Abstract
The assessment of the role of political actors is notoriously difficult: there is still no truly conclusive evidence that leaders do make a difference’, let alone what the extent of this difference is.1 The question of the role of ministers in cabinet decision-making therefore poses major problems. There are practical obstacles: only detailed participant observation would reveal fully how each minister behaves. There are methodological difficulties as well: students of political leadership have for instance not been able so far to discover indicators that would measure the respective contribution made by individuals and by the environment.2
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Notes
From the title of the work of V. Bunce, Do New Leaders Make a Differences? (1981).
See J. Blondel (1987), pp. 80-114, for a discussion of ways in which the analysis of the respective role of leaders and of the environment might be undertaken.
B. Headey (1974), pp. 23-4. J. D. Barber (1968), in particular pp. 19-21.
B. Headey (1974), p. 50-5.
Ibid., p. 49.
Ibid, p. 60.
The four components are related in forming an underlying factor. The figures are
Fifty-three respondents stated that they acted themselves beyond their jurisdiction, often while also stating that the bulk of ministers did so occasionally.
The question of the relationship between ministers and civil servants has been often discussed, in many cases to suggest that ministers were not obeyed or had their proposals blocked. This was said in particular by R. H. S. Crossman in his Diaries of a Cabinet Minister. Most ministers do not appear to share this viewpoint: see below.
The factor loadings are:
B. Headey (1974), p. 62ff.
P. Kellner and Lord Crowther-Hunt (1977). J. D. Aberbach et al. (1981) place no emphasis on the problem.
The factor loadings are:
B. Headey (1974), p. 14.
It was found that, in reality, at least the German liberals did gain appreciably from their pivotal position, however small they were. See R. Hoffebert and H. Klingemann (1990), passim.
J. Blondel and J.- L. Thiébault (1991), chs 5 (L. De Winter, ’Party and parliamentary pathways to the cabinet’) and 6 (W. E. Bakema, ‘The ministerial career’).
We had occasion to note in Chapter 4 the relatively limited extent to which discussion takes place in the French cabinet: the fact that it is not larger may have some relationship with the low level of satisfaction of French ministers which we shall examine shortly.
In Germany, the proportions of the two groups are identical and, in the Netherlands, some questions on ‘activism’ had not been asked.
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© 1993 Jean Blondel and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel
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Blondel, J. (1993). Individual Ministers and their Role in Cabinet Decision-Making. In: Blondel, J., Müller-Rommel, F. (eds) Governing Together. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22936-9_8
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