The Prime Minister And The Cabinet Flashcards
Establishing authority
- incoming PMs often seek to stamp their authority over their party by removing certain cabinet ministers and replacing them with their own allies.
Loyalty and Political reliability
- PMs also seek to reward the loyalty of key allies and bring ministers they know will accept collective responsibility and support government policy in public.
- loyalty and political reliability must be balanced by PMs with keeping in favour with different faction of their party.
Ideological balance
- in order to make sure their party stays united, PMs often select and ideologically balanced cabinet which represents different factions of the party. Keeping important members of the party who may oppose you in the cabinet is effective as they have to sign up to collective responsibility and therefore unable to publicly challenge the government.
- more recently, PMs can be seen to have placed less importance on this ideological balance. Popular PMs with large majorities may feel sager appointing like-minded ministers and often clear out less supportive ministers in cabinet reshuffles.
Direct representation and diversity
- especially in recent years, PMs have found it important to ensure their cabinets are somewhat representative of the population in terms of gender and ethnicity in particular.
Management skills of the PM
- effective PM can use their powers of patronage to shape the top team in a way that enhances their power and enables them to promote their policy priorities and agenda, removing poor performers, bringing in fresh talent and promoting ideological allies.
This can allow PMs to maintain their authority and marginalise the power of factions/ individuals in their party who may want to challenge them for the leadership/ destabilise the government.
PMs ability to set agenda
- PMs chair all cabinet meetings and sums up the discussion at the end, giving them scope to lead people towards their desired position on particular issues.
- PMs can also keep things off the agenda in meetings.
- David Cameron made austerity key to the coalition’s policies and the responsibility of every department, therefore effectively setting the governments and cabinets agenda.
Use of cabinet committees and informal groups to make decisions
- PMs have more control in smaller forums and it is easier to reach a compromise with one or two key ministers than the whole cabinet. As a consequence, they often use smaller cabinet committees, bi-lateral meeting with ministers and informal groups to make decisions, shunning ht cabinet.
Special advisors to make decisions
In recent years, special advisors have occupied an important role in Downing Street and in decision making. These are unelected and are hired directly by the Prime Minister, working closely with them to develop government strategy.
The Growth Of Downing Street
- whilst in the past PM had little central support and relied a great deal on the cabinet as ministers had the administrative support of large departments, modern PMs are well supported by the PMs Office and the Cabinet Office, which worked closely with Downing Street under Blair to coordinate policy across departments.
The size of a governments majority
- when a PM has a large majority, it strengthens their power and control over the party and cabinet, as they can risk upsetting certain parts of the party whilst still knowing they will be able to pass legislation through Parliament.
- when a PM has a smaller majority, rebellions cab be a lot more damaging and the PMs therefore have less control over their cabinet, as they need to keep individuals in cabinet and factions of the party on side.
PM popularity
The popularity of a PM with the public is a highly important factor in influencing whether they are able to exercise control over their cabinet and party.
If a PM is popular with the electorate, they will be supported by their cabinet and party as they will help MPs and cabinet members get elected at the next election and therefore keep their jobs.
If a PM is unpopular, however, they will be seen as an electorate liability and their party and cabinet will often turn on them and seek to remove them.
How unified a party is
- divisions over policy within a governing party can cause problems for a PM, who may struggle to keep the support of opposing factions within a party.
The wider political and economic situation
PMs ability to control the cabinet will also to a large degree be shaped by external events and pressures.
Crises can define a PMs premiership and harm their popularity. (This can be seen for Gordon Brown following the 2008 financial crisis)
PMs are more likely to be popular and have effective control over their cabinet and party when they are presiding over a successful economy.
What does the presidentialisation of the PM imply?
Suggests that the PM increasingly acts like and has the powers of a US President.
It is linked to to Michael Foley’s concept of ‘Spatial Leadership’ that suggests that PMs are becoming more like US presidents by distancing themselves form the party and government for which they are responsible.
Arguments PMs have become more presidential
- often behave like the head of state, particularly in the context of foreign policy and in emergencies when they can rally the country behind them.
- use the media to reach out to the public and develop personal popularity.
- increasingly rely on non-elected advisors rather than their cabinet and seek to determine all of the government’s policy.
- PMs have sought to distance themselves from the rest of government and their party.
