Democratic Regimes and Cabinet Politics: a Global Perspective

Resumo

Cabinets link the executive and legislative branches, thus linking parties and government, in all democracies. Variation in cabinet appointments can help explain differences in policy-making and interest representation across different democratic regimes. We explore how variation in the separation of executive and legislative powers affects two critical questions for the study of cabinets: (1) to what extent are portfolios given to party members versus independent technocrats or political cronies of the chief executive, and (2) to what extent do executives follow “Gamson’s Law” and distribute portfolios proportionally to parties in the government coalition? We argue that executives face strong incentives to appoint partisan and proportional cabinets only when they depend on legislative confidence. In contrast, under the separation of powers, executives have stronger incentives to appoint non-partisans and to distribute portfolios non-proportionally. Our results confirm that cabinets tend to be less partisan and proportional under pure presidentialism compared to parliamentarism and semi-presidentialism. These findings have substantial implications for understanding how the separation of powers affects governance.