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.     

The French secular hypocrisy: the extreme right,the Republic and the battle for hegemony

ABSTRACT

The success of the extreme right in France in the past two decades has not been limited to its electoral rise. A more long-lasting victory has taken place in the ideological field, where the discourse of the extreme right now occupies a prominent place in the mainstream liberal democratic agenda. Increasingly, its ideas are seen in the media and in the platforms of mainstream parties as ‘common sense’ or at least acceptable. The growing acceptance of this ‘common sense’ is the result of very carefully crafted strategies put in place by extreme-right thinkers since the 1980s. For over three decades now, in order to change perceptions and renew extreme right-wing ideology, New Right think tanks such as the French GRECE believed it was necessary to borrow the tactics of the left and, more specifically, the Gramscian concept of hegemony: cultural power must precede political power. With the use of contemporary examples, Mondon's article demonstrates the continuing impact these ideas have had on the Front national and French politics and society, and how this change originated in the association of populist rhetoric with the neo-racist stigmatization of the Other.     

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?     

Crisis Accountability: Ministerial Resignations in Sweden

Accountability processes after crisis events sometimes entail harsh criticism from public and political players alike, forcing cabinet ministers to be on top of the political game and sometimes even resign. However, harsh accountability processes are just as likely to leave ministers undamaged. This article combines two existing theories that propose different factors to account for variation in outcomes: ministerial resignations as a consequence of cabinet formation and individual positions; or resignations as a result of blame management strategies involving individual actors within the cabinet and beyond. Ten crisis episodes in Sweden are analysed and compared. The findings suggest that individual political power bases and experience matter to how well blame management strategies can be employed, while the composition of the government gives structural constraints. The dynamic interplay and framing battle between incumbent decision makers, and external arenas and the skill with which individual ministers engage and frame responsibility, play a key role in determining their post‐crisis careers.     

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.     

Survival of the Ministers: On Ministerial Durability in Postwar Norway

The field of ministerial durability, showing why some ministers are dismissed and others not, has increased in size over the last decade. Specifically, linking ministerial performance through resignation calls with durability has been applied to both majoritarian and semi‐presidential systems, whereas this link is less explored in consensual electoral systems. Thus, this study explores the relationship between ministerial performance and durability in postwar Norway, drawing on the principal‐agent theory for parliamentary democracies and the accountability link between party leaders and ministers. The main finding is that there are many similarities to other studies’ ministerial durability and performance. By measuring performance in resignation calls coming through the media, it is found that ministerial durability is decreased when performance is low: the more resignation calls a minister gets, the more likely the minister is to be removed by the party leader. Consequently, it is argued that ministers generally are held accountable by their party leaders whenever they are perceived to perform badly. Even though it is argued in the article that studies on ministerial durability and performance would benefit from alternative performance measures, the analysis shows that resignation calls give a good indication of how party leaders hold ministers accountable.     

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.     

Portfolio Saliency and Ministerial Turnover: Dynamics in Scandinavian Postwar Cabinets

Why do certain ministers remain in their post for years while others have their time in office cut short? Drawing on the broader literature on portfolio allocation, this article argues that the saliency of individual portfolios shapes ministerial turnover. The main argument is that ministerial dismissals are less likely to occur the higher the saliency attributed to the ministerial portfolio since ministers appointed to important posts are more likely to have been through extensive screening before appointment. Importantly, it is also posited in the article that the effect of portfolio salience is conditioned by government approval ratings: when government ratings are on the decline, prime ministers are less likely to reshuffle or fire important ministers than when approval ratings are improving. To test these claims, Cox proportional hazards models are applied to a new dataset on ministerial turnover in Scandinavia during the postwar period. The results strongly support the proposition that portfolio saliency matters for ministerial survival, and that this effect is moderated by government popularity.