IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/mpifgd/049.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Office versus Policy Motives in Portfolio Allocation: The Case of Junior Ministers

Author

Listed:
  • Manow, Philip
  • Zorn, Hendrik

Abstract

Why junior ministers? What function do they serve? Two explanations dominate the literature. Both focus on the role of junior ministers in coalition formation and coalition management. One approach sees junior ministers as instruments for controlling policy, the other as a means to solve or ease distributive conflict among coalition partners. As of yet, the literature lacks a discussion about when the two interpretations lead to similar empirical predictions and when they lead to different ones. The paper claims that different patterns of portfolio distribution can inform us about the underlying policy or office motives of the partners of a coalition government. Analyzing a rich data set on 11 countries from 1949 to 2004, the paper identifies a group of countries in which portfolio allocation shared a pattern best explained by office-seeking behavior, whereas in another group of countries portfolio allocation is better explained as the result of policy-seeking behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Manow, Philip & Zorn, Hendrik, 2004. "Office versus Policy Motives in Portfolio Allocation: The Case of Junior Ministers," MPIfG Discussion Paper 04/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/19911/1/dp04-9.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schofield, Norman & Laver, Michael, 1985. "Bargaining Theory and Portfolio Payoffs in European Coalition Governments 1945–83," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(2), pages 143-164, April.
    2. Mershon, Carol, 1996. "The Costs of Coalition: Coalition Theories and Italian Governments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(3), pages 534-554, September.
    3. Laver, Michael & Shepsle, Kenneth A., 1990. "Coalitions and Cabinet Government," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(3), pages 873-890, September.
    4. Golden, Miriam A., 2003. "Electoral Connections: The Effects of the Personal Vote on Political Patronage, Bureaucracy and Legislation in Postwar Italy," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(2), pages 189-212, April.
    5. Browne, Eric C. & Franklin, Mark N., 1973. "Aspects of Coalition Payoffs in European Parliamentary Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(2), pages 453-469, June.
    6. Enderlein, Henrik, 2004. "Nationale Wirtschaftspolitik in der europäischen Währungsunion," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 49, number 49.
    7. Lanny W. Martin & Georg Vanberg, 2004. "Policing the Bargain: Coalition Government and Parliamentary Scrutiny," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(1), pages 13-27, January.
    8. Ganghof, Steffen, 2004. "Wer regiert in der Steuerpolitik? Einkommensteuerreform zwischen internationalem Wettbewerb und nationalen Verteilungskonflikten," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 50, number 50.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ganghof, Steffen & Manow, Philip, 2005. "Mechanismen der Politik: Strategische Interaktion im deutschen Regierungssystem," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 54, number 54.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Woll, Cornelia, 2005. "Learning to Act on World Trade: Preference Formation of Large Firms in the United States and the European Union," MPIfG Discussion Paper 05/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Dunz, Karl, 2011. "Bargaining over the Distribution of Seats in French Regional Elections," MPRA Paper 48777, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Cornelia Woll, 2005. "Learning to Act on World Trade. Preference Formation of Large Firms in the United States and the European Union," Sciences Po publications 05/01, Sciences Po.
    4. Yasutora Watanabe, 2008. "Ministerial Weights and Government Formation: Estimation Using a Bargaining Model," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 95-119, May.
    5. Cornelia Woll, 2005. "Learning to Act on World Trade. Preference Formation of Large Firms in the United States and the European Union," Working Papers hal-01065571, HAL.
    6. Manow, Philip & Burkhart, Simone, 2004. "Legislative Autolimitation under Divided Government: Evidence from the German Case, 1976-2002," MPIfG Discussion Paper 04/11, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    7. Orestis Troumpounis & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2016. "Incomplete information, proportional representation and strategic voting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(4), pages 879-903, December.
    8. Hall, Peter A. & Gingerich, Daniel W., 2004. "Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementarities in the Macroeconomy," MPIfG Discussion Paper 04/5, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    9. Alejandro Ecker & Thomas M. Meyer, 2019. "Fairness and qualitative portfolio allocation in multiparty governments," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(3), pages 309-330, December.
    10. Quaresima, Federico, 2019. "Patronage Appointments between Politics and Public Governance: a Review," MPRA Paper 94650, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8529 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Thomas M Meyer, 2012. "Dropping the unitary actor assumption: The impact of intra-party delegation on coalition governance," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 485-506, October.
    13. Zorn, Hendrik & Schäfer, Armin & Manow, Philip, 2004. "European Social Policy and Europe's Party-Political Center of Gravity, 1957-2003," MPIfG Discussion Paper 04/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    14. André Blais & Jiyoon Kim & Martial Foucault, 2010. "Public Spending, Public Deficits and Government Coalitions," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(5), pages 829-846, December.
    15. Frechette, Guillaume R. & Kagel, John H. & Morelli, Massimo, 2005. "Gamson's Law versus non-cooperative bargaining theory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 365-390, May.
    16. Scharpf, Fritz W., 2004. "Legitimationskonzepte jenseits des Nationalstaats," MPIfG Working Paper 04/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    17. Abel Bojar, 2018. "With a Little Help from My Friends: Ministerial Alignment and Public Spending Composition in Parliamentary Democracies," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 133, European Institute, LSE.
    18. Avdagic, Sabina, 2004. "Loyalty and Power in Union-Party Alliances: Labor Politics in Postcommunism," MPIfG Discussion Paper 04/7, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    19. Göhrs, Max & Krott, Max & Hubo, Christiane, 2022. "Political parties as allies for the forestry sector: A case study from Germany," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    20. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    21. Daniel Diermeier & Hulya Eraslan & Antonio Merlo, 2003. "The Effects of Constitutions on Coalition Governments in Parliamentary Democracies," PIER Working Paper Archive 03-037, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:049. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mpigfde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.