Ministerial advisers in political systems of the Napoleonic administrative tradition: the ministerial cabinet

This chapter focuses on the executive advisory and support office (EASO) that is typically found in the political systems of the Napoleonic administrative tradition: the Ministerial Cabinet. In a cross-case comparative endeavour (Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and the European Commission), the chapter challenges the assumption that ministerial advisory offices are similar across cases within the same administrative tradition. Based on in-depth country case analysis, it highlights similarities and differences across cases considering ministerial offices’ origin, formal label, size, role, degree of osmosis with the administration, and the specificities of prime ministers’ offices. It is argued that the term ‘ministerial cabinet’ can be conceptually used to describe a type of EASO that is formally partisan, of a critical size, functionally active in the horizontal, vertical, political, and external arenas, and is in osmosis with the administration in that advisers are able to switch from a civil service position to a ministerial advisory one and vice versa. To test the ‘cabinetisation’ thesis, we conclude that more EASOs should be compared empirically so as to check the extent to which cabinetisation is happening across different politico-administrative traditions.