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European Integration and Prime Ministerial Power: A Differential Impact on Cabinet Reshuffles in Germany and Sweden

2012; Routledge; Volume: 21; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09644008.2012.677032

1743-8993

Hanna Bäck, Henk Erik Meier, Thomas Persson, Joern Fischer,

Political Influence and Corporate Strategies

Abstract It is commonly assumed that European integration empowers prime ministers at the expense of cabinet ministers and parliamentary actors. This article follows the suggestion that an increase in cabinet reshuffles indicates power shifts in favour of the PM, and studies reshuffles in two countries that have been involved very differently in the process of European integration, Germany and Sweden. It hypothesises that if European integration empowers the PM, the PM will employ cabinet reshuffles more often. By implication, as integration increases, (1) ministerial reshuffles should become more frequent, and (2) political insiders and ministers holding important portfolios should be more likely to be dismissed. The results found in an event history analysis show that EU integration leads to an increase of turnover when looking at Swedish post-war cabinets, whereas no such effect is found for German cabinets. These results are in line with the idea that a differential impact of Europe on intra-executive relations should be expected. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This article arises out of research partially funded by the Swedish Research Council. The authors are grateful for useful comments from participants of the panel ‘Intra-Party Conflict, Individual Ministers’ Resignations and Cabinet Reshuffles’ at the ECPR General Conference in Potsdam, 10–12 September 2009. The paper also benefitted substantially from constructive comments made by two anonymous reviewers. Notes K.H. Goetz and J.-H. Meyer-Sahling, ‘The Europeanisation of National Political Systems: Parliaments and Executives’, Living Reviews in European Governance 3/2 (2008), available from http://europeangovernance.livingreviews.org/Articles/Ireg-2008-2 (accessed 1 April 2012). T. Poguntke and P. Webb, ‘The Presidentialization of Contemporary Democratic Politics: Evidences, Causes and Consequences’, in T. Poguntke and P. 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Kassim, ‘Conclusion: The National Coordination of EU Policy: Confronting the Challenge’, in H. Kassim, B.G. Peters and V. Wright (eds), The National Co-ordination of EU Policy: The Domestic Level (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.235; H. Kassim, ‘The National Co-ordination of EU Policy: Must Europeanisation Mean Convergence?’, in K. Featherstone and C. Radaelli (eds), The Politics of Europeanisation: Theory and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p.83; B. Laffan, ‘Core Executives’, in P. Graziano and M.P. Vink (eds), Europeanization: New Research Agendas (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p.128. Laffan, ‘Core Executives’; T. Persson, ‘Explaining European Union Adjustments in Sweden's Central Administration’, Scandinavian Political Studies 30/1 (2007), p.204. Bäck et al., ‘Does European Integration’. Mair, ‘Political Parties’. Raunio, ‘Why European Integration’. J.P. Olsen, ‘The Many Faces of Europeanization’, ARENA Working Paper 2 (2002); Börzel and Risse, ‘Europeanization’. Goetz and Meyer-Sahling, ‘Europeanisation’. A. King, ‘Executives’, in N.W. Polsby and F.I. Greenstein (eds), Handbook of Political Science (Reading: Addison Wesley, 1975); E. O'Malley, ‘The Power of Prime Ministers. Results of an Expert Survey’, International Political Science Review 28/1 (2007), pp.1–22. Bäck et al., ‘Does European Integration’, H. Bäck, T. Persson, K. Vernby and H. Wockelberg, ‘In Tranquil Waters? Swedish Cabinet Ministers in the Post-war Era’, in K. Dowding and P. Dumont (eds), The Selection of Ministers in Europe: Hiring and Firing (London: Routledge, 2008), p.159. King and Allen, ‘“Off With Their Heads”’, p.249. Poguntke and Webb, ‘The Presidentialization’. Budge, ‘Party Factions’, p.329. I. Indridason and C. Kam, ‘The Timing of Cabinet Reshuffles in Five Westminster Parliamentary Systems’, Legislative Studies Quarterly 30/2 (2005), p.327; T. Dewan and K. Dowding, ‘The Corrective Effect of Ministerial Resignations on Government Popularity’, American Journal of Political Science 49/1 (2005), p.46. J.D. Huber and C. Martinez-Gallardo, ‘Replacing Cabinet Ministers: Patterns of Ministerial Stability in Parliamentary Democracies’, American Political Science Review 102/2 (2008), p.169; I. Indridason and C. Kam, ‘Cabinet Reshuffles and Ministerial Drift’, British Journal of Political Science 38/4 (2008), p.621. Indridason and Kam, ‘Cabinet Reshuffles’, p.624. Indridason and Kam, ‘The Timing of Cabinet Reshuffles’. Budge, ‘Party Factions’; S. Berlinski, T. Dewan and K. Dowding, ‘The Length of Ministerial Tenure in the United Kingdom, 1945–97’, British Journal of Political Science 37/1 (2007), p.245; Huber and Martinez-Gallardo, ‘Replacing Cabinet Ministers’. J. Pfeffer and G. Salancik, The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective (New York: Harper & Row, 1978). J.D. Huber and C. Martinez-Gallardo, ‘Cabinet Instability and the Accumulation of Experience: The French Fourth and Fifth Republics in Comparative Perspective’, British Journal of Political Science 34/1 (2004), p.27; Indridason and Kam, ‘Cabinet Reshuffles’. Berlinski et al., ‘The Length of Ministerial Tenure’; Huber and Martinez-Gallardo, ‘Replacing Cabinet Ministers’. Börzel and Risse, ‘Europeanization’; M. Haverland, ‘National Adaptation to European Integration: The Importance of Institutional Veto Points’, Journal of Public Policy 20/1 (2000), p.83. T. Börzel, ‘Shaping and Taking EU Policies: Member State Responses to Europeanization’, Queen's Papers on Europeanisation No. 2/2003 (2003). Poguntke and Webb, ‘The Presidentialization’; Indridason and Kam, ‘The Timing of Cabinet Reshuffles’; Dewan and Dowding, ‘The Corrective Effect’; Berlinski et al., ‘The Length of Ministerial Tenure’; S. Berlinski, T. Dewan, Keith Dowding and G. Subrahmanyam, ‘Choosing, Moving and Resigning at Westminster, UK’, in K. Dowding and P. Dumont (eds), The Selection of Ministers in Europe: Hiring and Firing (London: Routledge, 2009), p.58. Bäck et al., ‘In Tranquil Waters’. Budge, ‘Party Factions’. J. Fischer and A. Kaiser, ‘Hiring and Firing Ministers under Informal Constraints: Germany’, in K. Dowding and P. Dumont (eds.), The Selection of Ministers in Europe: Hiring and Firing (London: Routledge, 2009), p.21. G. Tsebelis, Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). Börzel, ‘Shaping and Taking’. J. Tallberg, ‘Bargaining Power in the European Council’, Journal of Common Market Studies 46/3 (2008), p.685. A. Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), p.485. J.B. Slapin, ‘Who is Powerful? Examining Preferences and Testing Sources of Bargaining Strength at European Intergovernmental Conferences’, European Union Politics 7/1 (2006), p.51. S. Bailer, ‘Bargaining Success in the European Union: The Impact of Exogenous and Endogenous Power Resources’, European Union Politics 5/1 (2004), p.99. G. Schneider, D. Finke and S. Bailer, ‘Bargaining Power in the European Union: An Evaluation of Competing Game-Theoretic Models’, Political Studies 58/1 (2010), p.85, see also D. Aksoy, ‘Who gets What, When, and How Revisited: Voting and Proposal Powers in the Allocation of the EU Budget’, European Union Politics 11/2 (2010), p.171. For an earlier version of this paper, we calculated ‘aggregate structural power’ as an additive index of three features: the country's share of the EU budget, the country's share of the EU's population, and the country's share of the EU's GDP. The measure correlated strongly and highly significant with voting power (r = 0.945, p = 0.000). We have here excluded Greece from the two-dimensional scatter plot, for the reason that the country is an extreme outlier – it has a very low level of political constraints (0.37). Including this case would make it difficult to display the variation between the other countries in the plot on this dimension. J. Rodden, ‘Strength in Numbers? Representation and Redistribution in the European Union’, European Union Politics 3/2 (2002), p.151. W.J. Henisz, ‘The Institutional Environment for Infrastructure Investment’, Industrial and Corporate Change 11/2 (2002), p.355. J, Teorell, S. Holmberg and B. Rothstein, The Quality of Government Dataset: Version 15May08 (University of Gothenburg: The Quality of Government Institute, 2008). K. Dowding and W.