‘…I TAKE POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY!’: THE THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL RELATION BETWEEN MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND MINISTERIAL RESIGNATIONS IN GERMANY

How is the doctrine of ministerial responsibility applied in the decisions of German ministers (not) to resign? This question arises from an empirical puzzle as well as from a theoretical contradiction. Despite the prominent principle of ministerial responsibility, empirically, the ‘personal consequences' of ministerial scandals in their area of responsibility, display a large variance. Some ministers resign because of rather trifling affairs, others stay in office in spite of serious scandals. Taking into consideration the delegation relationship between the executive and the parliament, in view of the principal‐agent theory, a minister's resignation due to major political or personal misconduct is to be expected. On the other hand, the actual constitutional configuration of ministerial responsibility casts theoretical doubts on the ministerial loss of office. The quantitative analysis of 133 resignation issues in the years 1949 to 2009 reveals that ministerial responsibility bears no relevance to the decision whether to resign or not. Indeed, when the cause of the resignation issue is directly connected to ministerial responsibility, the probability of a resignation even decreases.     

Public opinion about social assistance in Sweden

Abstract. When studying public opinion about income-tested programmes, it is important to distinguish between expenditures and parameters regulating supply of social assistance. We suggest that the latter might be the most interesting. Using data from a survey study over a Swedish sample, we investigate public opinion about income thresholds in Swedish welfare programmes. The results show the public as being in favour of rather higher income thresholds, as compared to that decided by the politicians. We found that public opinion is more homogeneous concerning the income needs of adults than those of children. Although data on several background characteristics were available, we had difficulties in relating the answers to systematic factors of the individuals in the sample. Thus, we conclude that the Swedish population is rather homogeneous in their opinions about income thresholds in welfare programmes.     

Value orientations, political conflicts and left-right identification: A comparative study

Abstract. Have the meanings of 'left' and 'right' changed during the last twenty years? In this article the ten-point left-right self-placement scale is correlated with three central value orientations (religious/secular, economic left-right and materialist/post-materialist values) to examine whether associations between these value orientations and the self-placement scale have changed from the early 1970s to 1990. Four theories about the changing meaning of the left-right language are presented. These theories about the irrelevance, persistence, transformation and pluralisation of the meaning of left and right are tested by using Eurobarometer data from eight West European countries and the second wave of the European Value Study from 1990. The data provide strong support for pluralisation theory. Left-right semantics have an impressive absorptive power, describing an over-arching spatial dimension capable of incorporating many types of conflict. Left-right semantics are significantly correlated with religious/secular values, remain highly correlated with the dominant industrial value orientations (economic left-right values), and are increasingly associated with materialist/post-materialist value orientations. The new meanings of left and right are added to the old meanings.     

Formation rules and minority governments

Abstract. This research note focuses on the importance of rules for coalition formation in parliamentary democracies. Traditionally, coalition theorists have assumed that only majority coalitions can be winning. The more recent literature has shown that coalitions can be winning even if they do not control more than half of all legislators. However, the literature has continued to overlook the fact that there exist two different types of government formation rules. In this note, the two types—positive and negative rules—are presented and it is shown that minority governments are more frequent in the countries with negative rules.