Cabinet reshuffles, understood as changes in the composition and distribution of ministerial portfolios over the lifetime of a cabinet, are considered major political events. Yet, the field of study on them remains limited and scholars are only beginning to investigate their consequences more systematically.
This article seeks to bring together the latest empirical and theoretical scholarship on cabinet reshuffles in order to provide a broad picture of the phenomenon. We begin by examining what triggers the reshuffle and how it is conducted, followed by a discussion of the consequences of these moves.
A cabinet reshuffle is a process whereby the prime minister and/or the party leadership change the top team of ministers. They do so for a variety of reasons. First, they may want to signal policy shifts (as happened with Boris Johnson in 2023 when he created new ministerial roles such as ‘Minister for Science’). They might also wish to reward or punish politicians by giving them more or less prominent positions. And a reshuffle can be a way to ‘freshen up’ the government by adding in some younger and/or female MPs.
A reshuffle can also be a form of discipline – whereby a prime minister demotes or dismisses a minister in the aftermath of a scandal or other event that damages their public image. However, excessive ministerial churn harms policy implementation by making it difficult for individual departments to develop expertise and for parliament to hold ministers accountable. It also empowers political rivals by releasing them from collective cabinet responsibility.
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