Accepted preprint of the edited article published as

Fischer, Jörn, André Kaiser and Ingo Rohlfing (2006): The Push and Pull of Ministerial Resignations in , 1969 – 2005. West European Politics 29 (4): 709-735. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402380600842296

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The Push and Pull of Ministerial Resignations in Germany, 1969–2005

Jörn Fischer (University of Cologne) André Kaiser (University of Cologne, correspondence: [email protected]) Ingo Rohlfing (University of Cologne)

When and why are cabinet ministers forced out of office? We argue that ministerial resignations cannot be understood as mechanistic consequences of serious personal or departmental errors as the classical responsibility hypothesis implies. Rather, they follow a systematic political logic. Cabinet ministers have to resign whenever the prime minister perceives the political costs of a minister staying in office to be higher than the benefits of keeping the status quo. We test this argument with resignation events in Germany in the period 1969 to 2005. Based on detailed data collection, we find 111 resignation events, i.e. serious public discussions about a cabinet minister’s future, 14 of which ended in resignation. These data are analysed employing statistical as well as Qualitative Comparative Analysis based on Boolean algebra to detect patterns of ministerial resignations.

‘I resign today from my office as Home Secretary....Quite rightly there exists in Germany the concept of political responsibility. Who shall take on political responsibility if not the Minister?’1

‘I do not have resignation in mind....I did not do or fail to do anything that was not in full accordance with the duties of my office.’2

After a special police forces mission against the terrorist Rote Armee Fraktion members Wolfgang Grams and Birgit Hogefeld in which Grams was killed under circumstances not fully explained and an officer died, the two officeholders of the ministries overseeing the agencies3 involved drew very different conclusions. This constellation nicely illustrates the starting point of our analysis. The doctrine of ministerial responsibility, as underlined in Article 65 of the German constitution, does not help to explain under what circumstances cabinet ministers4 are actually obliged to resign. The simple reason for this is that there are no formal rules on what this rather vague doctrine implies. Therefore it is a mixture of external pressure, internal interpretations of this doctrine by the minister concerned as well as by other actors in government, and political considerations by the Federal Chancellor which ultimately decide whether a minister has to go. At present there exists virtually no study that deals systematically with patterns and determinants of ministerial

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resignations in Germany. It is thus unclear what drives ministerial resignations if it is not ministerial responsibility. Given the lack of research on this topic, our article has two aims. First, we will describe patterns of ministerial resignations in Germany with regard to the frequency of such events, the extent to which resignation issues are influenced by political constellations (competition between government and opposition, intra-government relations between coalition partners), and the issues that initiate resignation debates. Second, we will develop an explanatory model in order to shed some light on which factors are crucial for ministerial resignations. Our exploration is based on a data collection of 111 resignation events in the period from ’s first cabinet in October 1969 to the end of Gerhard Schröder’s second cabinet in October 2005. We define a resignation event as any call for resignation addressed to a cabinet minister that is reported on pages one or two of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a leading German national newspaper. By doing so we cover not only all resignations where ministers were pushed out of office (14 cases between 1969 and 2005), but can also be confident of including serious resignation debates resulting in the minister’s continuing to hold office (97 cases between 1969 and 2005). Considering these non-events alongside events is of utmost importance for our explanatory model. Only by catching non-events alongside events can we avoid a selection of cases on the dependent variable (Geddes 2003: 89–129). We begin with the argument that ministerial resignations neither follow unsystematic, event-specific patterns (null hypothesis) nor can they be explained solely by reference to the doctrine of ministerial responsibility (classical responsibility hypothesis), which states that ministers must resign when a personal or a serious departmental error occurs under their authority. Rather, they follow a systematic political logic. Here we test two arguments. In a simple model (Weller 1999: 62), ministers must resign whenever the government and, in particular, the Federal Chancellor perceives the political costs of a minister staying in office to be higher than the benefits of keeping the status quo (cost–benefit hypothesis). A compatible but more complex model assumes that ministers generally do not have to resign as a consequence of singular events that imply costs for the government but can accumulate resignation events, which reach a threshold at which the ministers’ power to resist is so much weakened, and political costs so much increased, that they are forced to leave office (threshold hypothesis). This explicitly political explanation of resignation events is modelled in decision-theoretic terms. We focus on the Federal Chancellor as the one actor who is equipped with the power to keep a tarnished minister in office, to ask him to resign ‘voluntarily’, or to simply dismiss him. All other action in the process of a resignation debate is interpreted as influencing the Federal Chancellor’s political calculation of costs and benefits. One could also model the process and the outcome of resignation debates in game- theoretic terms. This would more explicitly incorporate strategic interactions. However, so far the data for such a model are not available.

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Based on statistical analysis, we find that the outcome of resignation debates, that is whether or not ministers must resign, is determined mainly by two factors: the specific resignation issue and the interplay between the position taken by the Federal Chancellor and the public concerning a demand for resignation. Resignations follow systematic patterns. However, these patterns are not compatible with the ministerial responsibility doctrine for two reasons. First, such errors account for only seven out of the 14 resignations in the period covered here. Second, and more interestingly, personal errors have only once led to an actual resignation, while departmental errors have done so in six cases. Hence, resignation events do not follow a managerial logic with the minister concerned losing office automatically after an error has been detected and publicised. We find that ‘extrapolitical’ resignation issues, having mainly to do with misdemeanours in favour of the minister or of third parties, are much more dangerous for a political future. Finally, our evidence rejects the threshold hypothesis and confirms a simple cost–benefit hypothesis. Our multicausal analysis puts the bivariate results partly into perspective. The results corroborate the finding that the Federal Chancellor and the minister’s party are central for the outcome of resignation debates. But the media and public do not seem to be directly relevant when considered in conjunction with other factors. We proceed as follows. In the following section we provide an overview of the concept of ministerial resignation and develop a classification of those events. In section three we present the data and methods being used, and in section four we report our findings. We first describe the patterns of ministerial resignation events we find in Germany and then employ statistical methods as well as Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Ragin 1987) to detect the main explanatory factors for resignation outcomes. Finally, we recapitulate the main results and suggest avenues for future research.

A Classification of Ministerial Resignations There are ‘fifty ways to leave your lover’,5 but only five ways to lose your office as a cabinet minister (see Figure 1). First, a minister may fall victim to a general cabinet reshuffle. Second, the minister may lose office as a consequence of his party leaving government. Third, the minister may step down because of some kind of pressure resulting from a resignation discussion in public. Fourth, a minister can be pulled out of office if he is offered a political post outside cabinet – for example a leading party position or an important job in an international organisation. Finally, the minister might disagree with government policy or have other, politically neutral, reasons for resigning.6 The first two types are ordinary discontinuations and of little interest to resignation research (Kam and Indridason 2005), whereas the other three types are extraordinary discontinuations and, therefore, relevant to the analysis of resignations of ministers. We define resignation as a premature and non-scheduled

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discontinuation of a minister’s term in cabinet.7 Resignations can be further differentiated into ‘push’ resignations, where a minister loses his job after having been the object of massive criticism, and ‘pull’ resignations, where a minister heads for a new office outside cabinet.8 ‘Of course, resignations are not always what they seem’ (Marshall 1989: 127). The true reasons for a ministerial resignation are often difficult to distinguish, even if the occasion might appear obvious at first sight. Thus, a cabinet reshuffle may be an elegant way to get rid of a minister who might otherwise have been forced to resign.9 It is not always easy to draw a clear line between push and pull resignations or neutral resignations.10 Nonetheless, a categorisation is necessary for a systematic investigation about resignations. In this study we focus on ‘push’ resignations in Germany (see Figure 2). We are especially interested in the dynamics and outcomes of a running

Figure 1: Types of office discontinuation

Figure 2: Type of resignation issues

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resignation debate. Thus, we have to leave other questions concerning ministerial durability aside. Why and when are ministers pushed out of office? The first distinction we make is between issues with a close reference to the execution of a minister’s duties and those where there is no direct connection to his assignment. We can subdivide the first category, the ‘political’ one, into personal failings of the minister in executing his ministerial duty and departmental errors (Dowding and Kang 1998: 420; Page 1990: 145; Woodhouse 1994: 47, 87). The latter affects the minister indirectly. An error has occurred in his department, but one cannot impute the lapse to the minister himself. A third subcategory which causes resignation issues (not necessarily resignations, though), still within the political category, is the policy disagreement – the opposition demands the resignation of a minister so as to express its discontent with his policies or performance. Of course, in reality these sub-categories may overlap. These are the issues generally referred to from a ministerial responsibility perspective. However, this covers neither all issues possible nor all resignation events that actually occurred between 1969 and 2005. Therefore, another category of issues is necessary. An ‘extra-political’ occasion which can cause a resignation issue, hence an issue without a close connection to the minister’s duties, is favouritism, which can be divided into two types: personal enrichment or acts done by the minister in favour of a third party, such as persons or enterprises closely connected to him or his political party. Any other extra- political occasion, such as a verbal faux pas, is subsumed in the miscellaneous category.11

