical analysis is to
account for the cross-country variation in the ministers’ accountability to presidents,
prime ministers and party principals despite a common institutional framework.
The three countries vary in ways that illustrate and put to the test the theoretical
expectations outlined above. The alternation of dual-executive scenarios in France,
Portugal and Romania and the variation in the party leadership roles played by presidents
and prime ministers in these countries provide significant variation in the key explanatory
variables. The time period under analysis in France includes one spell of cohabitation and
one of unified executive. The most recent period of cohabitation occurred between 1997
and 2002, when the Gaullist President Jacques Chirac and the Socialist PM Lionel Jospin
shared executive power. To control for different styles of prime ministerial leadership, the
period of unified executive included in the analysis is that between 2007 and 2012, when
President Sarkozy of the UMP shared executive power with Prime Minister Fillon for the
entire length of the term. Had the second presidential term of President Chirac between
2002 and 2007 been included in the analysis, it would have been more difficult to account
for different prime ministerial leadership styles as two prime ministers held office during
this period of time (Jean-Pierre Raffarin between 2002 and 2005 and Dominique de
Villepin between 2005 and 2007).
The time period under analysis in Portugal spans from 2002 until 2009 and
includes two spells of cohabitation and one of unified executive. President Mário Soares
of the Socialist Party cohabited with the Social-Democratic cabinets led by Manuel
Durrão Barroso and Pedro Santana Lopes between 2002 and 2005. The Socialist Party’s
9
victory in the 2005 general election generated a period of unified executive, which lasted
until March 2006, when Ánibal Cavaco Silva of the Social Democratic Party succeeded
Mário Soares as President of Portugal.
The time period under analysis in Romania includes the governments that were
formed between 2000 and 2008. The Social-Democratic government that took office in
December 2000 operated under a scenario of unified executive, as President Iliescu and
PM Năstase of the Social Democratic Party shared executive power until 2004. The new
government formed after the 2004 elections started off under a scenario of divided
executive, as President Traian Băsescu of the Democratic Party appointed Călin PopescuTăriceanu of the National Liberal Party as the prime minister of a coalition cabinet that
was dominated by the two parties. The period of divided executive ended in April 2007,
when President Băsescu’s party left the government coalition. This event triggered the
onset of a period of cohabitation that lasted until new legislative elections were organised
in December 2008. Table 2 maps the cabinets, the occurrence of executive scenarios, and
the time period under analysis in the three countries.
Table 2 Countries, cabinets, time period, and executive scenarios
France
Scenario
Unified
executive
Portugal
Romania
Cabinet Time period
Cabinet
Time period
Cabinet
Time period
17/05/2007
10/05/2012
Socrates
12/03/2005
11/03/2006
Năstase
28/12/2000
28/12/2004
Tăriceanu 1
29/12/2004
05/04/2007
Fillon
Divided
executive
17/05/2002
17/07/2004
17/07/2004
06/04/2007
Santana Lopes
Tăriceanu 2
13/12/2004
22/12/2008
11/03/2006
Socrates
26/10/2009
Barroso
Cohabitation
Jospin
2/06/1997
6/05/2002
Table 3 classifies the cabinets under study according to executive scenarios and
the party leadership positions held by presidents and prime ministers before taking office.
10
Table 3 Executive scenarios and party leadership positions before elections
LEADERSHIP
PR
PM
PR, PM
Unified
(RO) Năstase (2000/04)
(FR) Fillon (2007/12)
SCENARIO
Cohabitation
(PT) Barroso (2002/04)
(PT) Socrates (2005/06) (PT) Santana Lopes (2004)
(PT) Socrates (2006/09)
(FR) Jospin (1997/02)
(RO) Tăriceanu 2
(2007/08)
Divided
(RO) Tăriceanu 1
(2004/07)
Neither
The distribution of party leadership roles across the three countries confirms the
expectation that if the presidency is a highly valued office, then political parties are likely
to nominate their leaders as presidential candidates. This is the case in France and
Romania. The French and the Romanian cases also vary as far as the party leadership
positions held by prime ministers before and after elections are concerned. While Lionel
Jospin stepped down from the presidency of the Socialist Party after he became prime
minister, newly appointed PM Năstase succeeded Ion Iliescu as president of the SocialDemocratic Party. Party relationships do not vary in Portugal, where political parties do
not nominate their leaders as presidential candidates. Although the Portuguese presidents
covered in this study had also been party leaders at some point during their political
career, they had not contested the presidency of the country from this position. The
importance of party leadership roles in Portugal is borne out by the fact that all prime
ministers included in the analysis held the presidency of their parties before and after
elections, regardless of the executive scenario under which their government operated.
