Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

External Link

Indridi H Indridason

Selected Works

Cabinet Governance

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Cabinet Reshuffles And Ministerial Drift, Indridi H. Indridason, Christopher Kam Sep 2008

Cabinet Reshuffles And Ministerial Drift, Indridi H. Indridason, Christopher Kam

Indridi H Indridason

We model policy implementation in a parliamentary democracy as delegation between the prime minister and her cabinet ministers. We show that cabinet reshuffl#31;es can be pursued as a strategy to reduce the agency loss which occurs due to the different preferences of the actors. Our work thus explains why prime ministers would want to resort to reshu#31;ffles: cabinet reshuffl#31;es reduce the moral hazard facing ministers. This answer both augments and distinguishes our work from traditional perspectives on reshuffl#31;es that have emphasized the deleterious effects of reshuffl#31;es on ministerial capacity, and also from recent work that casts reshuffl#31;es as solutions to …


The Timing Of Cabinet Reshuffles In Five Westminster Parliamentary Systems, Indridi Indridason, Christopher Kam May 2005

The Timing Of Cabinet Reshuffles In Five Westminster Parliamentary Systems, Indridi Indridason, Christopher Kam

Indridi H Indridason

Despite their political prominence, cabinet reshuffles have not attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. We provide a theory of cabinet reshuffles that emphasizes both systematic and time-varying causes. In particular, we argue that prime ministers employ cabinet reshuffles to retain power in the face of both intraparty and electoral challenges to their leadership. We use repeated-events duration models to examine the timing of cabinet reshuffles in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom in the period 1960–2001, and find support for several of our hypotheses.