diVuse. It commonly refers to a family of ideas that includes: a unitary state;
parliamentary sovereignty; strong cabinet government; accountability through
elections; majority party control of the executive (that is, prime minister, cabinet,
and the civil service); elaborate conventions for the conduct of parliamentary
business; institutionalized opposition; and the rules of debate (Gamble 1990 , 407 ).
Lists of deWning characteristics invariably include the ‘‘eYcient secret’’ of ‘‘the
closer union, the nearly complete fusion, of the executive and legislative powers’’
(Bagehot 1963 , 65 ). In other words, the party or parties with a majority in parliament
form the executive, deWned by key positions (that is, prime minister and cabinet).
The cabinet is collectively responsible for its decisions, and its members (or minis-
ters) are individually responsible to parliament for the work of their departments.
The Westminster approach also assumes that power lies with speciWc positions and
the people who occupy those positions. The literature is dominated by such topics
as the relative power of prime minister and cabinet (see below, pp. 327 – 9 ),
and the relationship between the executive and parliament (see Chapter 18 ).
Themodernist-empiricist orbehavioral approachtreats political executives as
discrete objects that can be compared, measured, and classiWed. Its core beliefs
are measurement, law-like generalization, and neutral evidence (see Bevir and
Rhodes 2006 , ch. 5 ). Early studies focused on political elites, especially the notion
of political leadership (see Elgie 1995 ; Mughan and Patterson 1992 ). There is a
plethora of country studies. The popular topics include, for example: the recruit-
ment, tenure, and careers of prime ministers and ministers; ministerial and prime
ministerial relationships with bureaucracy and other sources of policy advice; their
links with political parties, the media, and the public; and the resources and
personal qualities of ministers and prime ministers (see, for example, Blondel
and Thie ́bault 1991 ; Jones 1991 ). While valuable as compendia, of information,
such studies fall foul of Rudyard Kipling’s ( 1990 , 181 ) nostrum, ‘‘and what should
they know of England who only England knows’’ (‘‘The English Flag,’’ 1891 )?
Others are more ambitious. Blondel and Mu ̈ller-Rommel’s ( 1993 a, 15 )workon
Western Europe studies the ‘‘the interplay of one major independent variable—the
single-party or coalition character of the cabinet—with a number of structural and
customary arrangements in governments, and of the combined eVect of these
factors on decision making processes’’ in twelve West European cabinets. It is ‘‘a
fully comparative analysis’’ with data drawn from a survey of 410 ministers in nine
countries, and an analysis of newspaper reports on cabinet conXicts in eleven
countries.
The core executive approachwas developed in the analysis of British government
(Dunleavy and Rhodes 1990 ), but it has travelled well (Elgie 1997 ). It deWnes the
executive in functional terms. So, instead of asking which position is important, we
can ask which functions deWne the innermost part or heart of government. For
example, the core functions of the British executive are to pull together and
integrate central government policies and to act as Wnal arbiters of conXicts
executives in parliamentary government 325