The Social Background of Western European Cabinet Ministers

Abstract

In the four decades following World War II, more than 2000 men and women have been cabinet ministers in the fourteen Western European countries which have been continuously parliamentary, an average of roughly 150 ministers per country. This suggests that the political elite is very small, although, given that cabinets have around 20 members, most ministers remained in office four or five years only and those who stayed in the government for ten years or more are a small minority. The turnover is thus fairly rapid, even if ministerial duration is shorter in most Third-World countries and is longer only in traditional states and in Communist countries (and indeed only before the upheavals of the late 1980s) (Blondel, 1985).