Party Control and Ministerial reorganizations: Drivers for Changes Under the Hood

Ministries are the main vehicles for political parties to attain their desired policy goals. To shape policy outputs and attain other goals associated with holding a portfolio, a party may need to reorganize a ministry. However, departmental reorganization is mostly a function of ministerial decision-making. This paper studies the extent to which a minister can redesign the ministry. We expect that restructuring depends upon the party that holds the portfolio and in particular, is a function of changes in its ideological position; the length of time it controls the portfolio; the salience attributed to the portfolio; the bargaining power in cabinet; and the presence of a watchdog junior minister. Our study, based on a dataset of Dutch ministerial reorganizations from 1980 to 2013, finds support for the idea that the time length a party holds a portfolio, the salience of the portfolio to the minister’s party and its bargaining power each influence ministerial reorganization. Junior ministers, strongly expected in both the scholarly literature and in political commentary to limit the capacity of ministers to effect change, play a role that is conditional on characteristics of the portfolio-holding party. Together these findings contribute to a growing understanding of the politics of organizational change within parts of the ministerial structure closely linked to the policy agenda.