cabinet: West's Encyclopedia of American Law (Full Article) from Answers.com

(1) A regular meeting of ministers, chaired by a head of government, with authority to make decisions on behalf of the government as a whole. Such a cabinet is common in parliamentary forms of government, including that in the United Kingdom, where it has been imitated in the devolved parliaments and assemblies for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
(2)A regular meeting of ministers which is consultative to a head of government, not sharing responsibility for final decisions. Such a cabinet is exemplified in the American presidential system.
(3) (In this meaning often spelt in italics and pronounced as in French, to indicate its origins and the distinction from senses 1 and 2.) A group of political advisers which is consultative to an individual minister. Ministerial cabinets exist in a number of European executives.

The term ‘cabinet system’ relates to sense (1), which is discussed in the remainder of this entry.

Cabinet systems of government share two common principles. First, they observe the principle of collective responsibility. Cabinet ministers share in the process of making cabinet decisions and are duly bound to defend those decisions in public irrespective of private opinion. Secondly, they observe the principle of parliamentary accountability. However, whilst the principles of cabinet government are universal, the structure, membership, and operations of cabinet in practice are open to considerable variation.

Cabinets vary in size between roughly ten and forty members. Size is principally a function of absolute levels of public expenditure and the amount of governmental business this engenders. However, it is also determined by decisions taken on the proportion of government ministers to be included in the cabinet. In Canada virtually all ministers are included as a result of the need for territorial as well as departmental representation in the cabinet, meaning that there are between thirty and forty cabinet ministers at any one time. By contrast, the United Kingdom, which has generally over a hundred government ministers, has only a fifth of them in the cabinet.

Cabinets also vary according to their use of committees. Cabinet government in Luxembourg, Iceland, and Sweden under the Social Democrats is notable for making no use of committees. In the first two cases the extent of government business is sufficiently limited to allow it to be dispatched by the meetings of full cabinet. In other cabinet systems delegation of cabinet business to committees is commonplace. It is usual that there are standing committees on foreign affairs, defence, economic policy, and budgetary policy. Beyond this there is considerable variation in both standing and ad hoc committees.

Membership of full cabinet and of cabinet committees is formally determined by the prime minister. In practice many prime ministers face many constraints. Much is made of the case of Labour governments in Australia and New Zealand, where cabinet membership is determined by parliamentary party election, the power of the prime minister being limited to the apportionment of specific cabinet portfolios. However, it is also commonplace in countries which are federal, or have strong regional government, for prime ministers to have to ensure appropriate territorial representation, and in coalition governments for each of the coalition partners to have bargained representation in cabinet and cabinet committees. Small parties which are nevertheless crucial to the forming of any government can dictate continuous control of particular cabinet portfolios, as was the case with the Free Democrats in Germany. Even where single party majority control is long-standing, the apportionment of cabinet positions may have to be sensitive to intra-party factionalism, as with the Liberal Democrat governments in Japan.

Differences in the operation of cabinet government reflect differences in structure and membership, and the role of the prime minister that they incorporate. In multi-party coalition governments a prime minister's ability to control the cabinet agenda, use cabinet debates as a means to arbitrate between ministers in dispute, and coordinate the overall policy of the government is very weak. Even in more consensual cabinets derived from more than one party, or based on diverse territorial representation, decision-making can be slow and chaotic. This has led to the charge that cabinet government is managerially inefficient.

In the United Kingdom the Cabinet is generally drawn from parliamentary members of the single majority party. As a result cabinet government is based upon relative cohesion in purpose. In addition, the leading role of the Prime Minister as primus inter pares (‘first among equals’) is not questioned. Ever since the modern cabinet system evolved during the First World War, when formal cabinet meetings were convened with written agendas and staffed by a cabinet secretariat, the Prime Minister has had clear powers of agenda control. The Prime Minister has also had power to appoint cabinet committees and determine their terms of reference, allowing their recommendations to become effectively the policy of the government. This has led to the charge that in Britain cabinet government has fallen prey, not to chaos and inefficiency, but to an overriding power of the Prime Minister. Over time there is considerable evidence of prime ministers bypassing cabinet and potential cabinet opposition on economic and defence-related issues by resort to carefully selected cabinet committees. This was true, for example, of Attlee's approach to framing policy on an independent nuclear deterrent 1945-51. A more general thesis of prime ministerial government gained credence with the publication of the Crossman diaries detailing the practice of the Wilson governments 1964-70, and with the apparent contempt for collective decision-making shown by Mrs Thatcher during her premiership 1979-90. The advent of a Labour government in 1997 arguably ushered in a period of dual prime ministerial government. Tony Blair and his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, decided most key policies either singly or together while cabinet meetings were reduced to a perfunctory weekly meeting lasting less than an hour.