The data set covers 232 ministerial appointments and includes all ministers and
delegated ministers who served in the two governments under study. State secretaries are
excluded from the analysis because their subordination to specific ministries rules out
their accountability to multiple principals. The data set includes the exact dates when
ministers take and leave office. The dependent variable records the length of ministerial
tenure. A ministerial spell is defined as the uninterrupted length of time served by the
minister upon appointment. The ministers’ observed tenure is right-censored if they leave
office collectively as a result of a government termination. The duration in office is not
interrupted if ministers are assigned to different portfolios. However, if the same
11
ministers leave the cabinet and return after a certain period of time, they are recorded as
new cases. Of the 232 ministerial appointments included in the analysis, 120 were early
exists2 from office.
While the units of observation in the data set are the 232 ministers, the units of
analysis are the events experienced by ministers. Overall, 5,058 observations related to
the events experienced by ministers were recorded from 50,921 full-text articles
published in Le Figaro, Diário de Notícias, and Evenimentul zilei. The articles were
accessed through the newspapers’ online archives and using LexisNexis and were
selected using a similar range of keywords3.
Two types of events that are used as indicators of ministerial performance and
measures of principal-agent relationships make up the main explanatory factors. The
indicator of individual performance is the number of resignation calls experienced by
ministers while in office. A resignation call is recorded each time a cabinet member is
asked to resign over a personal, professional, departmental, policy, or party issue.
Multiple resignation calls over the same issue are recorded only if different actors ask for
the minister’s resignation or if new information is added to the case. The Resignation
calls variable records 374 episodes of this type across the three countries.
The literature that uses single-principal models to study agency relationships at
cabinet level sees resignation calls as one of the main instruments that prime ministers
can use to decide how long cabinet members can continue in office (Dewan and Dowding
2005; Fischer et al. 2006; Berlinski et al. 2010, 2012). The relationship between
resignation calls and firing decisions is not as straightforward in multiple-principals
models, where this indicator of ministerial performance cannot indicate the principal who
decides on when ministers should go. To identify who can hold ministers accountable a
direct measure of each principal-agent relations is needed. The chosen measures for
principal-agent relations are three explanatory variables that record conflicts between
2
While in some cases ministers may be ‘pulled’ from the cabinet to be promoted to prestigious positions in
international organizations (Dowding and Dumont 2009: 12), most resignations follow overt criticism from
political actors and mass media and are seen as ‘pushed’ resignations (Fischer et al. 2006: 712). Due to the
lack of theoretical criteria that could be used to differentiate between different types of early exists from the
cabinet, I have preferred to lump together resignations and dismissals.
3
Year-by-year searches were carried out for each ministerial appointment included in the data set for as
long as the ministers held office. Each search included the full name of the minister and a list of keywords.
The keywords used for the selection of articles on French ministers were: animosit!, arbitrag!, bras de fer,
critiq!, confli!, contr*d!, contest!, démiss!, demett!, destit!, désac!, discord!, dissens!, élimin!, écart!, erreur,
revoc!, revoq!, reman!, responsab!. The keywords used for the selection of articles on Portuguese ministers
were: demissao, demitir-se, remodelacao, erro, acusacao, responsabilidade, conflito, divergencia,
contestacao, protesto, queda, polemica. Where possible, the searches included wildcard characters in order
to maximise the number of articles returned.
12
ministers and presidents (PR Conflicts), prime ministers (PM Conflicts) and party
principals (PARTY Conflicts). This data is collected in the same way as the resignation
calls and indicates the number of times ministers are criticised by their principals, as
reported in the press. Similarly to resignation calls, one conflict for each issue over which
ministers are criticised by their principals is recorded. I assume that the risk of losing
office increases when conflicts are made public. The accumulation of conflicts between
ministers, presidents, prime ministers and parties is therefore a proxy for agency loss that
each principal should aim to contain. If the principals have the power to fire agents, then
they should be in a position to do so when the level of conflict with their agents increases.
If the ministers’ risk of losing office does not increase in the presence of conflicts with
principals, then I assume that the latter do not have the ability to sanction agency loss.4
The remaining variables included in the analysis of ministerial durability control
for other events that ministers may experience during their time in office. The Reshuffles
variable records individual shifts from one portfolio to another. To check whether
personal characteristics influence the risk of deselection I control for gender and political
experience. Cabinet experience indicates the ministers who have previously served as full
cabinet members. Parliamentary experience records the number of ministers who were
selected from among incumbent parliamentarians5 and who were not at their first
legislative mandate at the moment of appointment. Local office is a proxy for experience
in local administration and records ministers who held an elective position in local
administration at the moment of appointment. Next are the party experience variables.
