Junior Ministers

This article aims at contributing to a better understanding of the role of junior ministers (JMs) in contemporary parliamentary governments. Using principal–agent theory, we attempt to shed light on the content of the delegation relationship between JMs and their principals, mainly cabinet ministers and the prime minister. By applying categorical principal components analysis, we examine recruitment patterns in order to clarify whether JMs tend to focus on policy outputs, party building or political projection and management. The analysis employs data on all the Spanish Secretarios de Estado (SEs) from the creation of the office in 1977 until 2010. The results suggest that delegation to SEs mostly emphasizes policy outputs, since expertise dominates as a recruitment feature, though political skills and party connections are also valued complementary assets.

This paper analyses the socio-political profile and the governmental career of the junior ministers who
held office in Portugal between 1976 and 2011, putting the focus on the differentiation between individuals
with and without prior political experience. Contrary to what is indicated in the literature, the
results of this investigation reveal that most of these individuals are politically inexperienced and have
a short and occasional governmental career. There are, however, important differences if we consider
their political background, which confirms the relevance of the distinction between political and nonpolitical
junior ministers.

The paper analyses the phenomenon of politicization within the Spanish executive elite, focusing in two highest politico-administrative strata: cabinet ministers and junior ministers. The degree of politicization at each level and its evolution along time is identified through the examination of the respective individual characteristics and previous political careers in the period 1977-2010. This allows us to check for patterns of variation in the degree of politicisation between and within each group, as well as to determine the possible rationales behind the phenomenon – basically, rewarding party members or keeping partisan control over policy making within public administration. Then, the analysis try to explain these differences, focusing on the following explanatory factors: 1) the inner characteristics of the position (i.e., we hypothesize junior ministers are less politicised vis à vis cabinet ministers given the lower political saliency of the office and the higher weight of policy and administrative functions); 2) the type of portfolio involved (there are some portfolios where politicisation is more likely to observe compared to others; and 3) political context, this referring to several characteristics of the respective government – party in office, government stability (type of majority in parliament supporting the government, and prime-ministerial style). Our analysis uses data on the whole population of Spanish cabinet ministers and secretaries of State between 1977 and 2010, containing information both on their social and professional background, as well as on their entire political careers (before and after occupying the position) coded in longitudinal form.