Data and Methods Our research is based on two kinds of data collection: a collection of all ministerial discontinuations12 in the period under examination and a data collection of resignation events specifically compiled for our purposes. As previously noted, these two collections only partially overlap as not every resignation event leads to a discontinuation of ministerial office and not every discontinuation of office fulfils our criteria for a resignation. As resignation events are our major unit of observation, we explain the way we code the information included in considerable detail. For every case in the set we collect and code information on a large number of aspects. A major problem in the collection of these events is determining which demands for resignation are serious enough to start a discussion in the media and between government actors and therefore have to be considered in our analysis. Preliminary online searches quickly revealed that we need a filtering mechanism to distinguish between ritual demands without any chance of success and those with substance. We finally decided to include only demands for resignation of a specific minister reported on pages one or two of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.13 This way we can be confident of including only those cases which are relevant to resignation research.

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In addition, this procedure seems a promising step towards comparative research between countries.14 For every resignation event we code the outcome – that is resignation or non- resignation – which will be used as our dependent variable, and a large number of factors that might influence a minister’s chances of not ‘surviving’ a resignation discussion, which will be tested for as independent variables.

(1) Type of office discontinuation (see Figure 1). We include this variable purely for descriptive purposes. We are interested here in the distribution of cases between ordinary and extraordinary discontinuations. For cases of ordinary discontinuations and those that belong to the neutral or protest resignation and to the pull resignation categories, we supplement this with data on party affiliation, name of department and membership in cabinet, as our analysis concentrates on push resignations. In the case of extraordinary discontinuations we add much more detailed information on (2).

(2) Resignation issue (see Figure 2). With this variable we test whether it is mainly issue characteristics that explain the outcome of resignation discussions. This item is coded categorically. We also note whether the date of an offence was before or after the minister’s assumption of office, whether it has criminal relevance and whether it has any relationship to the office a minister holds. In the few cases where the judiciary was actually involved our ordinal coding is: 0¼no criminal relevance, 1¼investigation by public prosecutor, 2¼charge against minister, 3¼conviction of minister or acceptance of order by minister. Finally, we note whether somebody else, for instance a civil servant, had to resign or was transferred in place of the minister.15 We include this latter information to test for the widely held belief that in many instances subordinates are sacrificed to get a minister out of the news.

(3) Number of events in which a minister had already been involved and length of time in office until the resignation discussion started. Both indicators relate directly to the threshold hypothesis which states that a cumulative resignation threat on a minister positively correlates with the probability of his resignation.

(4) Course, intensity and duration of a resignation discussion. These indicate the pressure put on a minister as well as on the government as a whole. In this respect we collect and code information on:

(a) Gravity of a resignation discussion. We distinguish between direct and indirect demands for resignation. In the first case an actor will ask the minister to go. In the second case, the demand is usually hedged behind

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a more general criticism of the government. We assume that the more directly a minister is the object of resignation demands the more vulnerable he is. We note all such demands in the course of a resignation discussion. In addition, we code more general news reports about on-going speculations on resignations. We calculate the gravity using the following formula:

with x being the sum of direct resignation demands, y the sum of indirect resignation demands, z being the number of newspaper articles in which a minister is mentioned in the context of more general reports on possible resignations and g being the resulting gravity value. (b) Author of a resignation demand. We categorically code the authors according to political relevance.16 We assume that the more relevant the author of a resignation demand the more likely it is that a minister steps down. (c) Time span of resignation discussion. This includes the first to the last newspaper article found with regard to a specific discussion. (d) Intensity of resignation discussion. We calculate the intensity by dividing the gravity by the time span, assuming that a minister being confronted by a large number of demands for dismissal within a short time span is under heavier pressure than one who is the object of such demands from time to time. (e) Length of time between start of legislative period and date at which a resignation discussion has started, assuming that there is a cyclical relationship between the point of time in a legislative period and the vulnerability of a minister under public pressure. One could, however, both make the argument that a resignation is most probable either at the beginning and the end of a legislative term or at about mid-term.17

(5) Parliamentary petition for dismissal of a minister and parliamentary committee of inquiry. With these two indicators we include the role of the parliamentary arena in the analysis of resignation events, a perspective usually ignored in this kind of research. A parliamentary petition for dismissal is a proper instrument used by opposition parties to increase public pressure on the government in the short term.18 Parallel to this, a committee of inquiry19 is a longer term instrument aimed at keeping the case against a minister in the news. In both cases we code the information on an ordinal scale: 0¼no public deliberation on using an instrument, 1¼public deliberation but not acted upon, 2¼motion moved.

