Constrainers vs Enablers?: Fiscal Deficits and the Political Survival of Finance Ministers Across Regime Types

Jonas Willibald Schmid; Lasse Aaskoven

doi:10.1177/00323217251378842

Constrainers vs Enablers? Fiscal Deficits and the Political Survival of Finance Ministers Across Regime Types

Jonas Willibald Schmid^*
, Lasse Aaskoven

^*Corresponding author for this work

Stockholm University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

We investigate how fiscal deficits affect the political survival of finance ministers in democracies and autocracies. While finance ministers occupy formally similar roles across regimes, we argue they serve fundamentally different political functions. Drawing on regime-specific incentives and the distinct constraints on public borrowing, we hypothesize that fiscal deficits increase the likelihood of ministerial removal in democracies but not in autocracies. Using global data on finance ministers from 1981 to 2021, we find robust support for our argument. Higher deficits predict an increased risk of ministerial exit, but only in democracies. This speaks to broader debates on economic policy-making, accountability, and elite politics. More broadly, we show that similar institutions operate under diverging logics depending on regime type. This highlights the need for comparative research to take seriously the context-dependent meaning of institutional performance—and to develop theories that reflect variation in how policymakers are constrained and evaluated.

Original language	English
Article number	00323217251378842
Journal	Political Studies
ISSN	0032-3217
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217251378842
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Keywords

autocracy & democracy
cabinets
finance minister
fiscal deficits
political regimes

Documents & Links

10.1177/00323217251378842Licence: CC BY

SDU Link

Check access to the material in SDU Library's search engine

Cite this

@article{c10e9c8f00424ecc8d464eef1fd889c8,

title = "Constrainers vs Enablers?: Fiscal Deficits and the Political Survival of Finance Ministers Across Regime Types",

abstract = "We investigate how fiscal deficits affect the political survival of finance ministers in democracies and autocracies. While finance ministers occupy formally similar roles across regimes, we argue they serve fundamentally different political functions. Drawing on regime-specific incentives and the distinct constraints on public borrowing, we hypothesize that fiscal deficits increase the likelihood of ministerial removal in democracies but not in autocracies. Using global data on finance ministers from 1981 to 2021, we find robust support for our argument. Higher deficits predict an increased risk of ministerial exit, but only in democracies. This speaks to broader debates on economic policy-making, accountability, and elite politics. More broadly, we show that similar institutions operate under diverging logics depending on regime type. This highlights the need for comparative research to take seriously the context-dependent meaning of institutional performance{\textemdash}and to develop theories that reflect variation in how policymakers are constrained and evaluated.",

keywords = "autocracy \& democracy, cabinets, finance minister, fiscal deficits, political regimes",

author = "Schmid, \{Jonas Willibald\} and Lasse Aaskoven",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).",

year = "2025",

doi = "10.1177/00323217251378842",

language = "English",

journal = "Political Studies",

issn = "0032-3217",

publisher = "SAGE Publications",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Constrainers vs Enablers?

T2 - Fiscal Deficits and the Political Survival of Finance Ministers Across Regime Types

AU - Schmid, Jonas Willibald

AU - Aaskoven, Lasse

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - We investigate how fiscal deficits affect the political survival of finance ministers in democracies and autocracies. While finance ministers occupy formally similar roles across regimes, we argue they serve fundamentally different political functions. Drawing on regime-specific incentives and the distinct constraints on public borrowing, we hypothesize that fiscal deficits increase the likelihood of ministerial removal in democracies but not in autocracies. Using global data on finance ministers from 1981 to 2021, we find robust support for our argument. Higher deficits predict an increased risk of ministerial exit, but only in democracies. This speaks to broader debates on economic policy-making, accountability, and elite politics. More broadly, we show that similar institutions operate under diverging logics depending on regime type. This highlights the need for comparative research to take seriously the context-dependent meaning of institutional performance—and to develop theories that reflect variation in how policymakers are constrained and evaluated.

AB - We investigate how fiscal deficits affect the political survival of finance ministers in democracies and autocracies. While finance ministers occupy formally similar roles across regimes, we argue they serve fundamentally different political functions. Drawing on regime-specific incentives and the distinct constraints on public borrowing, we hypothesize that fiscal deficits increase the likelihood of ministerial removal in democracies but not in autocracies. Using global data on finance ministers from 1981 to 2021, we find robust support for our argument. Higher deficits predict an increased risk of ministerial exit, but only in democracies. This speaks to broader debates on economic policy-making, accountability, and elite politics. More broadly, we show that similar institutions operate under diverging logics depending on regime type. This highlights the need for comparative research to take seriously the context-dependent meaning of institutional performance—and to develop theories that reflect variation in how policymakers are constrained and evaluated.

KW - autocracy & democracy

KW - cabinets

KW - finance minister

KW - fiscal deficits

KW - political regimes

U2 - 10.1177/00323217251378842

DO - 10.1177/00323217251378842

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:105019351996

SN - 0032-3217

JO - Political Studies

JF - Political Studies

M1 - 00323217251378842

ER -