The practice of cabinet government in the UK, however, remains contingent on prime ministerial style, elite political culture and political position. Attlee delegated considerable power in domestic policy areas to his ministers working on cabinet committees. Churchill and Macmillan prided themselves on a patrician style that allowed full debate in cabinet of all key issues. Callaghan used the full processes of cabinet decision-making to deal with the financial crisis in 1976. Even Mrs Thatcher relented on a number of policy ideas against cabinet opposition and eventually fell because she did not do so more. The Major Government 1990-7 actively sought to re-establish the notion of consensual cabinet government as a way of rebinding a Conservative Party tearing itself apart over European policy. As part of this, the secrecy surrounding cabinet government was eroded. In May 1992 Questions of Procedure for Ministers, which is the nearest thing Britain has to a constitution for cabinet government, was published. This disclosed the names, membership, and purposes of sixteen standing cabinet committees and ten cabinet subcommittees. The secretary to the cabinet made it clear that while only Treasury ministers had the right to challenge committee decisions in full cabinet, any alliance of five or more ministers could effectively do likewise and have a chance of success. This suggests that prime ministerial government has not only political but also constitutional limits.

The cabinet is a Presidential advisory group composed of the secretaries of the executive branch departments and other invited officials. At the Constitutional Convention delegates assumed that the President might convene the heads of departments for advice, but the cabinet was never mentioned in the original Constitution. The 25th Amendment, however, gives the cabinet certain duties regarding succession to the Presidency in cases of Presidential disability.

George Washington created the cabinet in 1789 when he invited the secretaries of state, Treasury, and war and the attorney general to meet informally with him. At first these officials met the President with other advisers, such as the chief justice of the United States, and it was not until 1791 that the cabinet met separately with the President. The secretary of the navy was added in 1798 by President John Adams, and the postmaster general in 1829 by Andrew Jackson. Other secretaries were added when their departments were created; the postmaster general was dropped in 1970 when the post office department became the U.S. Postal Service, an independent agency. Richard Nixon was the first Vice President to sit regularly with the cabinet (Coolidge had done so occasionally).

From 1791 onward Washington frequently convened his secretaries to debate the most important issues of his administration, and the term cabinet gained currency in 1793 during a crisis with the French government, when it met in a small room almost every day for nearly a year. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson were the major figures in the first cabinet. Their disagreements over foreign policy led them to create the Federalist and Republican parties. By 1795 Washington understood that his cabinet and administration should be united on the major principles of foreign and domestic policy. By 1801, when Thomas Jefferson became President, it was understood that the cabinet would consist of appointees who supported his principles. Since the Democratic-Republican party retained power until 1828, it became the practice for a new President to retain some of his predecessor's secretaries and to consult with them before taking any action. Presidents often counted the opinion of the cabinet as equal to their own, creating a system of cabinet government. Cabinet government ended with the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828. Jackson established new rules: the President convenes cabinet meetings at his pleasure; the cabinet has no right to be consulted or convened; Presidential appointees serve as his subordinates and take direction from him; and the President may fire secretaries who disagree with his instructions. Because of a dispute with the cabinet over its ostracism of the wife of Secretary of War John Eaton in 1829, Jackson did not convene a meeting for two years and instead relied on a group of informal advisers known as the “kitchen cabinet.” But in 1831 he finally bowed to pressure from members of his own party to meet with his secretaries.

Jackson dropped the prior practice of polling the secretaries for their positions on issues and then following the majority. President Lincoln was reported to have taken a vote in which he was the only person to favor a certain course of action. He then announced, “The ayes have it.” After the Civil War the cabinet met regularly twice a week and was used primarily to give the President advice on patronage—the awarding of government jobs on the basis of political ties—and party politics and to coordinate legislative and budget proposals to Congress from the executive departments.