(6) Position of actors. When a resignation discussion starts, a number of actors involved publicly state their position on the demand. We code the positions of the following individual and collective actors: the minister concerned,20theFederalChancellor,21theminister’spartyandparliamentary party, the

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coalition partner, the opposition parties, major interest groups, the mediaandthepublic.22Withregardtothepositions wedistinguishbetweenin favourofresignation,againstresignation,mixed,23neutral/notinvolved,and, finally, not available/unclear. In many cases, coding of the exact position is an extremely difficult task. Especially in short discussions, not every actor positions himself clearly. Even if this is the case one must ask whether the position can be taken at face value or whether it is mere lip-service. Finally, how do we interpret cases where an actor refrains from publicly commenting on a resignation demand? This might signal indifference or non-involvement but can also mean something else. We proceed by including a position in favour of or against resignation only in those instances where the position is explicitly and sincerely stated. As the position of the media and public is of crucial importance to the Federal Chancellor’s political calculation, the coding procedures for this collective actor must be explained in more detail. Of course, we are aware of the fact that public opinion and published media opinion are not always the same. However, distinguishing between the two affords a detailed media analysis and data on public opinion that are either difficult to pursue or simply not available. In addition, not every resignation event leads to intensive media commentary or finds enough interest in the population. In these cases we code the position as neutral/not involved. Positional information is based in the media’s case on a broader set of sources: newspaper articles, commentaries, and ‘letters to the editor’ in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Su¨ddeutsche Zeitung; the press surveys of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Su¨ddeutsche Zeitung, and, from 2000, the online press survey of Deutschlandfunk; and finally, where available, public opinion data. Based on these information sources, we code the position on an ordinal scale: 0¼against resignation, 1¼mixed, neutral/not involved, 2¼in favour of resignation, n.a.¼not available/unclear. The variable on actors’ positions helps us to describe the configuration of resignation debates. We assume that specific configurations, especially in a situation where the media and public are mainly for dismissal and the Federal Chancellor takes a cautious position, make it highly unlikely that a minister can ‘survive’ a resignation discussion. Altogether, the resignation events data collection contains information on 27 variables. Our main aim is to explore whether there are systematic patterns in the way that resignation debates are led in Germany and to identify the factors that make actual resignations more likely. We combine quantitative and qualitative methods. First, we consider all aspects mentioned above as independent variables that may determine the outcome of resignation events one by one in bivariate correlations. We report here only on those that reach statistical significance. The still very small number of events as units of observation in the data set severely restricts our options, however, to follow on from there with multivariate regressions. Therefore, we employ Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as a case-sensitive method to see

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which factors and combinations of factors are present in resignation debates and to explain their outcomes.

Findings (a) Descriptive Patterns and Bivariate Analysis Before we take a closer look at push resignations a short overview of the distribution of cases among the different types of ministerial discontinuations is in order (see Figure 3). All in all there were 148 ministerial discontinuations between 1969 and 2005 in Germany. In 35 cases discontinuation was a consequence of the minister’s party leaving government, but as these discontinuations are a result of an election or party decision and therefore not due to an involved actor’s individual decision (the Federal Chancellor or the minister), we do not take them into account in the following percentages. Twenty-seven (24%) of the remaining 113 discontinuations were due to a minister being replaced after a general election, 11 ministers (10%) were shuffled out during a legislative term, 17 ministers (15%) changed office in cabinet during a legislative term and 11 reshuffles (10%) occurred after a general election. Together with six discontinuations due to a department’s abolition, we count 72 ordinary discontinuations (64%). Hence, the remaining 41 discontinuations (36%) are resignations. These divide into

Figure 3: Ministerial discontinuations, 1969–2005

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14 push resignations (12%), 13 pull resignations (12%),24 seven protest resignations (6%),25 six resignations for miscellaneous reasons,26 and one basically owing to the minister’s age.27 As we are interested mainly in the patterns and outcomes of push registrations, it is interesting to compare the number of actual push registrations with the number of events in which the possibility of resignation existed. Between 1969 and 2005 there were 111 such events, only 14 of which led to a resignation in a period of 36 years. Hence, push resignations are extremely rare, occurring on average every two and a half years. Resignation debates, however, occur more often. On average there are about three events per year in the time period covered. Dowding and Kang (1998: 416–17) dub the proportion of resignations to resignation events ‘honour ratio’, interpreting it as giving evidence of the integrity of a cabinet. Because we use this reference number in a broader context, we refer to it more neutrally as the ‘resignation ratio’. It simply signals the unconditional likelihood that a minister involved in a resignation event will ultimately step down. In total, this ratio is 12.6% in the time period covered here. Comparing the different cabinets, the ratio varies between 0.0% (Brandt I, Kohl V and Schröder II) and 28.6% (Kohl IV), with the second Schmidt cabinet reaching 13.3% and the first Schröder cabinet reaching 17.2%.28 This latter cabinet, however, attracts attention with regard to the absolute number of resignation events. It called for resignation 29 times in just one term – compared to on average three, 11 and 15 for the Brandt, Schmidt and Kohl cabinets respectively. Why is this the case? One possible explanation is that the ministers in Schröder’s first government were relatively inexperienced because the SPD had been in opposition for so long and the Green