Party executive controls for the importance of political partisanship as a channel for
ministerial appointments and equals one for ministers who are members in their parties’
4
Several alternative explanations regarding the conditions under which conflicts between ministers and
their principals can be observed must be considered. While public evidence of conflicts between ministers
and their principals is a strong indicator of agency loss, some principals choose to keep some conflicts
outside the public arena and may see it in their best interest not to take action even when they make other
conflicts public. For example, presidents, prime ministers and parties outside public office may not wish to
harm their electoral chances by publicly exposing the mismanagement errors of their representatives in
government. In this case, the reasons for the ministers’ demotion may be difficult to observe. Unpopular
principals may also find it disadvantageous to criticise or sanction popular ministers. Principals who lack
the formal power to fire ministers, such as presidents under a situation of cohabitation, may criticise cabinet
members simply to draw attention upon themselves. By contrast, principals who can actively exercise the
power to fire may choose not to criticise their ministers in public. Other strategic reasons might determine
principals to keep ministers who perform badly in office so that they suffer long-term damage (Dowding
and Dumont 2009: 15). Overall, while there are numerous reasons why some conflicts are made public
while others are not, their systematic recording can provide valuable information about the circumstances
under which principals decide to make public their perception of agency loss and to sanction their agents.
5
Romanian senators are included in this category, due to perfect bicameralism of the Romanian Parliament.
However, French senators are excluded from this count, due to the fundamental differences between the
methods of election and the powers of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in this country.
13
national executive bodies, while Local party leader indicates the ministers leading local
party organisations at the moment of appointment. Table 4 provides summary statistics
for events and fixed characteristics across executive scenarios.
Table 4 Average events and personal characteristics across executive scenarios
Variables
N. Ministers
N. Failures
Length of
tenure (days)
Unified
Std.
Mean
dev.
105
44
Divided
Std.
Mean
dev.
37
29
Cohabitation
Std.
Mean
dev.
111
47
Overall
Std.
Mean
dev.
253
120
762.64 459.12 446.34 267.70 838.81 556.45 759.55 504.49
Personal characteristics
Gender
Cabinet
experience
MPs & 2
mandates
Local office
Party executive
Local party
leader
0.21
0.41
0.14
0.35
0.16
0.37
0.18
0.38
0.27
.0.45
0.14
0.35
0.26
0.44
0.25
0.43
0.43
0.50
0.24
0.44
0.37
0.48
0.38
0.49
0.39
0.25
0.49
0.44
0.17
0.41
0.38
0.50
0.31
0.27
0.46
0.45
0.32
0.28
0.47
0.45
0.16
0.37
0.21
0.41
0.06
0.24
0.12
0.33
1.02
0.79
2.15
1.99
1.19
3.72
1.03
1.45
1.55
1.94
2.56
1.99
1.07
0.93
1.47
2.17
2.12
2.90
1.05
0.94
1.75
2.06
1.88
3.17
1.74
2.78
2.07
2.59
1.39
2.63
1.61
2.68
0.48
0.86
0.03
0.19
0.23
0.53
0.30
0.67
Events
Conflicts PR
Conflicts PM
Conflicts PARTY
Resignation
calls
Reshuffles
The length of ministerial tenure and the risk of losing office appear relatively
balanced under unified executive and cohabitation. By comparison, ministers incur a
much greater risk of losing office during periods of divided executive. The variation in
the mean length of tenure observed under unified executive and cohabitation on the one
hand and during periods of divided executive on the other hand is explained by the
existence of only one spell of divided executive in the data set. The breakup of the
Romanian ruling coalition in April 2007 resulted in the simultaneous stepping down of
several ministers and triggered a change of executive scenario outside a general or
14
presidential election. Hence the decrease in the length of mean observed tenure
corresponding to the spell of divided executive.
The data related to fixed characteristics shows that the ministers included in this
study make up a relatively homogenous population. About one fifth of the ministers
appointed under each executive scenario were women. One quarter of the cabinet
members were experienced ministers and around one third had some experience as
parliamentarians. About one third of the ministers also had an elective position in local
administration at the moment of appointment. As far as the experience in a political party
is concerned, at least one quarter of the ministers in office under any of the three
executive scenarios were holding a position in their party’s national leadership. The
relative homogeneity of personal characteristics across the three executive scenarios
reduces the risk that the results might be driven by idiosyncratic factors related to the
process of ministerial appointment at different moments of time.
Model specification
The technique used to estimate the impact of principal-agent relationships on the
likelihood of ministerial deselection is parametric survival analysis. Exponential,
Gompertz, Weibull, log normal and log-logistic models were tested for goodness of fit
according to the Akaike Information Criterion across the hazard of ministerial deselection
in the three countries under study. As the Weibull model performed best, the analysis is
presented in the form of Weibull regressions in the relative hazard metric.
Simply summing up events and conflicts between ministers and their principals
might overestimate the extent of career-control powers. In this context, a simple additive
model is completely oblivious to the passing of time and fails to take into account the
relativity of the principals’ powers because it has no capacity to ‘forget’. As a result, the
influence of a particular conflict on the resulting risk of ministerial deselection cannot be
observed since all conflicts are equipotent. The additive model can be improved by
adding a specification that allows it to ‘forget’ events when the time of their occurrence is
sufficiently far back into the past with respect to the moment of ministerial deselection.
The use of decay functions is a common modelling strategy in the study of civil war
durations, as it allows scholars to estimate the declining utility of third party interventions
over time (see for example Regan 2006 and Gent 2008). To weigh the impact of events
on the hazard of early exits from the cabinet by the time left until the moment of
15
deselection or collective government termination, we use the following exponential decay
function
The value of lambda is determined with respect to the event half-life, defined as
the period of time after which the likelihood of being fired because of that event drops to
50%. As a result:
λ=−
log0.5
t The value of lambda is estimated from the data by iteratively fitting the Weibull
model for all half-time values between 1 and 1816 days (which is the maximum length of
tenure corresponding to the ministerial appointments included in this dataset). The model
that best fits the data across executive scenarios (i.e. the one with the highest loglikelihood) is attained for a half-time value of 138 days. All models failing the link test at
the 0.05 level (which verifies the use of an adequate parameterisation) were not
considered in the estimation of lambda. The decay function allows one to model the
declining impact over time of the events ministers experience while in office. The event’s
half-life indicates that following a certain period of time after its occurrence, the
likelihood of being fired due to that event is halved. The half-time value corresponding to
our data is 138 days. Thus, every 138 days after an event occurs, the likelihood of being
fired because of that particular event drops by 50 per cent. New values for the event’s
half-life are computed each time a model is estimated by interacting the conflict variables
with scenario6 and leadership7 dummies.
Results
Table 6 presents four models that estimate the impact of personal characteristics, events,
and party relations on the length of ministerial tenure. Model 1 estimates the impact of all
variables across executive scenarios and serves as a baseline for comparison. Model 2, 3,
6
The best event half-life values fitting the data under unified executive, divided executive and cohabitation
are 151, 118, and 102 days respectively.
7
The best event half-life value fitting the model that takes into account the formal party leadership roles
held by prime ministers after they take office is 161 days. The event half-life values fitting the models that
take into account the presidents’ and prime ministers’ positions in the party hierarchy before elections are
148 and 151 days respectively.
16
and 4 assess the extent to which conflicts with presidents, prime ministers, and party
principals affect the ministers’ risk of losing office under each executive scenario. To
adjust for within-minister correlation without biasing the cross-minister estimators
cluster-robust standard errors are used. The observations are clustered by ministerial
spells and the data set includes 232 clusters. The models present coefficients from
Weibull regressions and report standard errors clustered by ministers. Positive
coefficients indicate that the risk of deselection increases and indicate a shorter length of
tenure, while negative coefficients decrease the hazard rate and are expected to increase
the length of tenure.
Overall, the four models highlight the relatively limited explanatory power of
personal characteristics. Interestingly, the models emphasise that previous experience in
full cabinet positions increases the risk of losing office. Although one may expect that
experience correlates with ability and greater durability, this finding is in line with similar
evidence produced for the survival of British ministers, which shows that ministers
without previous experience are less predisposed to a premature departure from office
(Berlinksi et al. 2009). From a principal-agent perspective, the longevity of less
experienced ministers may be accounted for by the longer period of time they need to
master their jurisdictions. Inexperienced ministers are less likely to deviate from the
preferred positions of their principals during the course of their first term in office and
less prone to conflictual relationships. The local politics route to national office also
seems to have a significant impact on the length of tenure. Ministers who held an elective
position at local level are shown to incur a lower risk of losing office. A high position in
the party hierarchy also emerges as a strong determinant of ministerial survival. These
findings substantiate the expectation that local strongholds and party experience increase
a minister’s standing at the cabinet table (Duhamel 2011: 604). The robustness of these
results across the four models confirms the limited impact of fixed characteristics on the
length of ministerial tenure with regard to institutional context.
The results shown in Table confirm that resignation calls increase the risk of
losing office (Dewan and Dowding 2005; Fischer et al. 2006; Berlinski et al. 2010).
