Government Formation and Minister Turnover in Presidential Cabinets
Government Formation and Minister Turnover in Presidential Cabinets

Author: Marcelo Camerlo

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-11-28

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1315466473

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Portfolio allocation in presidential systems is a central tool that presidents use to deal with changes in the political and economic environment. Yet, we still have much to learn about the process through which ministers are selected and the reasons why they are replaced in presidential systems. This book offers the most comprehensive, cross-national analysis of portfolio allocation in the Americas to date. In doing so, it contributes to the development of theories about portfolio allocation in presidential systems. Looking specifically at how presidents use portfolio allocation as part of their wider political strategy, it examines eight country case studies, within a carefully developed analytical framework and cross-national comparative analysis from a common dataset. The book includes cases studies of portfolio allocation in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, the United States, Peru and Uruguay, and covers the period between the transition to democracy in each country up until 2014. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political elites, executive politics, Latin American politics and more broadly comparative politics.

Survival of Ministers and Configuration of Cabinets in Chile and Uruguay
Survival of Ministers and Configuration of Cabinets in Chile and Uruguay

Author: Alejandro Olivares L.

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-02-15

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 3030928020

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This book develops an analysis of ministerial recruitment in the process of government formation, the process of dismissal, and survival of cabinet ministers in Chile and Uruguay. The two cases are countries that, generally, score the highest democracy indexes in Latin America, but also, they are considered as the most stable presidential systems in the Southern Cone of the region, allowing readers to compare within and between cases. The cases analyzed in this book are small countries with a similar history of democratic breakdowns which, in temporal terms, enable comparison. Additionally, given the reasons that triggered those processes, both cases are normally studied together. For pre-coup democracy, the cases include the governments of Chile between 1933 and 1973 and Uruguay between 1943 and 1973. This research does not analyze the military coup regime in either country. Thus, the period is resumed in the democratic transitions for both cases, i.e., 1985 for Uruguay and 1990 for Chile. Although literature on ministerial cabinets survival usually focus on parliamentary regimes from the Global North, this rather new phenomenon in presidential democracies has quickly gained academic notoriety. Research on cabinets and ministers in Latin American presidential systems tends to focus on the periods beginning with the return to democracy after the 1980s. This situation means that there is scant knowledge of the period prior to the coups. By presenting an in-depth study of two presidential systems from the Global South, Survival of Ministers and Configuration of Cabinets in Chile and Uruguay, will be a useful resource for political and social scientists willing to study cabinet formation and ministerial turnover in Latin America, whether is on case-study research or in a comparative perspective.

Cabinets, Ministers, and Gender
Cabinets, Ministers, and Gender

Author: Claire Annesley

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0190069015

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Historically, men have been more likely to be appointed to governing cabinets, but gendered patterns of appointment vary cross-nationally, and women's inclusion in cabinets has grown significantly over time. This book breaks new theoretical ground by conceiving of cabinet formation as a gendered, iterative process governed by rules that empower and constrain presidents and prime ministers in the criteria they use to make appointments. Political actors use their agency to interpret and exploit ambiguity in rules to deviate from past practices of appointing mostly men. When they do so, they create different opportunities for men and women to be selected, explaining why some democracies have appointed more women to cabinet than others. Importantly, this dynamic produces new rules about women's inclusion and, as this book explains, the emergence of a concrete floor, defined as a minimum number of women who must be appointed to a cabinet to ensure its legitimacy. Drawing on in-depth analyses of seven countries (Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and elite interviews, media data, and autobiographies of cabinet members, Cabinets, Ministers, and Gender offers a cross-time, cross-national study of the gendered process of cabinet formation.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Executives
The Oxford Handbook of Political Executives

Author: Rudy B. Andeweg

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-07-30

Total Pages: 728

ISBN-13: 0192536915

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Political executives have been at the centre of public and scholarly attention long before the inception of modern political science. In the contemporary world, political executives have come to dominate the political stage in many democratic and autocratic regimes. The Oxford Handbook of Political Executives marks the definitive reference work in this field. Edited and written by a team of word-class scholars, it combines substantive stocktaking with setting new agendas for the next generation of political executive research.

Assessing the Left Turn in Ecuador
Assessing the Left Turn in Ecuador

Author: Francisco Sánchez

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-12-05

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 3030276252

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This book examines the “left turn” in Latin American politics, specifically through the lens of Ecuador and the effects of the Citizens’ Revolution’s actions and public policies on relevant actors and institutions. Through a comprehensive analysis of one country’s turn to the left and the outcomes generated by that process, the authors and editors provide a clearer understanding of the ways in which the popular desire for change (predominant through the region in recent times, as a response to late-twentieth-century neoliberalism) was realized—or not. The particular case of Ecuador further potentiates analysis of the entire region-wide process, considering that the “corrector” cycle is now at an end, and that the economic and international conditions that favored the return of left governments have also changed.

