Portfolio Allocation as Leadership Strategy: Bargaining among and within Parties.

Abstract

In parliamentary democracies, cabinet ministers hold very important positions because they make policies and oversee the implementation of policy on behalf of the government. This dissertation introduces a theoretical framework that accounts for the allocation of cabinet portfolios as a product of a prime minister’s “political strategy.” The prime minister is concerned about productive policy-making as well as the long-term survival of the government. These concerns affect the bargains that the prime minister will choose to strike with potential and existing coalition partners. From this theoretical framework, I develop a game-theoretic model that articulates the circumstances under which the prime minister of a coalition government is likely to surrender various numbers of portfolios. I then evaluate the model’s predictions by drawing on data from coalition governments in thirteen Western European countries. The empirical work demonstrates that the prime minister uses portfolio allocation as an instrument to defuse tensions among coalition partners as well as to reward them for joining the ruling coalition. I find that the prime minister’s party surrenders more portfolios not only as its bargaining power in assembling a coalition declines, but also as the policy preferences of coalition partners become more divergent. Since bargaining over cabinet portfolios also takes place within parties, I further extend my theoretical framework to explain portfolio allocation among party factions. Party leaders decide how to allocate portfolios among their party’s members, but many do so while cognizant of internal divisions among their party’s factions. To explore how the dynamics of portfolio allocation work within parties, I examine an important case in Japan where the long tenure in power of the Liberal Democratic Party allows us to investigate systematic variation in allocation outcomes. The empirical findings suggest that substantial variance exists in allocation outcomes over time because, similar to prime ministers in coalition governments, party leaders also allocate cabinet portfolios among factions as a means of preventing defections and challenges from internal rivals. The resulting portfolio allocation reflects the bargaining dynamics within the party and affects the extent to which party members are willing to behave in a disciplined manner in the parliament.Ph.D.Political ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75937/1/onoy_1.pd