Similarly, the positive and statistically significant coefficients of PR Conflicts, PM
Conflicts, and PARTY Conflicts in Model 1 indicate that, overall, conflicts with any of
the three principals increase the risk of deselection. The results shown in Table 6 confirm
that resignation calls increase the risk of losing office (Dewan and Dowding 2005;
Fischer et al. 2006; Berlinski et al. 2010). Similarly, the positive and statistically
17
Table 6 Determinants of ministerial durability: Weibull regressions in proportional hazard form
Across scenarios
Unified executive
Divided executive
Cohabitation
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Fixed characteristics
Gender
-0.25 (0.26)
-0.23 (0.25)
-0.21 (0.27)
-0.22 (0.25)
Cabinet experience
0.43 (0.22)+
0.47 (0.21)*
0.56 (0.23)*
0.40 (0.23)+
MP & 2 mandates
-0.07 (0.20)
0.01 (0.20)
0.03 (0.22)
-0.01 (0.22)
Local office
-0.64 (0.24)**
-0.68 (0.24)**
-0.53 (0.25)*
-0.74 (0.26)**
Party executive
-0.44 (0.22)*
-0.49 (0.22)*
-0.55 (0.22)*
-0.40 (0.23)+
Local party leader
0.21 (0.30)
0.33 (0.38)
0.04 (0.31)
0.01 (0.31)
Events
Reshuffles
Resignation Calls
PR Conflicts
PM Conflicts
PARTY Conflicts
1.04
0.78
0.55
0.41
0.31
(0.77)
(0.11)***
(0.12)***
(0.11)***
(0.11)**
1.13
0.81
0.33
0.38
0.36
(0.89)
(0.10)***
(0.16)**
(0.11)***
(0.11)***
1.45
0.78
0.72
0.70
0.28
(0.87)+
(0.14)***
(0.12)***
(0.41)+
(0.19)
1.50
0.77
1.01
0.42
0.40
(0.94)
(0.12)***
(0.27)***
(0.12)***
(0.15)**
Executive scenario
Unified
-0.24 (0.22)
PR Conflicts × Unified
1.09 (0.33)**
PM Conflicts × Unified
-1.21 (0.66)*
PARTY Conflicts × Unified
-0.20 (0.29)
Divided
1.23 (0.27)***
PR Conflicts × Divided
-0.51 (0.45)
PM Conflicts × Divided
-0.42 (0.42)
PARTY Conflicts × Divided
0.15 (0.22)
Cohabitation
-0.38 (0.21)+
PR Conflicts × Cohabitation
-0.20 (0.28)
PM Conflicts × Cohabitation
1.02 (0.39)**
PARTY Conflicts × Cohabitation
-0.29 (0.24)
Shape parameter (p)
1.36 (0.13)
1.34 (0.13)
1.48 (0.14)
1.42 (0.13)
Log likelihood
-116.75
-114.04
-104.42
-105.21
LR Chi2
526.91***
542.57***
603.32***
564.80***
Observations
5,058
5,058
5,058
5,058
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Note: Robust standard errors clustered by ministers in parentheses; + p<0.10, * p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001.
18
significant coefficients of PR Conflicts, PM Conflicts, and PARTY Conflicts in Model 1
indicate that, overall, conflicts with any of the three principals increase the risk of
deselection. The results in Models 2-4 indicate to which extent the impact of conflicts
with principals varies across different executive scenarios. Table 7 presents the
coefficients corresponding to the interaction of conflict variables with the scenario
dummies and their level of significance8.
Table 7 Principal-agent relations and risk of deselection across executive scenarios
Unified executive
Divided executive
1.42***
PR Conflicts
-0.83
PM Conflicts
Cohabitation
0.21
0.82***
0.28**
1.44***
0.43***
0.12
PARTY Conflicts
0.17
Note: * p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01.
The results presented in Table 7 confirm that conflicts with presidents increase the
risk of deselection during periods of unified executive, but not under cohabitation.
Conversely, while conflicts with prime ministers do not pose a risk to deselection during
periods of unified government, they are likely to cost ministers their jobs under
cohabitation. Conflicts with party principals do not have a significant impact on the risk
of losing office under either unified executive or cohabitation. It is during a period of
divided executive that a conflictual relationship with the party can cost ministers their
jobs. This finding should be interpreted with caveats, as it is based on one spell of divided
executive that occurred in Romania between 2004 and 2007. This period of time was
characterised by a high level of intra-executive conflicts between President Băsescu of the
PD and Prime Minister Popescu-Tăriceanu of the PNL. Under these circumstances,
Democratic ministers sided with the president and defied the prime minister, while
Liberal ministers did the opposite (Stan and Zaharia 2007). As the president and the
prime minister criticised each other’s ministers relentlessly, the process of ministerial
deselection turned into a zero-sum game, allowing political parties to offset the balance of
8
The
standard
error
of
the
interacted
coefficients
is
calculated
using
the
formula
= !"# + % & !"'() * + 2%,- #() , where γ is the coefficient of non-interacted variables, δ is the
coefficient of the sum of the non-interacted and interacted variables, and Z is the scenario dummy.
19
power. Figures 1-3 show hazard rates for ministerial durability at maximum level of
conflicts with the three principals under each executive scenario.
