Debunking Decision-Making: How do governments decide when ministers must resign?

Abstract

<p>Commentators of parliamentary democracy in Britain and Canada tend to agree that parliament is an old institution that is in desperate need of renewal. Contrary to this perspective, there are those who believe that parliament is an evolving institution which has been susceptible to change over time. Given the disagreement posed above, there is a need to develop a method to measure which side has it right.</p><p>This dissertation seeks to establish such a method. By using organization theory to explain organizational change, this research will establish both the rationale for why institutions change and the decisions that led to that change. Change is defined as the difference between present organizational configuration from the original. If there is a difference, then change is present. To understand the original configuration of parliamentary institutions, the dissertation looks at "foundational principles" to parliamentary democracy. Of these foundational principles, the doctrine of ministerial responsibility is the one analyzed here.</p><p>In analyzing government decisions that lead to ministerial resignations, this dissertation builds a decision-making matrix that will compare organizational theories of decision-making and analyze the level of rationality applied when governments decide to require a resignation from one of its members. While the governments of Canada and the UK have both been built around the concept of ministerial responsibility, there are differences in how the government in each country is scrutinized. Contrary to these differences, the results show that both countries have nearly identical levels of rationality when it comes to decisions that lead to ministerial resignations. This leads to the conclusion that ministerial responsibility is not a dead concept in either country, and the differences in levels of scrutiny by officers of parliament, size of legislature, and parliamentary committees are not significant.</p>