-T. Kang, ‘Ministerial Resignations 1945–97’, Public Administration 76/3 (1998), p.411; Dewan and Dowding, ‘The Corrective Effect’; Berlinski et al., ‘The Length of Ministerial Tenure’. Budge, ‘Party Factions’, p.330. Indridason and Kam, ‘The Timing of Cabinet Reshuffles’. Bäck et al., ‘In Tranquil Waters’; Berlinski et al., ‘Choosing, Moving, and Resigning’. Exit reasons have been coded on the basis of a modified version of the codebook used by Dowding and Kang, ‘Ministerial Resignations’. We here follow the coding suggested by the SEDEPE network (see H. Bäck, K. Dowding, P. Dumont, M. Kerby and L. Verzichelli, ‘The Selection and Deselection of Political Elites (SEDEPE) codebook, version January 2010’). Similarly to Berlinski et al., ‘The Length of Ministerial Tenure’, a spell is defined as the minister's length of time in one and the same portfolio in one and the same cabinet. This explains the relatively high number of spells. J.N. Druckman and P.V. Warwick, ‘The Missing Piece: Measuring Portfolio Salience in Western European Parliamentary Democracies’, European Journal of Political Research 44/1 (2005), p.17. In both Sweden and Germany, parliamentary experience is defined as a minister having held a seat in parliament at some point before the appointment. In Sweden, having held party office is defined as having been the party leader, a party ombudsman, a member of the party leadership, a member or leader of the party executive committee, having held a district position, a position in a youth organisation, or a leading position in a women's organisation. In Germany, having held party office is defined as having been the party leader, a member of the party leadership or the leadership of a parliamentary group at the national or the federal state (Länder) level, or a member of a national level party body. For more details see Bäck et al., ‘Does European Integration’. See also ibid. Bauer et al., ‘Differential Europeanization’. Bäck et al., ‘Does European Integration’. We are aware of the fact that many other features have been included in studies of cabinet reshuffles and could be included as control variables here, such as PM approval ratings and government popularity (see for example Dewan and Dowding's ‘The Corrective Effect’, which focuses specifically on the ‘corrective effect’ of ministerial resignations on government popularity). We argue that for our main goal, i.e. to analyse the effect of EU integration on cabinet reshuffles, it is less important to include such features since we do not expect government/PM support to correlate with EU integration. Hence, we should not have to worry that such features would, when included, show that we are here dealing with a spurious relationship. In short, we do not expect them to influence the relationship between our main independent variable of interest and ministerial duration. Poguntke and Webb, ‘Presidentialization’. For Swedish data sources see Bäck et al., ‘Does European Integration’. German data for TV channels are taken from the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Landesmedienanstalten, data on state quotas are from the Federal Ministry of Finance (Bundesfinanzministerium), Entwicklung der Staatsquote (Berlin: BMF – IA4., 2008) and the Federal Statistical Office (cf. N. Räth and A. Braakmann, ‘Vergleichbare Zeitreihen der Volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnungen’, Wirtschaft und Statistik 2006/10 (2006), p.1003), and data for the Alford index come from J.