Historically, men have been more likely to be appointed to governing cabinets, but gendered patterns of appointment vary cross-nationally, and women's inclusion in cabinets has grown significantly over time. This book breaks new theoretical ground by conceiving of cabinet formation as a gendered, iterative process governed by rules that empower and constrain presidents and prime ministers in the criteria they use to make appointments. Political actors use their agency to interpret and exploit ambiguity in rules to deviate from past practices of appointing mostly men. When they do so, they create different opportunities for men and women to be selected, explaining why some democracies have appointed more women to cabinet than others. Importantly, this dynamic produces new rules about women's inclusion and, as this book explains, the emergence of a concrete floor, defined as a minimum number of women who must be appointed to a cabinet to ensure its legitimacy. Drawing on in-depth analyses of seven countries (Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and elite interviews, media data, and autobiographies of cabinet members, Cabinets, Ministers, and Gender offers a cross-time, cross-national study of the gendered process of cabinet formation.

'Cabinets, Ministers, and Gender' explains how cabinets are constructed in democracies, providing detailed information about the formal and informal rules that shape the decisions of presidents and prime ministers in selecting cabinet ministers, and the eligibility and qualification standards for those who aspire to cabinet positions. The text shows how the decisions of selectors and the process of cabinet formation create different opportunities for men and women to be selected, explaining why some democracies have appointed more women to cabinet than others by developing the concept of the concrete floor-the minimum number of women included in cabinet to ensure its legitimacy.

Are women in presidential cabinets new political players or do they adopt the same strategies as the men who traditionally run government? Once in office, are they treated equally, and are they as effective as their male counterparts? Using data from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and the US, Women in Presidential Cabinets provides evidence of gender integration.

This paper is part of a book project studying women in the executive branch in presidential democracies. In the book and other papers we examine the education, career, political experience, and interest group connections of more than 400 female and male cabinet ministers from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and the United States and our analysis of minister backgrounds indicates that, in the aggregate, men and women in these cabinets have resumes that are extremely similar. However, gender differences in background traits are apparent that correlate with the likelihood that a minister will be appointed to a portfolio in the masculine vs. feminine policy domains. In this paper we explore whether the backgrounds of ministers help to predict their success in office in two of our cases - Argentina and Chile - measuring success as the percentage of bills initiated by the minister that are passed into law. We find that female ministers initiate fewer bills than their male colleagues, but that women are just as successful as men at getting their bills passed into law. Political experience and connections, in the form of being a “political insider” or a “friend of the president” and having a primary career in government increase bill initiation and success, but experience related to the policy area of the minister's portfolio and connections to clients of the ministry do not have an impact on either bill initiation or success passing bills into law. These findings indicate that, at least in Argentina and Chile, there is no negative gender bias in inter-branch relations hampering the ability of female ministers to achieve their legislative agenda.

Historically, men have been more likely to be appointed to governing cabinets, but gendered patterns of appointment vary cross-nationally, and women's inclusion in cabinets has grown significantly over time. This book breaks new theoretical ground by conceiving of cabinet formation as a gendered, iterative process governed by rules that empower and constrain presidents and prime ministers in the criteria they use to make appointments. Political actors use their agency to interpret and exploit ambiguity in rules to deviate from past practices of appointing mostly men. When they do so, they create different opportunities for men and women to be selected, explaining why some democracies have appointed more women to cabinet than others. Importantly, this dynamic produces new rules about women's inclusion and, as this book explains, the emergence of a concrete floor, defined as a minimum number of women who must be appointed to a cabinet to ensure its legitimacy. Drawing on in-depth analyses of seven countries (Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and elite interviews, media data, and autobiographies of cabinet members, Cabinets, Ministers, and Gender offers a cross-time, cross-national study of the gendered process of cabinet formation.

Governing cabinets are composed of ministers who come and go even as governments march on. They work for the chief executive, the prime minister or the president, for their parties and for the constituent groups from which they come. They are chosen for their role and dismissed from it for all sorts of reasons that vary across time and country. This book examines the process of selection, shuffling and removal of ministers in national cabinets around the world. Drawing on original data over several decades, it offers a series of case studies of countries from around the world with differing institutional and cultural structures including presidential and semi-presidential systems, and parliamentary, unitary and federal systems, some of which have experienced periods under authoritarian regimes. Featuring 14 case studies on North and South America, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, this book complements the earlier volume The Selection of Ministers in Europe (Routledge, 2009). This volume will be an important reference for students and scholars of political science, government, executives, comparative politics and political parties.

More women are being appointed to full cabinet-rank posts and they are holding more diverse portfolios. Are these women able to be as effective as the men once they are in the cabinet - in essence have the women become true political players at the highest level of the executive branch, or are they still tokens, but more numerous tokens? We present a theory that uses the political capital resources that ministers, both men and women, bring to the cabinet to predict ministerial success. We predict that ministers who bring more political capital resources to the cabinet will perform more successfully in their job than those with fewer political capital resources. If treatment is equal for women and men with the same quantity of political capital resources that constitutes evidence of gender integration in cabinets. We use three benchmarks for minister effectiveness: duration in post, avoiding a “bad end”, and legislative productivity. Our dataset includes all ministers of full cabinet rank (447 ministers of which 110 are women) from recent presidential administrations in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and the U.S. Our analysis provides evidence of equal treatment of women. This finding holds across different types of posts, for initial and replacement ministers, and across countries, and indicates that gender integration is occurring in these presidential cabinets. We conclude that while women are still numerical minorities in cabinets they are not treated as tokens.