Figure 1 Impact of principal-agent relations under unified executive
1
President
.5
Risk of termination
1.5
2
Conflicts under unified executive
0
Prime minister
Party
0
500
1000
1500
2000
days
Figure 2 Impact of principal-agent relations under cohabitation
.5
1
Prime minister
President
Party
0
Risk of termination
1.5
2
Conflicts under cohabitation
0
500
1000
Days
20
1500
2000
Figure 3 Impact of principal-agent relations under divided executive
.02
Party
.01
Risk of termination
.03
Conflicts under divided executive
Prime minister
0
President
0
500
1000
Days
1500
2000
Next, the paper examines how party relations affect the ability of presidents,
prime ministers and party principals to hold cabinet ministers accountable. Party relations
vary as a function of whether presidents and prime ministers hold a party leadership
position or not. To account for the influence that presidents and prime ministers may
derive from their informal position as party leaders, I record their position in the party
hierarchy before and after they take office. The analysis should reveal if the ministers’
risk of losing office as a result of conflicts with the three principals varies as a function of
the formal or de facto party relation taken into account.
First I consider the formal leadership positions occupied by prime ministers after
they take office. To determine whether leadership roles make a difference for the prime
ministers’ ability to fire ministers, the conflict variables are interacted with a dummy
variable that is one for prime ministers who held a formal position as party leaders during
their time in office and zero otherwise9. Table 8 presents the coefficients for the conflict
variables interacted with the leadership dummy and their level of significance. The
9
For example, Lionel Jospin, who stepped down as party leader when he became a prime minister is coded
with 0, while Adrian Năstase, who succeeded Ion Iliescu as party leader in 2004 is coded with 1. The other
prime ministers who preserved their position as party leaders in the aftermath of elections are coded with 1.
21
variation in the length of ministerial tenure is estimated across executive scenarios, as
well as separately under unified executive and cohabitation. Due to the existence of only
one spell of divided executive in the data set, a separate model could not be estimated for
this scenario.
Table 8 Impact of principal-agent relations and party relations after elections
Party leadership roles after elections
PM is NOT Leader
Across scenarios
PM Leader
Across scenarios
PM is NOT Leader
Unified
PM Leader
Unified
PM is NOT Leader
Cohabitation
PM Leader
Cohabitation
PR Conflicts
0.74**
0.33*
1.78***
1.13
0.63
0.60**
PM Conflicts
0.91**
0.28**
0.10
-1.60***
1.38***
0.50*
PARTY Conflicts
0.14
0.31**
-0.38
0.58**
0.41*
-0.16
Note: * p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01.
The results in Table 8 indicate that conflicts with prime ministers do not pose a
risk deselection during periods of unified executive, regardless of the prime minister’s
position in the party hierarchy. Conversely, conflicts with prime ministers increase the
risk of deselection significantly under cohabitation irrespective of whether they are party
leaders or not. Thus, whether or not prime ministers act as formal party leaders after
elections does not appear to make a difference for their influence over cabinet
composition. This is a counter-intuitive finding, as prime ministers who are party leaders
are expected to have more control over their cabinets than prime ministers who are not
party leaders. These results may indicate either that the influence of prime ministers over
cabinet composition is likely to be weak under unified executive and strong under
cohabitation regardless of their position in the party hierarchy, or that the party leadership
role played by prime ministers is not accurately captured in these models. To answer this
question I estimate the impact of conflicts with prime ministers on the risk of deselection
taking into account their position in the party hierarchy before elections.
Table 9 presents the coefficients and level of significance for the conflict variables
interacted with a leadership dummy that indicates prime ministers who were party leaders
before elections10. The lack of variation in the party leadership roles held by prime
ministers before elections during periods of unified and divided executive and under
10
In this set of models Lionel Jospin is coded with 1, while Adrian Năstase is coded with 0. The other
prime ministers who preserved their positions as party leaders following the elections are coded with 1.
22
cohabitation means that the variation in the length of ministerial tenure cannot be
estimated separately within each scenario. The alternative is to separate the risk of losing
office in one scenario compared to the other two scenarios.
Table 9 Impact of principal-agent relations and party relations before elections
Party leadership roles before elections
PM is NOT Leader
PM Leader
PM is NOT Leader
PM Leader
PM is NOT Leader
PM Leader
Across scenarios
Across scenarios
Unified & Cohab
Unified & Cohab
Unified & Divided
Unified & Divided
PR Conflicts
PM Conflicts
PARTY Conflicts
1.42***
0.33**
1.44***
0.49**
1.41***
-0.04
-0.83
0.38***
-0.79
0.86**
-0.80
0.24**
0.17
0.36***
0.27
0.19
0.11
0.34**
Note: * p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01.
Overall, Table 9 provides consistent evidence that a conflictual relationship with
prime ministers poses a risk to deselection only when they contest elections as party
leaders. In this case, the strongest impact of conflicts occurs under unified executive and
cohabitation. However, the statistically significant impact of conflicts with prime
ministers does not disappear when this relationship is estimated outside periods of
cohabitation. Moreover, the prime minister’s position in the party hierarchy before
elections also makes a difference for the president’ and the party principal’s authority
over cabinet composition. Although the relationship between conflicts with presidents
and the risk of losing office is statistically significant under unified executive and
cohabitation regardless of the prime ministers’ position in the party hierarchy, their
impact on the ministers’ risk of losing office is substantially higher when prime ministers
are not party leaders ahead of elections. Figure 4 illustrates the two different relationships
under unified executive and cohabitation. All else equal, the results suggest that prime
ministers who are not party leaders or who are promoted in the party hierarchy after
elections will need to put up with a much higher level of presidential activism than prime
ministers who won elections as party leaders.
23
Figure 4 Impact of principal-agent relations under unified executive and cohabitation as a
function of the prime ministers’ position in the party hierarchy before elections
Conflicts under unified executive and cohabitation
1.5
1.5
1
1
2
PMs are not party leaders before elections
President
.5
Prime minister
.5
Party
Prime minister
0
President
Party
0
500
0
Risk of termination
2
PMs are party leaders before elections
1000
days
1500
2000
0
500
1000
days
1500
2000
Lastly, I assess whether the presidents’ position in the party hierarchy ahead of
their election makes a difference for the extent of their influence over cabinet
composition. Table 10 presents the coefficients and level of significance for the conflict
variables interacted with a leadership dummy that indicates presidents who were party
leaders before elections11. The lack of variation in the party leadership roles held by
presidents before elections during periods of unified and divided executive means that the
impact of party relations on the risk of deselection can be estimated separately only
during periods of cohabitation. The results indicate a statistically significant relationship
between conflicts with presidents and shorter lengths of tenure only in the case of
presidents who were party leaders ahead of elections. This finding substantiates the
hypothesis that the presidents’ position in the party hierarchy ahead of elections makes a
difference for the extent of their authority over cabinets.
11
In this set of models the French and the Romanian presidents are coded with 1, while the Portuguese
presidents are coded 0.
24
Table 10 Impact of principal-agent relations and party relations before elections
Party leadership roles before elections
PR is NOT Leader
Across scenarios
PR Leader
Across scenarios
PR is NOT Leader
Cohab
PR Leader
Cohab
PR is NOT Leader
Unified & Cohab
PR Leader
Unified & Cohab
PR is NOT Leader
Divided & Cohab
PR Leader
Divided & Cohab
PR Conflicts
1.51*
0.52**
1.00
0.80**
1.18
0.68***
1.57*
0.37**
PM Conflicts
1.62***
0.40***
2.03**
1.14**
1.60**
0.65*
1.76**
0.43***
PARTY Conflicts
0.64
0.31**
1.08
0.49
0.91
0.26
0.51
0.46***
Note: * p<0.10, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.01.
The presidents’ de facto position in the party hierarchy also affects the extent to
which prime ministers’ and party principals’ can hold cabinet members accountable. As
cohabitation is part of all the situations within which the variation in the length of tenure
was estimated, prime ministers are shown to be in control of cabinet composition
regardless of whether or not presidents were party leaders before taking office. Thus, the
strength of prime ministerial leadership under cohabitation is driving the four estimations
presented in Table 10. However, the substantive effect of the PM Conflicts variable is
considerably higher when presidents are not party leaders. This result explains why
Portuguese prime ministers do not have to put up with the same level of presidential
activism during periods of cohabitation as their French and Romanian counterparts do. In
the latter case, although prime ministers keep a tight grip on their cabinets under
cohabitation, presidents who contest elections as party leaders are still able to have a say
over cabinet composition. Similarly to the previous sets of models presented above, the
strength of party principals during periods of divided executive is driving the results
corresponding to the impact of conflicts with parties on the risk of losing office.
However, the results in Table 10 provide some evidence that the influence of party
principals over cabinet composition increases under unified executive and cohabitation
when presidents do not contest elections as party leaders.
Discussion
The comparative analysis of ministerial accountability in France, Portugal and Romania
clarifies a number of points. First, the results confirm that executive scenarios make a
25
difference for the ability of presidents and prime ministers to control cabinet composition:
presidents are in a better position to influence the deselection of ministers during periods
of unified executive, while prime ministers gain control over cabinet members under
cohabitation. The fact that conflicts with the president are not completely risk-free even
under cohabitation confirms Duverger’s (1996: 517) expectation that although presidents
have fewer power than prime ministers when this scenario occurs, they are still not
completely powerless. However, the expectations regarding the balance of power between
party principals and party agents have not been met.