Until the 1930s there was only a handful of examples of a President making major decisions without first consulting the cabinet. These include the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln, who gathered his cabinet and said, “I do not wish your advice about the main matter. That, I have determined for myself.” Nor did Woodrow Wilson consult his cabinet on most issues, including the decision that the United States should enter World War I. Recent Presidents have convened their cabinets irregularly, one or two times a month at best. John F. Kennedy thought that cabinet meetings were a waste of time, asking; “Why should the Postmaster General sit there and listen to a discussion of the problems of Laos?” Kennedy held only six meetings in three years.

Today cabinets provide the President with political advice, serve as sounding boards for his ideas, and enable secretaries to coordinate their public statements on administration policy. Presidents also use cabinet meetings for symbolic purposes: Jimmy Carter used his first meeting to order that high officials use fewer limousines.

The “inner cabinet” consists of the secretaries of state, defense, and Treasury and the attorney general. These positions are usually the most prestigious, and the opinions of these secretaries carry the most weight with the President. The President sees these officials often, together or individually. The “outer cabinet” consists of the secretaries of the clientele agencies such as the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, and Labor. These secretaries deal with issues that concern constituencies such as union workers, farmers, and business executives. Presidents spend little time with these secretaries and often use the White House staff and agencies of the Executive Office of the President to supervise their work.

cabinet, group of advisers to the head of the state who themselves are usually the heads of the administrative government departments. The nature of the cabinet differs widely in various countries. In Great Britain, where the cabinet system originated, it was at first a committee of the privy council and rose to its modern status only after the sovereignty of Parliament had been established by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the gradual emergence of party government in the 18th cent. The British cabinet is a body of ministers drawn from the party that possesses a majority in the House of Commons; it is responsible to the Commons for the conduct of the administration. The cabinet is chosen by the prime minister, who is guided by the necessity of choosing a group that will represent the disparate elements in his party. The defeat in the Commons of an important ministerial measure or a general election adverse to the government results in the fall of the cabinet. In continental European countries, where the two-party system is not the rule, the coalition cabinet is more common. Cabinet members need not be selected from the majority party nor necessarily from the legislature, and they may speak in either house of the legislature.

The U.S. cabinet was not specifically established by the Constitution; it evolved through custom and is now defined by statute law. The members of the cabinet are not members of either house of Congress and are responsible, individually and not as a body, to the president, who appoints them with the approval of the Senate and may remove them at will. The cabinet member may not address Congress but may be called as a witness before congressional committees. As an advisory body, the U.S. cabinet is generally a weak institution and is often overshadowed by a strong president and his staff. The first cabinet appointments (1789) were the secretaries of State, the Treasury, and War. Since then the size and composition of the cabinet has varied considerably. Presently the 15 executive departments whose heads sit in the cabinet are the departments of State; the Treasury; Defense; Justice; the Interior; Agriculture; Commerce; Labor; Health and Human Services; Housing and Urban Development; Transportation; Energy; Education; Veterans Affairs; and Homeland Security.

Bibliography

See J. E. Cohen, The Politics of the U.S. Cabinet (1988).

A cabinet is a body of high-ranking members of government, typically representing the executive branch. It can also sometimes be referred to as the Council of Ministers, an Executive Council or an Executive Committee.

Overview

In some countries, particularly those under the Westminster system, the Cabinet collectively decides the government's policy and tactical direction, especially in regard to legislation passed by the parliament. In countries with a presidential system, such as the United States, the cabinet does not function as a collective legislative influence; rather, their primary role is as an unofficial advisory council to the head of government, consisting of the heads of the executive departments they are appointed to lead. Instead of just one view, the president gets opinions and advice in upcoming decisions. In some countries, cabinets are required to be appointed from sitting members of the legislature while in others, such as the United States, cabinet members may not be sitting legislators; they must resign their legislative office if they accept a cabinet appointment.

In most governments, members of the cabinet are given the title of minister, and each holds a different portfolio of government duties ("Minister for the Environment", etc). In a few governments, as in the case of the United States, the Philippines and the United Kingdom, the title of secretary is also used for some cabinet members ("Secretary of Education", etc). The day-to-day role of most cabinet members is to serve as the head of one segment of the national bureaucracy, as the head civil servant to which all other employees in that department report.

