Prime Ministerial Predominance? Core Executive Politics in the UK
- 1 August 2003
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in The British Journal of Politics and International Relations
- Vol. 5 (3), 347-372
- https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-856x.00110
Abstract
Prime ministerial predominance can enable the prime minister to lead, if not command, the core executive, and, in concert with others, to direct, if not control, its policy development. Leadership predominance facilitates prime ministerial predominance within the executive, and prime ministerial predominance reinforces leadership predominance within the party. Such predominance arises from the prime minister's ability to access a series of personal and institutional power resources. The more resources, the more powerful and predominant the prime minister is; the fewer resources, the less powerful and predominant they are. Such resources are necessarily transient, being accumulated and inevitably dispersed, acquired and lost, and are never permanent. When possessed, they can grant the prime minister considerable, if never overwhelming, intra-executive authority and influence, and the opportunity to be a stronger, but not the only element within the core executive.Keywords
This publication has 18 references indexed in Scilit:
- Departmentalism and joined-up governmentParliamentary Affairs, 2001
- Is the British State Hollowing Out?The Political Quarterly, 2000
- The Institutions of Central GovernmentPublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,1999
- The Prime Minister's and cabinet offices: an executive office in all but nameParliamentary Affairs, 1999
- Reconceptualizing the British State: Theoretical and Empirical Challenges to Central GovernmentPublic Administration, 1998
- The enhancement of leadership power: The labour party and the impact of political communicationsBritish Elections & Parties Review, 1997
- Prime Minister, Cabinet and Core ExecutivePublished by Bloomsbury Academic ,1995
- Cabinet government in the Thatcher yearsContemporary Record, 1994
- Party Organizations: From Civil Society to the StatePublished by SAGE Publications ,1994
- CORE EXECUTIVE STUDIES IN BRITAINPublic Administration, 1990