action. Such disagreements matter not in this context. The key point is, as
Elgie ( 2004 , 327 – 8 ) argues, that the veto-players approach makes the study of
speciWc regimes part of the wider debate about how we study political institutions
and renders such notions as ‘‘semi-presidentialism’’ and cabinet government
irrelevant.
That is one agenda. There is another agenda that focuses on the analysis
of traditions, and on a political anthropology of executive politics. A governmental
tradition is a set of inherited beliefs about the institutions and history of
government. For Western Europe it is conventional to distinguish between the
Anglo-Saxon (no state) tradition; the Germanic Rechtsstaat tradition; the French
(Napoleonic) tradition; and the Scandinavian tradition which mixes the Anglo-
Saxon and Germanic. There is already a growing body of work on the impact of
such traditions. Bevir, Rhodes, and Weller ( 2003 , 202 ) comment that Westminster
systems share a tradition of strong executive government that can force through
reform in response to economic pressures whereas, in the Netherlands, reform
hinged on coalition governments operating in a tradition of consensual corporat-
ism. France provides another contrast. The combination of departmental fragmen-
tation at the centre, coupled with the grand corps tradition and its beliefs about a
strong state, meant that reform rested on the consent of those about to be
reformed, and it was not forthcoming. As Helms ( 2005 , 261 ) argues convincingly,
that an historical and comparative perspective is the best way to explore core
executives and the variety of political practice within and between regime types:
that is, the analysis of traditions by another name (as is the analysis of path
dependencies in Pierson 2004 ).
Why does the study of executive government and politics matter? We care
because the decisions of the great and the good aVect all our lives for good or ill.
So, we want to know what prime ministers and ministers do, why, how, and with
what consequences. In other words, we are interested in their reasons, their actions,
and the eVects of both. To understand their reasons we need a political anthropol-
ogy of executive politics. We need to observe prime ministers, ministers, and
cabinets ‘‘in action.’’
The obvious objection is that the secrecy surrounding executive politics limits
the opportunities for such work (but see Shore 2000 ). The point has force but we
must take care to avoid saying ‘‘no’’ for the powerful. We can learn from biography
and journalism. Biographers probe the reasons. Journalists with their expose ́
tradition probe actions to show that ‘‘all is not as it seems.’’ Each has their answer
to the question of why study executive government. Both observe people in action.
If we want to know this world, then we must tell stories that enable listeners to see
executive governance afresh. A political anthropology of executive politics may be a
daunting prospect but it behoves us to try.
Whichever agenda prevails, the study of executives in parliamentary government
must not become yet one more of the multiplying sub-Welds of political science.
executives in parliamentary government 339