Title: Coming or Going: How Background Affects Duration in 5 Presidential Systems
Abstract: This paper is part of a book project about cabinet ministers in presidential cabinets. We use an original dataset about cabinet minister’s education, occupation, political experience (government and party posts held, connections to the president), and interest group connections to study the relationship between experience and duration in the cabinet as related to different reasons for leaving a post. We examine duration by gender, country, and type of cabinet post in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and the United States. We consistently find that being connected to ministry clients increases the chances that ministers survive in the cabinet, decreasing the chances of all kinds of exit. Ministers of Finance are at an increased risk of exiting in disgrace and at increased risk of deciding to retire. Political insiders are at a lower risk of switching posts than surviving in the cabinet, but not of exiting in other ways. Presidential friends are both more likely to exit in disgrace than endure than are non-friends, but friends are less likely than non-friends to retire rather than remain in post. However, members of political families are more likely to retire than to remain in office. Gender, however, does not affect minister's duration in relation to any reason for exiting.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 6
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