The Allocation of Committee Chairs and the Oversight of Coalition Cabinets in Belgium

The appointment of committee chairs to monitor the actions of ministers belonging to coalition partners has received considerably less attention than other mechanisms of policing the coalition agreement at executive or legislative level. We take a longitudinal perspective focusing on 11 Belgian cabi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Government and opposition (London) 2023-01, Vol.58 (1), p.129-144
Main Authors: Chiru, Mihail, De Winter, Lieven
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agreements
Cabinet
Chairpersons
Coalitions
Committees
Hypotheses
Ideology
Jurisdiction
Legislation
Parliaments
Political appointments
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Summary:The appointment of committee chairs to monitor the actions of ministers belonging to coalition partners has received considerably less attention than other mechanisms of policing the coalition agreement at executive or legislative level. We take a longitudinal perspective focusing on 11 Belgian cabinets (1980–2018) to study the determinants of such appointments and whether there is a substitution effect between shadow chairs, junior ministers and coalition agreements. Our findings indicate that the probability of appointing a shadow committee chair is higher when the ideological distance between the minister's party and the coalition is larger. Other key findings are that ministers facing hostile junior ministers tend to be shadowed by committee chairs as well, while shadow chairs are also more frequent in minimum winning coalitions.
ISSN:0017-257X
1477-7053
DOI:10.1017/gov.2021.27