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How do cabinet reshuffles affect the parliamentary opposition's use of no-confidence motions in the government? Opposition parties employ no-confidence motions as electoral signals to highlight government incompetence and to position themselves as a government in waiting. We argue that cabinet reshuffles – which prime ministers use to respond to policy failures, scandals, poor ministerial performance and disloyalty – present an opportunity for the opposition to deploy no-confidence motions to this end. The incentives to deploy this strategy, however, are contingent on the nature of the party system and are greatest where party-system concentration positions a single opposition party as the alternative to the government and sole beneficiary of a no-confidence vote. We test this expectation using a multilevel modelling approach applied to data on reshuffles in 316 governments and 16 parliamentary democracies, and find support for our expectation: cabinet reshuffles raise the probability of no-confidence motions conditional on party-system concentration.

How does the execution of horizontal accountability mechanisms affect cabinet members’ instability? This article analyzes distinct features of no-confidence motions (NCMs) in presidential systems, using a mixed-method research design that identifies elements of legislative control mechanisms in Peruvian and Colombian polities. Although the congress in presidential systems rarely approves NCMs, high salience policy shocks trigger their proposal, resulting in the dismissal or resignation of the cabinet member in question. Those results are subtle opportunities for opposition legislators to indicate the incompetence of the incumbent government in particular policy areas. This study contributes to understanding how contextual factors affect the effectiveness of the check and balance principle in presidential systems.

This article argues that no confidence motions passed in the last few years in the Romanian Parliament can be interpreted as the transformation of a dysfunctional majoritarian dimension of a consensus democracy into a consensual dimension. For years, the Cabinet had been in a dominant position over the Parliament, and no confidence votes had no chance to be passed. But in time the quality of the parliamentary parties in power and in opposition improved, and the legislature started to be more and more relevant. The history of no confidence motions in post-communist Romania is relevant. The correction of the dysfunctional dimensions of democracy resulted in dramatic changes of cabinets and executive coalitions. This article will analyze and explain how a succession of no confidence motions (in Romanian – moțiuni de cenzură, in English – “motions of censure”) transformed the nature of the political system and of democracy.

Despite the headlines, covid-19 vaccines remain more widely accessible in the US than in the UK. Owen Dyer investigates

En la sesión parlamentaria del 17 de noviembre de 1871, durante el reinado de Amadeo I de Saboya, el Gobierno presidido por José Malcampo, correligionario del progresista Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, afrontó una moción de censura a cargo del Partido Radical de Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla. Para proteger los intereses del Ejecutivo, Francisco Romero Robledo, diputado partidario de la coalición gubernamental, improvisó un discurso de casi siete horas desde la tribuna. De este modo, el presidente Malcampo tuvo tiempo para obtener del rey el decreto de disolución de las Cortes, que le permitiera eludir la moción. El presente artículo constituye un análisis del contexto histórico y del propio discurso de Romero Robledo, centrándose en los principales temas que abordó en él. Así se dibujará el perfil del orador y se caracterizará el ambiente político nacional, cuando apenas hacía once meses que se había inaugurado el nuevo reinado.