-E. Lane and S. Ersson, ‘Parties and Voters: What Creates the Ties?’, Scandinavian Political Studies 20/2 (1997), p.179, and the cumulated German Allbus dataset (1980–2006). There have only been four very brief phases of single-party government in Germany, where three of these lasted only a few weeks, most being the result of an early termination of a cabinet, for example due to one party leaving the cabinet (see T. Saalfeld, ‘Germany: Stable Parties, Chancellor Democracy, and the Art of Informal Settlement’, in W.C. Müller and K. Strøm (eds), Coalition Governments in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.43). J. Box-Steffensmeier and B. Jones, Event History Modelling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp.7–8. G. King, J. Alt, N. Burns and M. Laver, ‘A Unified Model of Cabinet Dissolution in Parliamentary Democracies’, American Journal of Political Science 34/4 (1990), p.846; P.V. Warwick, ‘Economic Trends and Government Survival in Western European Parliamentary Democracies’, American Political Science Review 86/4 (1992), p.875; D. Diermeier and R.T. Stevenson, ‘Cabinet Survival and Competing Risks’, American Journal of Political Science 43/4 (1999), p.1051. Huber and Martinez-Gallardo, ‘Replacing Cabinet Ministers’; Berlinski et al., ‘The Length of Ministerial Tenure’. Cf. Box-Steffensmeier and Jones, Event History Modelling, p.16; for example, in a comparative study of cabinet duration performed in August 2009, many cabinets have not experienced a terminating event, such as the German and Swedish cabinets led by Merkel and Reinfeldt, respectively. Diermeier and Stevenson, ‘Cabinet Survival’, p.1059. We here count a change of cabinet whenever: 1) general elections are held, 2) there is a change in the party composition of the cabinet, 3) there is a change of prime minister. Berlinski et al., ‘The Length of Ministerial Tenure’, p.250, also choose to censor ministerial spells two weeks before the end of government to avoid problems generated by coding errors at the end of governments. An alternative analysis that we have performed is to apply a ‘competing risks approach’, where the idea is to ‘investigate multiple modes of termination or “risks”’. Such approaches have been applied to the study of cabinet duration, distinguishing between cabinets ending due to ‘dissolution’ and ‘replacement’ (Diermeier and Stevenson, ‘Cabinet Survival’, pp.1052, 1057). Applying this approach to ministerial duration, we could for example perform a separate analysis of ministerial terminations that occur due to reasons that can be seen as indicating an exercise of PM power intended to sanction agency loss (in our preliminary analyses, we focused on Policy disagreement, Departmental error, Performance failure and Cabinet reshuffles), treating all other exit reasons as censored. However, due to a relatively low variation in the exit reasons variable, we refrain from presenting such analyses here. In some applications it is reasonable to assume that the risk of an event occurring is increasing or decreasing over time, which suggests that we should make an assumption about the shape of the baseline hazard, which implies using some sort of parametric model (for a discussion about the shape of the baseline hazard in studies of cabinet duration, see e.g. Diermeier and Stevenson, ‘Cabinet Survival’). See e.g. T. Saalfeld, ‘Veto Players, Agenda Control, and Cabinet Stability in 17 Western European Parliaments, 1945–1999’, in T. König, G. Tsebelis and M. Debus (eds), Reform Processes and Policy Change: Veto Players and Decision-making in Modern Democracies (New York: Springer, 2010); Huber and Martinez-Gallardo, ‘Replacing Cabinet Ministers’. Since we run separate analyses for each country, the approach of assuming country-level frailties is not applicable here. The fact that we find statistically significant thetas for all our models when assuming cabinet-level frailties indicates the need to control for cabinet-specific effects and suggests that the variables in the model do not completely capture all cabinet-specific information, which supports the use of this approach. Box-Steffensmeier and Jones, Event-History Modelling, p.10. Ibid., p.103. The big drop at the end of the Kaplan–Meier graph of tenures for Swedish ministers in the 1990s is due to the high turnover of ministers during the Persson government. Box-Steffensmeier and Jones, Event-History Modelling, p.63. We have here chosen to present separate analyses for each country instead of a pooled analysis. The main reason for this is ‘pedagogical’: the fact that we are in this paper mainly interested in comparing the effects of EU integration measures on cabinet reshuffles between the two countries makes presentation more straightforward when we perform separate analyses. A pooled analysis is here less attractive since it would require us to include country dummies, which