Task Environment Matters for Intra-ministerial Change: The Interaction of International Environment, Organizational and Opportunity Factors

ABSTRACT

Why, how, and when does intra-ministerial change take place? Previous answers to these questions suggest that political factors, such as cabinet reshuffling, are the most decisive drivers of inter-ministerial change. By contrast, this article begins with a distinction between the mechanism responsible for intra-ministerial and inter-ministerial change of ministries, the latter discusses which of these has been given more attention in previous research. Data covering the intra-ministerial change of 11 ministries in Germany between 1949 and 2006 can demonstrate that environmental as well as organizational factors are decisive in order to explain the timing and type of intra-ministerial change. The main finding is that a clearly definable threshold of tasks, organizational units, and a horizontal dispersion of jurisdictions – all of which react to the international environment – can explain intra-ministerial change in German ministries.

KEYWORDS:

• Europeanization
• intra-ministerial change
• ministerial administration
• opportunity factors
• organizational change
• task environment

Notes

¹ The extent to which the creation of a division is a merger of existing organizational units or new organizational units has not been studied.

² The schedule of responsibilities of October 2000 was the next available one after the change in February 1999.