Cabinet Instability and Delegation in Parliamentary Democracies

Abstract

In most parliamentary democracies, two things are true: cabinet ministers delegate to bureaucrats and coalition governments replace cabinet ministers with little advance notice. Many people claim that cabinet instability (i.e., uncertainty about the timing of ministerial replacements) allows bureaucrats to ignore ministerial orders. To evaluate this claim, we present a delegation model that introduces cabinet instability as a variable. We discover numerous cases in which instability has no effect on bureaucratic behavior. We also identify circumstances in which instability causes bureaucrats not to choose policies that would otherwise make both them and their ministers better off. Such outcomes are caused by the bureaucrats' dilemma-the fear that a bureaucrat's efforts will be unrewarded, or even punished, if the incumbent minister is replaced unexpectedly. In general, we find that instability's effects on delegation are usually taken for granted and often misunderstood. With this model, we seek to improve on both counts.

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