What Makes a Minister an Agenda-Setter? Evidence from Cabinet Ministers in Israel 1981-2019

In parliamentary democracies, individual ministers play a central role in policy formulation and implementation. Ministers have significant agenda-setting power by virtue of their position, as well as significant autonomy to operate within their ministry. Not all ministers use this power equally. However, so far, we do not know what makes ministers more likely to be “agenda setters.” This paper aims at narrowing this gap by examining what affects the ministers’ use of their agenda-setting power within their ministries. To answer this question, the paper examines the relations between cabinet ministers and agenda dynamics in 19 cabinet ministries in Israel from 1981-2018. The analysis is based on interviews conducted with 20 former ministers and two original data sets; first, personal and political characteristics of all cabinet ministers in Israel during the examined period, and second the main policy objectives of each ministry as appear in the annual budget through the entire period under examination coded based on their topic using the Comparative Agendas Project coding scheme. Preliminary findings show that changes in the agenda often correspond to change in the minister in office. Ministers who have previous knowledge of the policy subject matter or those who stay in office long enough to familiarize themselves with the ministry's policy are more likely to change the agenda in their departments. In addition, ministers in more salient ministries are more likely to affect the agenda in their ministries than ministers in less salient ministries. Lastly, ministers who are motivated to change the policy, either because of their interest in the policy field or because they see the ministry as a springboard to further promotions will be more likely to affect the agenda of their ministries.