Poster #6 - Does the right experience matter? Cabinet members' career trajectories and government performance in weak institutional settings

• In Event: Saturday Poster Luncheon

Abstract

Academics have extensively examined the factors driving cabinet members’ appointments and removals, as well as the consequences for government stability (Ryu et al. 2020; Inácio et al. 2022). A growing strand of this literature examines the factors that shape cabinet members' tenure (Petrovsky et al. 2017). Yet these relationships remain largely untested in non-Western presidential regimes with weak institutions (Hahm et al. 2014), where political volatility, personalism, and limited bureaucratic autonomy are prevalent. In such settings, a reverse relationship may be relevant: rather than outcomes driving turnover, cabinet members' tenure may shape what governments can accomplish and how they are assessed. Prior literature has shown that shorter cabinet tenures are associated with lower performance (Hahm et al. 2014). Yet in institutionally weak contexts, where cabinet composition is strategically used to build and sustain governing coalitions, individual traits (career trajectories in particular) may take on greater weight, allowing ministers to produce results within the short tenures these settings impose. Building on this gap, the present study asks two questions. First, to what extent do cabinet members' career trajectories shape government outcomes in an institutionally weak context? Second, can such experience buffer the performance disruption typically associated with short ministerial tenures? We address this question by analyzing the tenure lengths of cabinet members in Colombia (a presidential democracy marked by fixed terms, no reelection, persistent coalition bargaining, and weak institutional controls over political appointments). Drawing on a newly developed prosopographic dataset covering 119 cabinet members across 15 years, coded for biographical and professional traits as well as tenure length, we argue that cabinet members' career trajectories, especially in public managerial roles, shape government outcomes as measured by various indicators.

References:

Hahm, S. D., Jung, K., & Lee, S. Y. (2014). An Empirical Analysis on the Determinants of the Length of Ministerial Tenure in Korea, 1980-2008. International Public Management Journal, 17(2), 202-223.

Inácio, M., Llanos, M., & Pinheiro, B. (2022). Cabinet Reshuffles in Latin America: A Function of Presidential Reputation. Government and opposition (London), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2022.19

Petrovsky, N., Boyne, G. A., James, O., & Moseley, A. (2017). What Explains Agency Heads' Length of Tenure? Testing Managerial Background, Performance, and Political Environment Effects. Public administration review, 77(4), 591-602.

Ryu, L., Moon, M. J., & Yang, J. J. (2020). The politics of government reorganizations: Evidence from 30 OECD countries, 1980–2014. Governance, 33(4), 935-951.

Author

• Mauricio Astudillo Rodas, Florida State University
  Presenting Author