The Conditions of President/Cabinet Conflict

Using a new dataset of expert evaluations of president/cabinet conflict in European parliamentary and semi-presidential democracies from 1995-2015, this paper examines the effect of presidential power on president/cabinet conflict. This factor has largely been ignored by previous studies of this topic. To investigate the impact of this factor, the paper adopts a multi-method approach. It begins by reporting the results of a multivariate model. This model demonstrates that presidential power is a strong and significant predictor of president/cabinet conflict during this period. It then turns to Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Using the same dataset, it shows that the combination of three conditions is sufficient for president/cabinet conflict: the presence of a strong president; the presence of cohabitation; and the absence of a government formed immediately after a presidential election. Overall, this paper adds to existing knowledge by showing that presidential power is likely to be associated with president/cabinet conflict and by identifying the specific institutional conditions under which it is present.