Ministerial Advisers as Power Resources
Exploring Expansion, Stability and Contraction in Westminster Ministers’ Offices
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6311642 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Heath Pickering (0000-0001-5277-2211, KU Leuven Public Governance Institute , Leuven , Belgium), Jonathan Craft (0000-0003-4397-9995, School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto Department of Political Science, Munk , Canada), Marleen Brans (0000-0003-0468-2929, KU Leuven Public Governance Institute , Leuven , Belgium) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 77 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 305-327 |
| Publication date | 2024-04-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Parliamentary Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-2290 • E-ISSN: 1460-2482 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/pa/gsad005 |
| OpenAlex | W4362548804 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 28 |
In this article, we argue that the entourage of ministerial advisers available to prime ministers and other ministers is an institutional power resource that can serve as a useful indicator to measure the changing nature of the political executive. Two novel contributions are made utilising four new datasets on ministerial advisers coupled with a comparative analysis of 21 governments in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, in varying dates between 1997 and 2020. First, by using ministerial advisers as a proxy indicator, we chart how the offices of executive politicians can either expand, remain stable or contract. As a corrective to the general long-term narrative that ministers’ offices continually expand, our evidence shows this expansion has in some cases been interrupted and more generally manifests in different patterns from one government to the next. Second, we interrogate these patterns against the background of four typical assumptions from the party family, government tenure, parliamentary control and leadership stability literature. The new datasets, typology and analysis provide fresh comparative insights to advance our understanding about the evolving nature of the political executive in the four classic Westminster family countries
Government (linguistics · Narrative · Political science · Political stability · Politics · Proxy (statistics · Sociology · Typology · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Public Administration · Public Policy and Administration Research
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| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |