Vol 2 1998 - Review by Tony Griffiths
Cabinets in western Europe
Jean
Blondel and Ferdinand Muller-Rommel
MacMillan
Education Australia
107 Moray St
South Melbourne Vic 3205 Australia
ISBN 0 333 68343 - 9
Blondel
and Muller-Rommel have produced a fully updated second edition
of the original work on the structure and working of natural
cabinets in Western Europe. The work is based on a common
framework which allows the reader to compare the origins,
structure, composition and activities of cabinet government,
with special emphasis on leadership qualities and the roles
of coalitions.
The
material on Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland occupies 74
pages, or about a quarter of the book, and this research is
the most interesting section of the work. All the more so
in the present circumstances as the Nordic nations face the
next millennium, with similar forms of cabinet government
and party organisation, but with Norway standing outside the
bloc within a bloc. Tove Lisa Schou points our how in the
case of Denmark that:
From
1945 to 1995 Demark had twenty-five governments (see Table
10.1). This relatively large number does not indicate real
instability, however. To begin with, four changes of Social
Democratic Prime Ministers occurred for reasons of death (H.
Hedtoft and H.C. Hansen), illness (V. Kampmann) or for other
personal reasons (J.O. Krag). In the latter case, however,
there was a political element as well. The referendum on Danish
Common Market membership, which had just taken place, had
split the Social Democratic Party into two nearly equal groups
(the majority of the General Workers' Union was against Market
membership). It was felt that the unity of the party might
be restored if the leader of the union, A. Jorgensen, became
Prime Minister instead of J.O. Krag, who had been a strong
advocate of membership. Overall, an element of continuity
has been assured by the Social Democrats. Seventeen of the
twenty-five governments were formed by their party alone or
in coalition, and of the fourteen coalitions, eight included
the Social Democrats.
In
particularly interesting material on Denmark and Finland, Tove
Lisa Schou explains how that Danish constitution gives the monarch
the right to appoint ministers, but the rules of the same ensures
that the monarch plays no independent role in the process of
government formation. The complexity of the Finnish constitutional
setting were unravelled by Jaako Noasianen where the president
had unique role in European cabinet government.
Article
2 of the Finnish Constitution stated that
Supreme
executive power is vested in the President of the Republic.
In addition to the President there shall be, for the general
government of the State, a Council of State consisting of
a prime minister and the necessary number of ministers.
An
American-style presidentially-led government, however, was never
envisaged. Instead, the relationship between the Head of State
and the Cabinet is based on a carefully and clearly defined
division of responsibility. The President enjoys a number of
important and specific prerogative powers, while the everyday
running of executive politics is in the hands of the Council
of State. This division is not complete, however, as the cabinet
also deals with various matters more strictly within the competence
of the President.
The
complete lack of a separate presidential administrative department
means that the preliminary drafting of presidential rulings
and judgements must be done in the ministries and the cabinet.
Presidential decisions are taken in cabinet in the presence
of the ministers of the government of the day, and their execution
is the responsibility of the cabinet. This arrangement is
sufficient in the majority of cases to bind the President
to the government's policy position.
This
work is essential reading for those who wish to understand
how national cabinets function in an historical and contemporary
framework.