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The Making of Cabinet Ministers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Richard Rose
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Extract

Ministers are very busy and harassed people. Some of them encourage their staff when presenting their work to make what is complex appear to be simple, to draft papers composed of short sentences and cut up into short paragraphs, so that they can be taken in almost at a glance. This process (which has its dangers) is as far removed as it is possible to be from the deliberate and exhaustive methods of formal scholarship. That is why the proceedings of bureaucrats appear to the academic mind to be so superficial.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , October 1971 , pp. 393 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

1 Cf. Mackintosh, John P., The British Cabinet (London: Stevens, 1962);Google ScholarChester, D. N., ‘Who Governs Britain?’, Parliamentary Affairs, XV (1962), 519–27;Google ScholarBrown, A. H., ‘Prime Ministerial Power’, Public Law (Spring & Summer, 1968) pp. 28–51, 96–118;Google Scholar and Walker, P. Gordon, The Cabinet (London: Cape, 1970).Google Scholar

2 For a comment, see e.g., Fry, G. K., ‘Some Weaknesses in the Fulton Report on the British Home Civil Service’, Political Studies, XVII (1969), 484–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 See the items cited in the bibliography of Rose, Richard, ed., Policy-Making in Britain (London: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 369–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Cf. Finer, S. E., ‘The Individual Responsibility of Ministers’. Public Administration, XXXIV (1956), 377–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Marshall, G. and Moodie, G. C., Some Problems of the Constitution (London: Hutchinson, 1959).Google Scholar

5 See Alderman, R. K. and Cross, J. A., ‘The Parliamentary Private Secretary’, Political Studies, XIV (1966), 199–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Cf. Olson, Mancur Jr, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965).Google Scholar

7 See, for example, the data on university education among MPs and Cabinet ministers in Rose, Richard, ‘Class and Party Divisions: Britain as a Test Case’, Sociology, II (1968), 129–62, Tables 12–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 See Willson, F. M. G. ‘The Routes of Entry of New Members of the British Cabinet, 1868–1958’, Political Studies, VII (1959), 222–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and by the same author, ‘Entry to the Cabinet, 1959–1968’, Political Studies, XVIII (1970), 236–38Google Scholar.

9 In 1964, Harold Wilson appointed five individuals from outside the Commons to posts at the level of Minister outside the Cabinet or higher. The results did not inspire emulation by Mr Heath; in 1970, he named only Lord Aberdare to a ministerial post without substantial parliamentary experience.

10 Willson, , ‘The Routes of Entry’, p. 227.Google Scholar

11 Willson, , ‘Entry to the Cabinet, 1959–1968’, p. 238.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Willson, , ‘Entry to the Cabinet, 1959–1968’, and Stanley, David, Mann, Dean E. and Doig, Jameson W., Men Who Govern (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1967), Table 3.1.Google Scholar

13 Heasman, D. J., ‘Ministers’ Apprentices’, New Society, 16 07 1964.Google Scholar

14 See, for example, the personal accounts by Ernest Marples and Patrick Gordon Walker contained in Rose, , ed., Policy-Making in Britain, pp. 115–31.Google Scholar

15 Headey's research will be reported in a book-length study of the roles of Cabinet ministers.

16 An analysis of a year of parliamentary legislation found that the number of ‘administrative’ bills was as great as that of ‘policy bills’; ministers need not be the initiators of the former – or of the latter – type of bill. Cf. Burton, I. F. and Drewry, G., ‘Public Legislation: a Survey of the Session 1968–1969’, Parliamentary Affairs, XXIII (1970), 154–83.Google Scholar

17 A book-length study of the evolution of the Shadow Cabinet is currently being undertaken by R. M. Punnett of the Politics Department of the University of Strathclyde.

18 Cf. Rose, Richard, ‘The Variability of Party Government: a Theoretical and Empirical Critique’, Political Studies, XVII (1969), 413–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Cf. Oakeshott, M. J., Political Education (Cambridge: Bowes & Bowes, 1951), p. 10.Google Scholar

10 Cf. Henry, Laurin, Presidential Transitions (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1960).Google Scholar

21 See Lowe, Richard, ‘Political Instability in Western Nations’ (Glasgow: University of Strathclyde Politics Department, unpublished manuscript, 1969).Google Scholar

22 Cf. Stanley et al., Men Who Govern, Tables E.1–12.

23 See Willson, , ‘Entry to the Cabinet, 1959–1968’, p. 238.Google Scholar

24 For a good discussion of the tactics of leak in the Wilson Cabinet, see Walker, Gordon, The Cabinet, pp. 167 ff.Google Scholar

25 The Civil Service: Report of Lord Fulton's Committee (London: HMSO, 1968, Cmnd. 3638), Vol. I, paragraphs 283–4.Google Scholar

26 Rose, See, ‘The Variability of Party Government’, pp. 440 ffGoogle Scholar, for a more detailed statement of this argument. For Apter's, term, see The Politics of Modernization (Chicago: University Press, 1965).Google Scholar

27 The quotation is cited from Parris, Henry, Constitutional Bureaucracy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969), pp. 107 ff.Google Scholar

28 Cf. Clark, G. Kitson, ‘Statesmen in Disguise’, The Historical Journal, II (1959), 19–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar