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Does ministry type influence profiles in upper-level bureaucracy? To govern, presidents need to 01. maintain control over the content of public policies, 02. make political concessions that earn them enough parliamentary support to see those policies approved, and 03. build or keep in place the bureaucratic competencies necessary to implement them. We argue that the president makes key appointments according to the nature of the policies of each ministry and their centrality in the executive branch's decision-making process. Employing cluster analysis, we propose an objective classification of ministries into four types: 'coordination', 'redistribution' (social policy and income), 'regulation', and 'distribution'. We also identify their relationship with the profiles of those who have occupied positions in the middle and upper echelons of Brazil's federal bureaucracy – what are referred to in Brazilian nomenclature as 'DAS roles' (in which 'DAS' stands for Direção e Assessoramento Superior) – in the period from 1999 to 2016. Our findings indicate that presidents choose to professionalize the bureaucracy of the 'coordination' and 'redistribution' ministries, to appoint partisans to the bureaucracy of the 'distribution' and 'regulation' ministries, and to allocate partisans of the coalition partners to the ministries controlled by those parties.

There are significant lessons to be learned about relations between the Court and Congress from this analysis of the past dozen years. Firstly, while the appointment and confirmation process ensures some general congruence of thinking between Justices, presidents and members of Congress, the weakness of ex post controls guarantees that substantial differences appear regularly and enduringly. Secondly, the Court highlights the serious fissures that run through American conservatism on numerous key issues, since it sees it as its duty to tackle contentious issues which are rarely debated in Congress. Finally, institutional demands inevitably influence how judges, legislators and executives view issues. Even if Republicans continue to control the White House and appoint several more reliably conservative judges to the Supreme Court, they will continue to disagree on many issues.

The public face of events is often very different from their true inward nature. Sometimes it is possible so to arrange things that the real facts have been wholly concealed and a harmless but false conclusion is drawn from events. The appointment of John Buchan as Governor General of Canada in 1935 is a case in point. MacGregor Dawson, like everybody else, drew a conclusion from that appointment which can now be shown to differ from the actual constitutional lesson which emerges from the evidence. He said: "Mr. Bennett stated in 1936 that when Lord Tweedsmuir's name was being considered, he, as Prime Minister, first discussed the matter with Mr. Mackenzie King, the Leader of the Opposition, so that the Governor's appointment was in effect quite non-partisan in character inasmuch as it carried the approval of the leaders of both major parties."This arrangement of bi-partisan recommendation, he said, "may prove to be an accepted practice." Whatever its practical advantages, a moment's reflection will show that it is hardly in accord with the theory of responsible government. Furthermore, the events which led up to this particular appointment were far more complex, and lead inescapably to a rather different set of conclusions.

The League of Women Voters of Texas is a non-partisan organization that works to promote political responsibility through active informed participation of all citizens in their government. In 1919, the Texas Equal Suffrage Association evolved into the Texas League of Women Voters, and today is recognized as the League of Women Voters of Texas. Their hallmark activity is the circulation of Voters' Guides through newspapers prior to elections; locally, regionally, statewide, and nationally. The League's intent is dissemination of information on political candidates, and the objective promotion of "political responsibility through informed and active participation of citizens in government." The organization's efforts, however, are by no means limited to politics, but also address issues on water, health care, hazardous wastes, education, energy, and such international concerns as the United Nations. ; The records of the League of Women Voters of Texas also reflect socio-economic changes in the United States with the active organizational membership drives of the mid to late 1970s in response to American society's evolution into a two income family. Collectively, the materials provide researchers with invaluable insight into politics and political concerns on an international, national, statewide, and local basis. ; The collection consists of materials from national, state, and local files, financial materials, photographs, and publications of the National, Texas, and local leagues, as well as other state leagues. Also included are a study of the national league, scrapbooks, memorabilia, vice-presidential program files, and printed materials. The focus of the collection is on state committees and local units. ; Highlights from the donation include the original 1919 minutes from the Texas Equal Suffrage Association authorizing the organizational conversion to the Texas League of Women Voters, films produced by the group on legislative processes, the 104th Congressional recognition given and signed by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on the 75th anniversary of the League of Women Voters of Texas, and the flag that flew over the Texas capitol on that day. ; Box 2, Folder 15

CAG has constitutional mandate to audit the accounts of Union and States and is to submit audit reports to Parliament and State assemblies to ensure that executive is accountable to legislatures on public finance management. In the backdrop of recent indigestible reports divulging massive plundering of public funds and resources, the article focuses on what procedure needs to be adopted by the Executive to select the CAG who has duty and powers to question wisdom of the government in expenditure management. The paper also examines what could be the selection method to appoint CAG so that one is able to function towards constitutional responsibility without favour and fear. This article explores whether there exists an explicit and transparent system forappointing the CAG and whether that system facilitates one to remain non-partisan and independent eliminating 'conflict of interest' and 'obligations of reciprocity', and furthermore, as well, examines the needs for constitutional amendments and other legislative changes in the relevant laws.

