A cabinet reshuffle is when a head of government changes the group of politicians that oversee different areas of the economy and public services, for example education, health or transport. Reshuffles occur more often in parliamentary systems where ministers are appointed by the executive but less frequently in countries where cabinet heads must be confirmed by a legislative body.
Frequent reshuffles have the potential to be costly for both political stability and the quality of government policy. Ministers who are not in post for long periods of time can be unable to develop the administrative and policy expertise required to effectively manage their departments and thus may be overly reliant on guidance from officials and civil servants. In addition, the impression among the electorate, party donors, and parliamentarians that a prime minister is constantly rearranging his or her cabinet can be highly damaging to the perceived legitimacy of a government.
The reasons for reshuffles vary widely but can include:
To refresh the top team with new MPs to demonstrate a change in direction or priority.
For personnel reasons – for example to reward people by giving them higher positions or remove those who are not performing well.
This article revisits existing literature on cabinet reshuffles with the aim of developing a novel definition of them and proposing a typology that distinguishes between nine types of reshuffle. This typology is then used to compare the characteristics and effects of reshuffles in four large West European countries.
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