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Ministerial careers and the nature of parliamentary government: the cases of Austria and Belgium
Author(s) -
BLONDEL J.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1988.tb00141.x
Subject(s) - government (linguistics) , politics , warrant , civil service , council of ministers , political science , public administration , service (business) , government office , political economy , law , sociology , public service , economics , local government , economy , european union , economic policy , finance , philosophy , linguistics
. The characteristics of parliamentary government vary markedly from one Western European country to another. Although we still do not know in detail the nature and amplitude of these variations, they are sufficiently manifest to warrant close examination. One way in which these variations can be assessed is through the analysis of the career patterns of ministers. These are interesting both in themselves and because they provide information about the nature of the decision‐making process: for instance, ministers who stay in office for very short periods are less likely to be involved in collective decisions than ministers who stay in office for a decade or more. Differences are particularly marked among ministerial career patterns in the Austrian and Belgian cabinets. Not only do Austrian ministers stay in office longer: they tend to come to office only once and then remain in the same post; they often do not come to the government by the parliamentary route, many coming from the civil service, industry, or interest groups. In all these respects, Belgian ministers have opposite characteristics. Thus it does seem that while both governments are ostensibly parliamentary, the Austrian government tends to be managerial, while the Belgian government is parliamentary and more truly ‘political’.