Second, party principals do not seem to increase their control over cabinet
composition under cohabitation compared to periods of unified executive. This finding
indicates that the party principal’s influence over ministers does not depend only on
whether presidents are able to turn cabinet members into their own agents, but also on the
authority and autonomy of prime ministers relative to their own parties. In other words,
the leadership resources and autonomy of prime ministers from their parties have the
same effect on limiting the party principal’s control over its minister agents as
unaccountable agents in a directly elected presidential office. Surprisingly, party
principals appeared in a better position to hold ministers accountable during a period of
divided executive, when the president and the prime minister were both acting as the
facto party leaders. These results may indicate that intra-executive deadlock between the
president and the prime minister may shift the balance of power in the favour of party
principals. However, as the data related to ministerial turnover under divided executive is
limited to just one occurrence of this scenario in only one country, this result should be
interpreted with caveats.
Third, by taking into account the positions held by prime ministers and presidents
in the party hierarchy before and after elections, one can explain why executive scenarios
make a difference for the authority of some presidents and prime ministers over cabinet
composition but not for others. Both presidents and prime ministers have more control
over cabinet members if they contest elections as party leaders. Due to the institutional
configuration of semi-presidential systems, prime ministers were shown to keep a strong
grip over cabinet members during periods of cohabitation regardless of their position in
the party hierarchy before or after elections. However, the analysis has also shown that
prime ministers who led their parties during the preceding general elections were able to
control the cabinet under all executive scenarios, not only during cohabitation. Similarly,
presidents who are party leaders before elections are able to preserve some influence over
26
cabinet composition even under cohabitation. However, due to the institutional
configuration of semi-presidential systems, prime ministers were shown to keep a strong
grip over cabinet members during periods of cohabitation regardless of their position in
the party hierarchy before or after elections. These findings highlight not only the
considerable weight of intraparty politics on executive politics, but also the impact of
informal hierarchies of party relationships on the extent of political leadership. They
provide substantial evidence that de facto leadership positions and informal party
hierarchies make a difference for the extent of both presidential and prime ministerial
leadership in cabinet governments.
Conclusion
The findings of this paper cast a new light on the joint impact of political
institutions and formal and informal party hierarchies on ministerial accountability.
Institutional factors account to a certain extent for the variation in presidential and prime
ministerial influence over cabinet composition. Nevertheless, institutional factors alone
cannot explain why some presidents are more powerful than others under similar
institutional conditions and why some prime ministers keep a tight grip on their cabinets
regardless of the variation in institutional conditions. By taking into account both
institutions and internal party politics, this paper has shown that presidents are able to
influence cabinet composition only when they come to office as party leaders. Similarly,
prime ministers who take office as party leaders keep a tight grip on their cabinets
regardless of variation in institutional conditions, while prime ministers who are not de
facto leaders are faced with an increased level of presidential activism. These findings
bear out the impact of internal party politics on ministerial accountability in semipresidential systems and account for the discrepancy between the formal powers held by
political actors and their actual influence over the cabinet.
The findings of this paper also speak to the debate regarding the challenges faced
by the party government model in modern democracies. Party politics scholars have
highlighted the challenges faced by party government over time (Katz 1986, 1987; Mair
2008) and the need to assess how well this model fits contemporary democracies, whether
new or long-established (Webb et al. 2002; Webb and White 2007). This paper has
focused on one aspect of party government, the personnel involved in the governing
process. As the ideological differences between political parties wane, the parties’ ability
27
to place their agents in governmental institutions is seen as one of the sinews of party
government (Kopecký et al. 2012). However, the selection and deselection of ministers
should be regarded as twin conditions for party government. After all, if patronage is
regarded as a mechanism through which parties ensure the provision of safe pair of hands
in key corners of the policy-making process (Kopecký and Mair 2012: 12), then parties
should also be able to remove the office-holders who deviate from the preferred positions
of their patrons. So, the extent to which parties can fire their agents is a good
complementary test for the extent of their control over the executive decision-making
process and can be used as a direct and measurable indicator of party government.
Finally, the variation in the balance of power between party principals and party
agents as a function of the president’ and the prime minister’s leadership resources draws
attention to the trend towards the “presidentialisation” of political leadership in modern
democracies (Poguntke and Webb 2005a). This paper adds to the literature pointing to
increase in the leadership resources and autonomy of chief executives from their parties
across regime types (Poguntke and Webb 2005a; Webb et al. 2012). By studying the
implications of this phenomenon for the chief executives’ ability to hold cabinet members
accountable, this paper speaks to the “executive” and the “party” faces of
presidentialisation that characterise the tension between political parties and their leaders
(Poguntke and Webb 2005b).
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