Under which circumstances are women appointed to ministerial positions? In this article, I provide a theoretical framework for the role of gender in ministerial selection by considering the policy, office, and vote-seeking motivations of party leaders. I present an original data set which details, at the party level, the appointment of female cabinet ministers in 30 European countries between 1970 and 2015. Using negative binomial regression models, I find that left-wing party leaders appoint more women than leaders of right-wing parties. Female party leaders appoint more women ministers than their male counterparts. Women are better represented in governments in gender-progressive countries, and survey data analysis shows that party leaders appoint more women when their supporters have more progressive gender attitudes. This analysis provides an original insight into how gender has shaped the partisan dynamics of ministerial selection across Europe over 45 years.

Presidents have been found to have influence over the decisions of a number of independent regulatory commissions, but research has left unanswered the question of the mechanism of impact. In this article, the impact of appointment is studied on the ICC from 1955 to 1974. No presidential influence through appointment was detected. This lack of impact was speculated to be caused by the lack of fit between the cases that the ICC deals with and the issue positions of the parties. What may look like presidential impact on other commissions may only be the shared attitudes of presidents and commissioners on commissions that deal with partisan related issues.

Patronage is an enduring feature of contemporary politics and may well develop in modern, mass organized and ideological political parties. This article approaches patronage in an analytical way, and seeks to explore its micro-foundations and logic of development. As the case of Greece's socialist party suggests, patronage is the deliberate outcome of choices made by political actors at the sub-party level in their pursuit of power. Three particular actors are identified and their relations analysed: the party leader, the party organization and the party officeseekers, who are further distinguished into `patrons' and `partisans'. Patronage is likely to develop when a party leader is able to exercise control of both the party organization and the appointments for public office; in this case, even ideologically motivated partisans are expected to turn into self-interested patrons. Finally, some interesting implications for further research are pointed out.

The U.S. Supreme Court's intervention into the recess appointments controversy during the Obama administration demonstrates how an overly legalistic conception of the Constitution's separation of powers can undermine constitutional politics. The formalistic line drawing by the Court, without attention to larger constitutional objectives, not only legitimized partisan obstruction of the Senate but also prevented the president from ensuring the proper functioning of the government based on the duly enacted laws of Congress. This article argues that political contestation between the branches—structured by legitimate constitutional claims—could have restarted a stalled deliberative process whereas legal resolution distorted the political dynamics at play, giving the illusion of an imperial presidency while providing legal cover for congressional abdication.

Only a few studies of the lower federal court confirmation process consider the role of the race/gender of nominees in that process and none consider the intersection of party politics with those characteristics. We address this deficiency, arguing that the different electoral incentive structures of the two major parties have consequences for the treatment of minority and female nominees. The levels of minority and female support enjoyed by the Democratic Party, as well as the Republican Party's desire to shed its reputation as being insensitive to issues of importance to those constituencies, lead us to expect that the nominations of minorities and women will be handled most expeditiously under conditions of unified Republican control, followed by unified Democratic control, divided control with a Republican president and divided control with a Democratic president. Our empirical analysis provides partial support for this hierarchy and demonstrates the importance of considering the conditioning effect of partisan politics.

There is a natural tension between theories of party government and theories of regulatory politics. Whereas effective party government requires that politicians have firm control over public policy, the need for credible commitment in regulation stipulates that policy-making capacities are delegated to independent agencies. While the theoretical dimension of this tension is well established, there is little research that examines its empirical implications. To narrow this gap, the analysis assesses whether legal agency independence limits the influence of parties on agency executives. To that end, it investigates the careers of 300 CEOs in 100 West European regulatory agencies. The analysis shows that high levels of agency independence protect appointees with opposition ties from early removal. This presents some of the first evidence to suggest that the institutional response to credibility pressures limits the political use of the appointment channel and, thus, has the potential to constrain party control in regulatory politics.

The United States runs its elections unlike any other country in the world. Responsibility for elections is entrusted to local officials in approximately 8,000 different jurisdictions. In turn, they are subject to general oversight by officials most often chosen through a partisan appointment or election process. The point of contact for voters in the polling place is usually a temporary employee who has volunteered for one-day duty and has received only a few hours of training. These defining features of our electoral system, combined with the fact that Americans vote more frequently on more