Portfolio allocation as the president's calculations: loyalty, copartisanship, and political context in South Korea

How do the president's calculations in achieving policy goals shape the allocation of cabinet portfolios? Despite the growing literature on presidential cabinet appointments, this question has barely been addressed. I argue that cabinet appointments are strongly affected not only by presidentia...

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Main Author: Lee, Don S.
Format: Article
Published: Cambridge University Press 2018
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50637/
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author Lee, Don S.
author_facet Lee, Don S.
author_sort Lee, Don S.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
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description How do the president's calculations in achieving policy goals shape the allocation of cabinet portfolios? Despite the growing literature on presidential cabinet appointments, this question has barely been addressed. I argue that cabinet appointments are strongly affected not only by presidential incentives to effectively deliver their key policy commitments but also by their interest in having their administration maintain strong political leverage. Through an analysis of portfolio allocations in South Korea after democratization, I demonstrate that the posts wherein ministers can influence the government's overall reputation typically go to nonpartisan professionals ideologically aligned with presidents, while the posts wherein ministers can exert legislators' influence generally go to senior copartisans. My findings highlight a critical difference in presidential portfolio allocation from parliamentary democracies, where key posts tend to be reserved for senior parliamentarians from the ruling party.
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spelling nottingham-506372020-05-04T19:38:46Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50637/ Portfolio allocation as the president's calculations: loyalty, copartisanship, and political context in South Korea Lee, Don S. How do the president's calculations in achieving policy goals shape the allocation of cabinet portfolios? Despite the growing literature on presidential cabinet appointments, this question has barely been addressed. I argue that cabinet appointments are strongly affected not only by presidential incentives to effectively deliver their key policy commitments but also by their interest in having their administration maintain strong political leverage. Through an analysis of portfolio allocations in South Korea after democratization, I demonstrate that the posts wherein ministers can influence the government's overall reputation typically go to nonpartisan professionals ideologically aligned with presidents, while the posts wherein ministers can exert legislators' influence generally go to senior copartisans. My findings highlight a critical difference in presidential portfolio allocation from parliamentary democracies, where key posts tend to be reserved for senior parliamentarians from the ruling party. Cambridge University Press 2018-06-01 Article PeerReviewed Lee, Don S. (2018) Portfolio allocation as the president's calculations: loyalty, copartisanship, and political context in South Korea. Journal of East Asian Studies . ISSN 1598-2408 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-east-asian-studies/article/portfolio-allocation-as-the-presidents-calculations-loyalty-copartisanship-and-political-context-in-south-korea/2B4276CB038C543FEAA536472883B569 doi:10.1017/jea.2018.16 doi:10.1017/jea.2018.16
spellingShingle Lee, Don S.
Portfolio allocation as the president's calculations: loyalty, copartisanship, and political context in South Korea
title Portfolio allocation as the president's calculations: loyalty, copartisanship, and political context in South Korea
title_full Portfolio allocation as the president's calculations: loyalty, copartisanship, and political context in South Korea
title_fullStr Portfolio allocation as the president's calculations: loyalty, copartisanship, and political context in South Korea
title_full_unstemmed Portfolio allocation as the president's calculations: loyalty, copartisanship, and political context in South Korea
title_short Portfolio allocation as the president's calculations: loyalty, copartisanship, and political context in South Korea
title_sort portfolio allocation as the president's calculations: loyalty, copartisanship, and political context in south korea
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50637/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50637/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50637/