"Determinants of Non-Partisan Ministerial Appointments in Presidential Systems: Evidence from the Presidential Polities of the Americas"

The understanding of cabinet formations and appointments has turned out to be one of the most prolific areas of literature in political science. In recent years, much has been written about the potential motivations or constraints, deriving from the assumption that most players involved are, by nature, office-seeking, especially political parties. However, very little has been said about the cabinet per se, that is, its size or components. This study focuses on the non-partisan composition of cabinets under presidential regimes. This question is particularly relevant since under presidential rule, i) the president is the natural and only formateur; ii) his mandate is fixed for both the inception and the conclusion; and iii) presidents can appoint ministers with no portfolio. Hence, we aim to find out what the determinants are of an increasing share of non-partisan ministers. Thus, we carry out a study on non-partisan ministers under presidential regimes, using insights from both parliamentary and presidential literatures. Our model is composed of five hypotheses, relying on an original dataset of 181 observations across 19 presidential polities of the Americas. Our main finding is that the number of parties in the cabinet, the legislative contingent, and ideology impact the decision to appoint non-partisan ministers.