C

Cabinet

A cabinet is a small body of senior politicians responsible for directing the
administration of a country which has the form of government known as
cabinet government. Subgroups orcommitteesoften exist within a cabinet
for the direction of specific affairs. An inner cabinet will typically consist of
members responsible for the economy, home and foreign affairs, defence and
justice, and a war cabinet of members responsible for departments directly
involved or affected by a state of war in the country.
In some countries, notably France, and in the Commission of theEur-
opean Union, the term ‘cabinet’ is also applied to the small group of
politicians and civil servants who act as the personal advisers to a minister. A
group of advisers to the head of the executive who are not members of the
cabinet is sometimes known as the ‘kitchen cabinet’: the term was apparently
first applied to advisers of Andrew Jackson, US president from 1829–37, and
more recently to confidants of the former British prime minister, Harold
Wilson.

Cabinet Government

A cabinet government system exists where responsibility for directing the
policies of a country (seeexecutive) lies in the hands of a small group of senior
politicians. Cabinet government originated in Britain during the 17th and
18th centuries, where the cabinet developed from the inner core of privy
counsellors on whom the monarch relied for advice. As the monarch lost
power and party government replaced personal authority, the cabinet came to
be formed not from the monarch’s most trusted advisers but from the most
senior members of the dominant political party.
The essence of cabinet government is that it is collective government by a
committee of individuals who are theoretically equal and bound by their
collective decisions. Fundamental to the way cabinet government operated in
Britain until the early 1960s were the dual notions ofcollective responsi-
bilityand secrecy. The proceedings of a cabinet debate were secret and it was
not permissible for a minister to publicize personal dissent from any decision of