Corruption and women in cabinets: Informal barriers to recruitment in the executive

Research on corruption and women in politics has mainly focused on legislatures, generally finding that corruption decreases the election of women. This article turns the spotlight to the executive branch—an arena where selection is less transparent than recruitment to legislative seats—and examines if corruption decrease the share of ministers who are women. Drawing on feminist institutionalist theories, we posit that in an environment of high political corruption, (male) elites involved in cabinet formation will tend to appoint ministers whom they can trust with secretive tasks. In systems with corrupt networks, relative newcomers, such as women, should face obstacles to career advancement. The article tests this reasoning empirically on a global sample of countries across time. Using a new indicator measuring corruption in executive bodies, we find support for our argument; corruption tends to hinder women's presence in cabinets, albeit only in democracies and not autocracies.     

The French Fifth Republic as an Opportunity Structure: A Neo-institutional and Cultural Approach to the Study of Leadership Politics

The Gaullist settlement of 1958 reconfigured the political institutions of France, introducing into the republican mainstream a new form of leadership politics. Adapting the literature on political opportunity structure (POS) theory, and using the French left as a case study, can help us understand how political parties, ideology and leadership adapt to political institutions and norms. It also illuminates what the consequences are of such adaptation in the contemporary period, particularly as regards the institutionally bound roles of political 'character', protocol and discourse. The paper appraises the relevance and appropriateness of POS theory to leadership politics in France.     

Unity in Diversity: Contending Conceptions of the French Nation and Republic

This article argues that there is not one conception of the French nation and Republic among French Republicans, but two. One theory is assimilationist and centralising. It regards the Republic as one and indivisible and the French nation a cultural whole. The other is more regionalist, envisaging a republic that is perhaps indivisible, but certainly diverse and respectful of local cultures. The article traces these contending conceptions through three constitutional debates: the debate on the reform of the Empire in 1946; the debate on the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992; and the recent debate on decentralisation, which was re-launched at the beginning of the 2000s by the left and subsequently taken over by the right.     

Executive Power and Republican Principles at the Founding of the Fifth Republic

This article examines the understanding of executive power in the debates at the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958. The examination discovered a concept of executive power quite different from the real executive power revealed in the history of the Fifth Republic. The framers of the constitution intended to place the prime minister at the head of the executive power and to shield him from removal by the President of the Republic. The direct election of the president, brought about by the problematic constitutional amendment of 1962, provided the legitimacy for the de facto dominant role of the president apart from the two cohabitation periods.     

Caught in the Act: The Smoking Gun View of Ministerial Responsibility

While any discussion of ministerial responsibility must in part focus on ministerial resignations, finding out when ministers resign is only the tip of the iceberg. A full assessment of ministerial responsibility would look at the relations between ministers and their senior bureaucrats, as discussed in Bill Blick’s article. It would look at the impact of managerialism on ministerial accountability, especially in the light of privatisation and contracting out. It would assess the impact of other mechanisms of accountability, including the senate. The subject of this article must always be put into a broader context. This article concentrates on ministerial resignations drawing on evidence from Britain, Canada, the federal government in Australia and the government of New South Wales. When do ministers resign?     

Factionalism, the French socialist party and the fifth Republic: An explanation of intra-party divisions

Abstract. This article traces the evolution of factions (the term preferred to that of 'fraction') within the French Socialist party (PS) from the early twentieth century until 1981, with special reference to the post-1971 PS as a party of opposition. It concentrates on the causes and structures of factions, as well as their location in relation to the wider political system and the degree of political space they were able to occupy within the party. It argues that factions were divided by personal rivalries (accentuated by the presidentialised Fifth Republic), ideological and party policy differences, party strategy, power rivalries within the organisation and different historical origins. Factions corresponded more or less to a series of ideal-types. These were the organisation faction, whose power stemmed from its position within the party organisation; the parallel faction, whose separate factional structures paralled official party ones, and the external faction, which attempted to transform external popularity into internal party strength. Four factions prevailed: Mitterrand, Mauroy, CERES and Rocard. Those headed by presidentiables enjoyed the most success, whereas the others gradually declined. The presidentialism of the French regime set the PS apart from its European counterparts.     

Parties and Policymaking in Multiparty Governments: The Legislative Median,Ministerial Autonomy,and the Coalition Compromise

In parliamentary democracies, governments are typically composed of multiple political parties working together in a coalition. Such governments must confront a fundamental challenge in policymaking—the preferences of coalition parties often diverge significantly, but the government can adopt only one common policy on any specific issue. This fact raises a critical question that has far‐reaching implications for the quality of democratic representation: Whose preferences are ultimately reflected in coalition policy choices? In this study, we explore three competing answers to this question derived from the theoretical literature on multiparty governance and parliamentary institutions. Our findings, based on an analysis of the legislative history of more than 1,000 government bills from three parliamentary democracies, strongly suggest that coalition policies reflect a compromise between government parties rather than the preferences of the ministers proposing them or the preferences of the median party in the legislature.     

Delegating to the Quango: Ex Ante and Ex Post Ministerial Constraints

This article examines delegation in the environment of quasi‐governmental, special purpose bodies. Better known as “quangos,” these agencies present a challenge for the theory of delegation, because their tasks are often comprised of routine administration, such as the distribution of benefits and the collection of user fees, rather than more politically salient policymaking. Do (spatial) policy conflict and legislative capacity affect the conditions under which authority is delegated to quangos? What effect do “good government” ideology and legislative capacity have on the presence of ex ante and ex post control over quangos? Theoretical predictions are examined with data from a study of Dutch public bodies as well as issue scales from the Manifesto Research Group. Multinomial logit statistical models produce evidence that although policy conflict and legislative capacity measures affect the probabilities of enacting both ex ante and ex post controls, their contributions to ex post measures, as expected in the presence of important hidden action incentives, are much stronger.     

Nondemocratic nonplanning: The French experience

During the de Gaulle and Pompidou regimes, the French executive claimed that its Economic and Social Development Plan fitted an ideal model of democratic planning. It was democratic in both process and substance, devised after wide consultations, and designed to pursue the welfare of the nation as a whole. It also met the standards of planning, outlining a coherent set of actions which could realistically be taken during each planning period, and which were rationally calculated to further carefully-defined long-term aims. An analysis of the preparation process and of the quality of the Plan as written and executed, however, indicates that it did not meet the standards of either democracy or planning. The conclusion of the paper expresses serious doubt about the possibility of ever achieving the ideal of democratic planning in France.This article was written while the author was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. The research was supported by the University's Research Foundation. The author is now employed by the Office of Political Research, Central Intelligence Agency. The views expressed here are her own and do not reflect those of the Agency.