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MOST RATIONAL CHOICE THEORIES OF COMMITTEE DECISION MAKING PREDICT A PROCESS OF COMPETITIVE COALITION FORMATION LEADING TO A MINIMUM WINNING COALITION. COMMITTEE EXPERIMENTS REPORTED TO DATE TEND TO SUPPORT THESE THEORIES. HOWEVER, BOTH THEORIES AND COMMITTEE EXPERIMENTS ARE CONTRADICTED BY THE EVIDENCE OF REAL-WORLD LEGISLATURES MAKING DISTRIBUTIVE DECISIONS; THESE DECISIONS ARE CHARACTERIZED BY COALITIONS OF THE WHOLE PROVIDING VIRTUALLY ALL MEMBERS WITH A SHARE OF DISTRIBUTIVE BENEFITS. THERESULTS IN THIS ARTICLE HELP TO RESOLVE THIS CONTRADICTION BY SHOWING THAT IF THE COMMITTEE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN INCLUDES A UNIVERSALISTIC ALTERNATIVE WHICH PROVIDES A HIGH LEVEL OF EXPECTED BENEFITS FOR COMMITTEE MEMBERS, IT WILL BE SELECTED. COMPETITIVE COALITION FORMATION OCCURS IN EXPERIMENTAL SETTINGS WHICH DO NOT INCLUDE SUCH AN ALTERNATIVE. THE RESULTS CALL INTO QUESTION THE GENERALLY OF ORDINALIST THEORIES OF COMPETITIVE COALITION FORMATION.

In crises leading to a limited war, the Cabinet assigns responsibility for its detailed management to a 'War Cabinet'. For Korea the standing Defence Committee was used; the Cabinet's role was effectively limited to parliamentary and public relations. Smaller, ad hoc committees were used in the Suez and Falklands crises. At times of greatest pressure the Cabinet in each case had the formal opportunity to take major decisions; but in practice, especially during Suez, this amounted to an opportunity for a veto which was unlikely to be used. Two dangers facing a War Cabinet are those of tunnel vision and of the undue influence of military or technical considerations. The full Cabinet, best suited in principle to relate the problems of the war to the Government's other problems and goals, risks finding itself flanked by a War Cabinet too close to the war and by a Parliament which is too far away and too excitable.

Considers the implications of the involvement of the Cabinet Office in the formulation of UK energy policy, highlighting its 2002 review of such policy & recommendations for realizing a "decarbonized" future via the implementation of increasingly strict standards for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Factors at the national & international level that prompted Prime Minister Tony Blair to request this policy review from the Cabinet Office's Performance & Innovation Unit are identified, & the "radical" nature of its conclusions & recommendations is discussed. Aspects of the energy review that proved particularly difficult given the current UK political situation during the Labour Party's second term in office & the nation's history of dependence on highly carbonized fossil fuels are analyzed. Some unresolved problems are considered, & prospects for the emergence of a genuinely progressive environmental policy are evaluated. K. Hyatt Stewart

This short article reports the findings of a collaborative class project involving final-year undergraduate students enrolled at Royal Holloway, University of London. It adapts Patrick Dunleavy's measures of 'positional power' to explore the distribution of influence within the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. It examines both prime minister David Cameron's and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg's share of power inside the cabinet committee system, as well as the two coalition parties' overall share of power, and further compares the distribution of power among ministers in the coalition with the distribution of power in Tony Blair's third-term government and Gordon Brown's government. The results suggest, first, that the Liberal Democrats were in a position to wield greater influence across government policy than implied by their initial allocation of government posts; and, second, that prime ministers have become increasingly reluctant direct participants in the cabinet committee system. Adapted from the source document.

The announcement in October, 1946, that in future a single Minister of Defense will sit in the British cabinet, and that the ministers of the three armed services will no longer be of cabinet rank, marks the culmination of a long and important trend in Britain's governmental organization. It is also of interest as the present British answer to advocates of a merger of the Navy, Army, and Air Force. To see the full meaning of this step, it is necessary to refer to two closely related problems of long standing: the question of the size of the cabinet and that of what is broadly known as imperial defense.From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the British cabinet, originally ten or eleven in number, increased to about fourteen or fifteen in the 1870's and 1880's. By the end of the century, however, increase of governmental services and multiplication of departments raised the normal size of cabinets to nineteen or twenty, and after the first World War to twenty or even twenty-two. Since the cabinet as such functions as a committee, it has been frequently pointed out that the present size is too large for prompt and decisive deliberation; and the experience of two great wars has shown without question that large-scale planning and the coördination of the innumerable interlocking aspects of a national war effort require a much smaller and more cohesive group. The existence around the premier of an inner circle of three or four ministers, among whom many of the most important decisions are made, is as old as cabinet government, but cannot be satisfactory for modern needs.

USING ROLL-CALL DATA FOR NINE HOUSE COMMITTEES, THIS PAPER SEEKS 1) TO PLACE THE COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSON, AS FORMAL LEADER, IN THE VOTING STRUCTURE OF THE COMMITTEE AND 2) TO EXPLORE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CHAIR'S POSITION. WE FIND THAT CHAIRPERSONS CLEARLY ASSUME PATTERNS OF LEADERSHIP WE DESCRIBE AS PARTISANEXTREMISTS, PARTISANMIDDLEMAN, AND BIPARTISAN-CONSENSUAL. WE ALSO FIND THAT THEIR LEADERSHIP STANCES ARE RELATED TO THE COMMITTEES' PARTISANSHIP, INTEGRATION, AND SUCCESS ON THE HOUSE FLOOR.

In early 2000, a start was made with a sweeping reform of the federal political & administrative structures & procedures in Belgium. One very important element of these reform plans was to dramatically reduce the size of ministers' personal staff. It appears that the government even intends to abolish the "almighty" ministerial cabinets. In this article, we consider the possibilities & difficulties associated with the likely abolition of ministerial cabinets in Belgium. First, we deal with the occurrence & the shape of ministerial staffs in other countries. Then, we explore why Belgium's ministerial cabinets have come under such heavy fire. Finally, we try to demonstrate that ministerial cabinets do not only display a whole array of dysfunctions, but that they also fulfill a crucial, functional role in the Belgian policy-making process. This raises the question: who or what will take over their function? If their tasks are not assumed by other institutions or bodies, the abolition of the ministerial cabinets will not generate better governance, but quite the opposite. 1 Figure, 77 References. Adapted from the source document.