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AbstractThis article examines one arena of decision-making in cabinet government: cabinet committees. It assesses the relationship between the composition of cabinets – their party make-up – and the structure of cabinet committees. Cabinet committees are groups of ministers tasked with specific policy or coordination responsibilities and can be important mechanisms of policymaking and cabinet management. Thus, the structure of committees informs our understanding of how cabinets differ in their distributions of policy influence among ministers and parties, a central concern in parliamentary government. We investigate two such dimensions: collegiality – interaction among ministers – and collectivity, the (de)centralization of influence. We find that cabinet committees in coalitions are significantly more collegial, on average, than single-party cabinets, though this is driven by minority coalitions. At the same time, influence within cabinet committees is less collectively distributed in most types of coalitions than in single-party cabinets.

AbstractCabinet committees are important sites of executive politics in Canada. This article examines the extent to which two representational attributes—gender and region—determine influence, as a function of cabinet committee structure. Employing a dataset of ministers under the three most recent prime ministers, I find that female ministers are less likely than male ministers to be influential in terms of connections to other ministers, to belong to the core of most influential ministers and to be represented on the most powerful committees or chairing committees. However, there is evidence of improvement over time. While regional representation is an imperative in cabinet making for Canadian prime ministers, its role in determining ministerial influence within committees is not evident: ministers from less-represented regions are no more likely to be influential than other ministers. This analysis highlights a neglected but central arena for social representation in Canadian government.

DECISION MAKING IN POLITICAL EXECUTIVES IS AN ODDLY NEGLECTED SUBJECT IN POLITICAL SCIENCE. THE ROLES PLAYED BY BOTH FORMAL INSTITUTIONS AND LESS FORMAL MECHANISMS IN ARRIVING AT DECISIONS IN POLITICAL EXECUTIVES ARE SURPRISINGLY UNDERSTUDIED. THERE HAVE BEEN SOME IMPORTANT COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF POLITICAL EXECUTIVES BUT THESE HAVE TENDED TO FOCUS ON THE FOLE OF THE HEAD OF THE POLITICAL EXECUTIVE - THE PRESIDENT OR PRIME MINISTER.1 THE DISTINCTIVE NATURE OF CABINET SYSTEMS AS AGAINST PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS HAS BEEN WELL BROUGHT OUT BUT A COMPARATIVE FRAMEWODK FOR THE ANALYSIS OF VARIATIONS AMONG CABINET SYSTEMS IN THE ROLE OF DECISION ARENAS OTHER THAN THE FULL CABINET HAS NOT BEEN DEVELOPED. BLONDEL IN HIS WIDE-RANGING SURVEY OF GOVERNMENT STRUCTURES GIVES ONLY A PASSING MENTION TO CABINET COMMITTEES. ACCORDINGLY, IN SEEKING TO PLACE THE ROLES OF CABINET COMMITTEES IN PERSPECTIVE, WE HAVE FOUND IT NECESSARY TO DEVELOP OUR OWN FRAMEWORK OF DECISION ARENAS IN CABINET SYSTEMS.

Decision making in political executives is an oddly neglected subject in political science. The roles played by both formal institutions and less formal mechanisms in arriving at decisions in political executives are surprisingly understudied. There have been some important comparative studies of political executives but these have tended to focus on the role of the head of the political executive – the president or prime minister. The distinctive nature of cabinet systems as against presidential systems has been well brought out but a comparative framework for the analysis of variations among cabinet systems in the role of decision arenas other than the full cabinet has not been developed. Blondel in his wide-ranging survey of government structures gives only a passing mention to cabinet committees. Accordingly, in seeking to place the roles of cabinet committees in perspective, we have found it necessary to develop our own framework of decision arenas in cabinet systems.

AbstractMinisters may be powerful policy initiators, but they are not equally powerful. Cabinet control mechanisms have become a crucial part of cabinet governance, which can serve to contain agency loss and consequently constrain ministers in the policymaking process. However, empirical studies have not focused on the impact of such control mechanisms on individual ministers' political outcomes. I turn attention to certain cabinet committees as intra-cabinet control mechanisms and argue that members of these enjoy a policymaking advantage compared to nonmembers. Analyzing ministers' number of laws proposed to parliament in Denmark from 1975 to 2022, I look beyond parties as unitary actors and provide evidence for this causal relationship. Membership of the Economic Committee increases ministers' legislative activity. Thus, even within parties in cabinet, ministers have unequal possibilities to act as policy-seeking. These findings offer new insights into political parties in governments, cabinet governance, policymaking, and legislative processes.