Decabinetisation in Italian and Belgian ministerial cabinets? A comparative approach

In the last twenty years, decabinetsation reforms trying to constrain and control ministerial cabinets have been raised in academic discussions within the Napoleonic administrative tradition (Brans et al. 2017, Meert et al., forthcoming). This paper compares how two countries using the ministerial cabinet system, namely Italy and Belgium, have evolved from 2003 to 2021 in regards to decabinetisation policies. In fact, both countries have experienced decabinetisation attempts between 1999 and 2001 which were both unsucesfull. While much academic attention has been devoted to explain their relative failure, no research has sought to analyze how the regulatory framework of ministerial cabinet have evolved since then. This paper shows that most decabinetisation measures that have been implemented between 2003 and 2021 are focused on conflict of interest. Moreover, these measures are considered as indirect decabinetisation measures since they don't exclusively target ministerial cabinet. We explain the institutional evolution of Belgian and Italian ministerial cabinets by focusing on continuity and change agents (Mahoney and Thelen, 2009).