Ideologues, Partisans, and Loyalists: Ministers and Policymaking in Parliamentary Cabinets
Despina Alexiadou
Abstract
Ministerial appointments and cabinet reshuffles routinely feature in newspaper headlines and news show discussions. Political commentators see them as crucial political choices regarding governments’ policy priorities. Yet, we lack a systematic understanding of the role of cabinet ministers as policymakers. Do ministerial appointments actually make a difference in policy outcomes? This book demonstrates that ministerial appointments are crucial for predicting policy outcomes. Not all ministers can affect the government’s policy agenda equally successfully. Loyalists, who are loyal to their par ... More
Ministerial appointments and cabinet reshuffles routinely feature in newspaper headlines and news show discussions. Political commentators see them as crucial political choices regarding governments’ policy priorities. Yet, we lack a systematic understanding of the role of cabinet ministers as policymakers. Do ministerial appointments actually make a difference in policy outcomes? This book demonstrates that ministerial appointments are crucial for predicting policy outcomes. Not all ministers can affect the government’s policy agenda equally successfully. Loyalists, who are loyal to their party leader and prioritize office over policy, mostly adopt a managerial rather than a policy entrepreneurial role. In contrast, partisans, who are party heavyweights and aspiring leaders, and ideologues, who have fixed policy ideas and are not swayed by office perks, can successfully introduce ambitious policy reforms. Studying social affairs and employment ministers in eighteen parliamentary democracies, the book illustrates that ideologues and partisans have been instrumental in reforming the welfare state and labour market policies during the last forty years. Both the large empirical analyses and the in-depth study of cabinet ministers in Ireland, Netherlands, and Greece strongly support the argument that who is appointed to cabinet has important policy consequences, even in the presence of explicit fiscal rules.
Keywords:
cabinet ministers,
parliamentary cabinets,
economically advanced democracies,
labour market policies,
social welfare policies,
policymaking,
loyalists,
partisans,
ideologues
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198755715 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198755715.001.0001 |
