A cabinet reshuffle is a change in the composition and allocation of ministerial responsibilities within a government administration. It allows the principal to refresh his or her top team, reassign priorities and competencies between departments, or simply re-organise matters for efficiency. Reshuffles also often have an element of political manipulation, as the principal can use it to demote rivals and exercise internal party discipline. Reshuffles can have significant impacts on government performance, particularly in sectors that rely on direct departmental guidance. They are, however, often the subject of political blame for policy failures and civil service incompetence.
The underlying problem is that these changes in cabinet membership and portfolio allocation are a consequence of a systemic political phenomenon, in which the executive’s authority is decoupled from the legislative branch. In these parliamentary systems, the prime minister is the de facto head of government and, in practice, can replace ministers at will. This makes the cabinet de facto a subordinate body to the head of state and, in the case of coalition governments, to the prime minister’s own party.
Reshuffles are far more common in parliamentary systems than in presidential ones, but even in these latter countries they happen frequently. They are most frequent in countries with a bicameral legislature, where cabinet members must be elected by parliament. The article first reviews the existing literature on cabinet reshuffles and proposes a conceptual distinction between a reactive reshuffle and a proactive one. It then applies this distinction to a comparison of the reshuffle landscapes in four large West European parliamentary democracies.
About the Author