would then be interacted with the other independent variables in our models. In addition, pooling would imply that in some cases we would have to deal with three-way interactions, which are difficult to interpret. Second, the advantages with pooling our data are also rather small, since we are only dealing with a small number of countries here, which makes it impossible to analyse the effect of institutional features (that vary across countries). Ideally, we would like to perform an analysis including a large number of countries, i.e. to use a cross-sectional time-series data set, pooling all the countries and including institutional features as variables. State quota, TV channels, Class voting index for both countries, and, in addition, EU membership and Coalition cabinet for Sweden. Note that the variables describing the Alford class voting index, TV channels and state quota are highly correlated with our measures of EU integration. Thus, the standard errors of the EU integration measures might be overestimated in analyses where these three variables are controlled for, biasing the results against our hypotheses. The two variables measuring EU integration are highly correlated and if we include them in the same analysis (and, in addition, the control variables), the risk of multicollinearity would be very high. As Dewan and Myatt's formal model suggests, one possible explanation for this finding might be that political insiders are given more important or more controversial portfolios for which the risk of policy failure is particularly high (T. Dewan and D.P. Myatt, ‘Scandal, Protection, and Recovery in the Cabinet’, American Political Science Review 101/1 [2007], pp. 63–77). We should also say something about the magnitude of these effects, and it should here be noted that the magnitude is of course heavily dependent on the scaling of the independent variables. For example, annual legislation here varies between 0 and 4663, and a one-step change in the independent variable here only implies an increase of one piece of legislation, i.e. a very small change. Hence, the fact that the risk of ministerial termination is increased by only 0.1 per cent when we increase annual legislation by one unit should be interpreted with caution. An alternative here would of course be to rescale the variables, but we prefer to use the natural scaling of the annual legislation variable, in order to give the reader some reference point when interpreting the effect of this variable. The EU trade share variable here varies between about 30 and 63 per cent in Sweden (between 25 and 63 per cent in Germany) and a 1 per cent increase here leads to an increase in the risk of termination by about 7–8 per cent (models 2 and 4). Huber and Martinez-Gallardo, ‘Replacing Cabinet Ministers’. However, it should be noted that these results may be due to the shared frailty design used here, where cabinets are the ‘groups’. When we do not use this frailty design and run a normal Cox Proportional Hazard Model, we find that the coefficient for coalition government is always below 1, but not significant, giving at least some support to the argument that PMs in coalition cabinets are more constrained and hence less likely to fire or move around ministers. K. Dowding and P. Dumont, ‘Structural and Strategic Factors Affecting the Hiring and Firing of Ministers’, in K. Dowding and P. Dumont (eds), The Selection of Ministers in Europe: Hiring and Firing (London: Routledge, 2009). P.V. Druckman and J.N. Druckman, ‘The Portfolio Allocation Paradox: An Investigation into the Nature of a Very Strong but Puzzling Relationship’, European Journal of Political Research 45 (2006), p.635; H. Bäck, M. Debus and P. Dumont, ‘Who gets what in Coalition Governments? Predictors of Portfolio Allocation in Parliamentary Democracies’, European Journal of Political Research 50 (2011), p.441. S. Berlinski, T. Dewan and K. Dowding, ‘The Impact of Individual and Collective Performance on Ministerial Tenure’, The Journal of Politics 72/2 (2010), p.559; M. Kerby and K. Dowding, ‘Comparative Ministerial Turnover in Canada and Australia: 1957–2011’, Paper presented at the 6th General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research, Reykjavik, 25–27 Aug. 2011.