The size of cabinets varies, although most contain around ten to twenty ministers. Researchers have found an inverse correlation between a country's level of development and cabinet size: on average, the more developed a country is, the smaller is its cabinet.^[1]

Origins of cabinets

Historically, cabinets began as smaller sub-groups of the English Privy Council. The term comes from the name for a relatively small and private room used as a study or retreat. Phrases such as "cabinet counsel", meaning advice given in private to the monarch, occur from the late 16th century, and, given the non-standardized spelling of the day, it is often hard to distinguish whether "council" or "counsel" is meant.^[2] The OED credits Francis Bacon in his Essays (1605) with the first use of "Cabinet council", where it is described as a foreign habit, of which he disapproves: "For which inconveniences, the doctrine of Italy, and practice of France, in some kings’ times, hath introduced cabinet counsels; a remedy worse than the disease".^[3] Charles I began a formal "Cabinet Council" from his accession in 1625, as his Privy Council, or "private council", was evidently not private enough, and the first recorded use of "cabinet" by itself for such a body comes from 1644, and is again hostile and associates the term with dubious foreign practices. ^[4] The process has repeated itself in recent times, as leaders have felt the need to have a Kitchen Cabinet.

Westminster cabinets

Under the Westminster system, members of the cabinet are collectively responsible for all government policy. All ministers, whether senior and in the cabinet or junior ministers, must publicly support the policy of the government, regardless of any private reservations. Although, in theory, all cabinet decisions are taken collectively by the cabinet, in practice many decisions are delegated to the various sub-committees of the cabinet, which report to the full cabinet on their findings and recommendations. As these recommendations have already been agreed upon by those in the cabinet who hold affected ministerial portfolios, the recommendations are usually agreed to by the full cabinet with little further discussion.

Cabinet deliberations are secret and documents dealt with in cabinet are confidential. Most of the documentation associated with cabinet deliberations will only be publicly released a considerable period after the particular cabinet disbands; for example, thirty years after they were discussed.

In theory the prime minister/premier is first among equals. However, the prime minister is the person whom the monarch or president will ultimately take advice from on the exercise of executive power, which may include the powers to declare war, use nuclear weapons, expel ministers from the cabinet, and to determine their portfolios in a cabinet reshuffle. This position in relation to the executive power means that, in practice, the prime minister has a high degree of control over the cabinet: any spreading of responsibility for the overall direction of the government has usually been done as a matter of preference by the prime minister – either because they are unpopular with their backbenchers, or because they believe that the cabinet should collectively decide things.

The shadow cabinet consists of the leading members, or frontbenchers, of an opposition party, who generally hold critic portfolios "shadowing" cabinet ministers, questioning their decisions and proposing policy alternatives.

The Westminster cabinet system is the foundation of cabinets as they are known at the federal and state (or provincial) jurisdictions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and other Commonwealth of Nations countries whose parliamentary model is closely based on that of the United Kingdom.

United States Presidential Cabinet

Under the doctrine of separation of powers, a cabinet under a presidential system of government is part of the executive branch. In theory, at least, they carry out policy rather than create it. In addition to administering his or her segment of the executive branch, a cabinet member is responsible for advising the head of government on areas within his or her purview. They are appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the head of government; they are strongly subordinate to the executive and can be replaced at any time. Normally, since they are appointed by the executive, they are members of the same political party, but the executive is free to select anyone, including opposition party members, subject to Congressional confirmation.

Normally, the legislature or a segment thereof must confirm the appointment of a cabinet member; this is but one of the many checks and balances built into a presidential system. The legislature may also remove a cabinet member through a usually difficult impeachment process.

In the United States Cabinet, cabinet members do not serve to influence legislative policy to the degree found in a Westminster system; however, each member wields significant influence in matters relating to their executive department. Since the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, the President of the United States has acted most often through his own executive offices or the National Security Council rather than through the cabinet as was the case in earlier U.S. administrations.

European Union

Further information: Cabinet (European Commission)

In some European countries and in the institutions of the European Union, a cabinet (pronounced [kabiˈne] as in French) carries a different meaning; it refers to the private office of consultants and assistants working directly for a minister or senior executive.

See also

• List of national governments
• Ministerial responsibility
• Cabinet collective responsibility
• Minister of the Crown

References

1. ^ Davide Castelvecchi (May 9th, 2008). "The Undeciders: More decision-makers bring less efficiency", ScienceNews.
2. ^ OED Cabinet
3. ^ Bacon, Essay "On Counsel"
4. ^ OED Cabinet