Designing cabinets: Presidents, politics and policymaking in Latin Americ

In this dissertation I argue that cabinet appointments are key resources that presidents use as part of their political strategy. They have other resources: legislative powers that allow them to block policy or change its direction, as well as extra-constitutional tools associated with party and electoral politics. But I argue that appointments, and thus cabinet stability, are at the core of presidential politics. I develop a theory that conceives of appointments as an essential tool that presidents have to deal with unexpected shocks, such as scandals or economic crises that inevitably hit the administration during its term. I argue that the ability of presidents to use this resource effectively depends on structural elements, as well as political configurations, that determine the relative cost of changing the cabinet. I test this theory using an original dataset that records changes to the composition of presidential cabinets in 12 Latin American countries throughout the 1990s. With this data I am able to uncover patterns of cabinet stability and relate them to a series of political, institutional and environmental variables.