The Informal Powers of Western European Presidents
The Informal Powers of Western European Presidents

Author: Selena Grimaldi

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-08-14

Total Pages: 531

ISBN-13: 3031333306

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The book explores how weak presidents directly or indirectly elected can still play a crucial role in the political arena. Weak presidents have been distinguished from strong ones by relying on the evaluation of the powers they display according to the constitution. Six Western European countries are analysed: Germany and Italy which present a consistent constitutional design (as weak presidents are elected indirectly), and Austria, Ireland, Finland and Portugal that present inconsistent constitutional design (as weak presidents are elected directly). In contrast to much of the existing comparative works on presidential powers and activism, the book emphasises the role and the use of informal powers beyond that of formal ones. In particular, a definition and a typology of informal powers are provided as well as an empirical investigation on informal presidential activism. The positive outcome of presidential informal interventions are studied by relying on an interactionist approach which combines presidency-centred as well as president centred-explanations. The book argues that when dealing with informal presidential activism the opportunity structure matters but presidential public support matters even more.

Handbook of Parliamentary Studies
Handbook of Parliamentary Studies

Author: Cyril Benoît

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2020-11-27

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13: 1789906512

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This comprehensive Handbook takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of parliaments, offering novel insights into the key aspects of legislatures, legislative institutions and legislative politics. Connecting rich and diverse fields of inquiry, it illuminates how the study of parliaments has shaped a wider understanding surrounding politics and society over the past decades.

The Image of Gender and Political Leadership
The Image of Gender and Political Leadership

Author: Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0197642721

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There are many theories as to why women remain severely underrepresented in democratic governments. Perhaps voters do not consider women to be capable leaders, or maybe party elites obstruct women's paths to office because they don't believe that they are electable. But if these attitudes are hurdles standing in the way of women being elected to office, where did they develop? In The Image of Gender and Political Leadership, Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson and Nehemia Geva bring together parallel experiments conducted in countries around the world to compare the ways in which young adults view gender and leadership. Together, the chapters in this book present findings from on-site experiments conducted with over 6,000 young adult students of highly diverse socio-economic backgrounds in eight countries that have varying levels of experience with women in government: Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, England, Israel, Sweden, the United States, and Uruguay. Overall, the book finds little evidence of traditional gender stereotypes that would limit young people's support for women as political leaders. Women candidates are accepted as leaders by the participants, indicating young adults' approval of women's ability to hold diverse posts, win votes, and manage stereotypically masculine policy areas. The book also finds that young adults are very responsive to political party--regardless of gender, they tend to favor candidates from their preferred parties. With an in-depth, cross-national perspective, Taylor-Robinson and Geva provide empirical evidence to dispel myths about what contributes to the low election rates of women, and importantly, investigate logical steps to achieve gender parity.

Semi-presidentialism, Parliamentarism and Presidents
Semi-presidentialism, Parliamentarism and Presidents

Author: Miloš Brunclík

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-07-11

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 1351680021

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The book analyzes the presidencies of three neighboring Central European countries – Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – in the context of their interactions with cabinets (and prime ministers), parliaments and the constitutional courts, all which have proved crucial actors in the region’s political and constitutional battles. Using both institutional and behavioral perspectives along with an innovative definition of semi-presidentialism, the book argues that presidential powers – rather than the mode of the election of the president – are crucial to the functioning of the regimes and their classification into distinctive regime types. Focusing on intra-executive conflicts and the interaction of the president with other constitutional players it argues that, regardless of the mode of the election of the president, regimes have traditionally been very similar not only in their institutional settings, but also in the way they function. Finally, it shows that Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia should be classified as parliamentary regimes. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Central and East Europe studies/politics, post-Communist studies, presidential studies and more broadly to political elites and institutions, comparative politics and legislative studies.

The Presidents Dilemma in Asia
The Presidents Dilemma in Asia

Author: Don S Lee

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-06-06

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0192697412

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The President's Dilemma in Asia provides one of the first comprehensive and comparative theory of presidential government formation. In the authoritarian era, presidents had greater control over key institutional actors in the process, such as the legislature, the ruling party, and the bureaucracy. However, after democratic transition, they have to navigate competing pressures from these political institutions. This book highlights the major trade-off that presidents of new democracies face in their relationship with the different political institutions, the so-called ?president's dilemma,? and their strategy in dealing with the dilemma. Existing studies of presidential government formation in new democracies have largely overlooked the entirety of the structure of the political institutions surrounding the president and its impact on the president's government formation strategy. This book offers a view that government formation is a window to understanding how presidents weigh the benefits of appointing ministers representing different political institutions under a variety of given institutional circumstances. The question of which institution presidents attempt to accommodate through government formation is a high stakes one, and addressing it is important, because particular patterns of personnel distribution can influence the kind of policies political leaders adopt and the level of accountability and responsiveness to constituents these policies represent. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterized by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Nicole Bolleyer, Chair of Comparative Political Science, Geschwister Scholl Institut, LMU Munich and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.