Cabinet Termination

1
Cabinet Termination

• Are cabinets unstable?
• Italy, French Fourth Republic
• Germany, Luxemburg, Austria
• Explanations
• Party system
• Coalition attributes
• Structure of the bargaining system
• Events

2
The End

• A cabinet ends with
• A change in membership
• A formal resignation
• A change in prime minister
• An election

3
Coalition Stability Regime Attributes

• Various factors
• Number of Parties
• Size of Party System
• Presence of Anti-System Parties
• Ideological Polarization
• Oppositional Influence
• Salience of Elections
• Formal Investiture Requirement

4
Coalition Stability Regime Attributes

• Clear differences between countries in terms of
  stability
• Appears to be unrelated to the number of parties
  in the countries
• Moreover, changes in the number of parties
  within countries does not have an influence on
  duration
• Strom Salience of elections (and investiture
  requirement and oppositional influence)

5
Coalition Attributes and Cabinet Stability

• Majority/Minority/Surplus Cabinets
• Ideological compatible
• Findings
• Majority and minimal winning cabinets
• Does not explain differences between countries
• Ideology does not appear to matter

6
Bargaining Environment

• Polarity of party system
• Uni- Bipolar stable
• Centre vs. off-centre
• Multipolar unstable
• Stability Luxemburg, Ireland, Austria, Germany,
  Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium,
  Netherlands, Denmark 1971-87, Belgium 1971-1987,
  Finland, Italy

7
Events

• Previous explanations are deterministic
• The events approach argues that unexpected
  events are important
• An event causes cabinet termination with some
  probability
• Compatibility with bargaining system explanation
• King et. al.

8
Who gets what?

• Office Payoffs
• Cabinet Portfolios
• Non-cabinet Positions
• Patronage
• Ministerial Portfolios
• Fairness/proportionality
• Role of policy

9
Who gets what?

• Ministerial Portfolios
• Close relationship between number of seats in
  legislatures and cabinet seats
• Small party bias
• Surprising? Bargaining Power?
• Uni- and Bipolar systems best predicted by
  proportionality. Why?

10
Who gets what?

• Ministerial Portfolios
• Bargaining power and big portfolios
• Portfolio preference
• Policy Payoffs
• Parties manifestos
• Coalition agreements