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Party had not yet been in government on the federal level. However, looking at the personnel, one finds that many ministers had already been active members of government at the state level. Another explanation looks at the distribution of these events according to their issue character. Twelve cases were due to the opposition calling for a minister’s resignation because of disagreements with their policy or criticism of their performance. It was not, therefore, so much the new government’s relative inexperience but the CDU/CSU’s29 long inexperience of having to play the role of opposition that generally led to a more aggressive style between the two blocs on the federal level. The number of resignation events decreased to nine in Schröder’s second term, which ended one year ahead of schedule when Schröder unavailingly sought a new electoral mandate. Looking at the parties’ overall resignation ratios the differences are fairly small. The SPD and the FDP have identical ratios of 13.6%, the CDU/CSU reaches 11.8%, and the Green Party’s ratio is 9.1%.30 Hence, we can conclude that in this respect the smaller government party’s personnel plays by the same rules of the game as the Federal Chancellor’s party. What are the issues that spark resignation debates and which of them are likely to lead to a resignation (see Figure 4)? According to our earlier

Figure 4: ‘Push’ resignations and non-resignations according to type of issue, 1969- 2005

categorisation it is policy disagreement, that is critique of a minister’s policy or performance, which causes most of the events (51) – but it has not led to a single resignation in the whole time period. This clearly exposes these calls, usually made by the opposition but sometimes by social movements and interest groups such as

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Greenpeace, as being merely ritual behaviour without any serious consequences for a minister’s career. In contrast to personal errors, which only once ( in 1974) led to a resignation, departmental errors do so in 25% of the events. To conclude that ministers’ personal errors are less likely to lead to a resignation than errors made by their civil servants would be premature, though. Rather, this might depend on the seriousness of the failing. Overall, this shows that only in a small minority of cases have ministerial resignations had anything to do with what the doctrine of ministerial responsibility implies. In contrast, personal enrichment and favouring a third party, although covering a rather small share of the total events, often result in a minister’s deselection (the ratios are 50% and 100% respectively). Having detected the patterns in the data set, in the next step we test for bivariate correlations between the independent variables and the outcome of resignation debates. Here we report in more detail only on those aspects that show some promise as explanatory factors. We draw the line at the 5% level of significance. We use Kendall’s tau-b (i-b) for all variables with values on a nominal or ordinal scale. A minister’s party affiliation is not significant (see Table 1). The same is true with regard to the portfolio. Of course, there are portfolios which are involved in considerably more resignation events than others and therefore have an image as ‘ejector seats’. This is the case, for example, for the

Table 1: The explanation of resignation events – Bivariate correlations Variable Resignation ratio (%) Correlation Significance Resignation issue (N = 111) Personal error 10.0 70.025 0.795 Departmental error 25.0 0.196 0.040 Policy disagreement 0.0 70.350*** 0.000 Personal enrichment 50.0 0.218** 0.022 Favour a third party 100.0 0.439*** 0.000 Miscellaneous 10.5 70.029 0.765 Political 8.2 70.238** 0.012 Extra-political 26.9 0.238** 0.012 Date of offence before taking office 66.7 0.389*** 0.000 Date of offence after taking office 9.5 70.389*** 0.000 Relationship to office 9.3 70.264*** 0.006 No relationship to office 35.7 0.264*** 0.006 No criminal relevance 11.1 70.271*** 0.004 Investigation by public prosecutor 0.0 70.036 0.704 Charge against minister 100.0 0.251*** 0.008 Conviction/acceptance of order 100.0 0.251*** 0.008 Variable Correlation Significance

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Position of actor (N = 111) Minister In favour of resignation 0.357*** 0.000 Against resignation 70.363*** 0.000

Ordinal (N = 109) 0.372*** 0.000

Federal chancellor In favour of resignation 0.571*** 0.000 Against resignation 70.258*** 0.007

Ordinal (N = 53) 0.672*** 0.000

Minister’s party In favour of resignation 0.572*** 0.000 Against resignation 70.311*** 0.001

Ordinal (N = 91) 0.456*** 0.000

Coalition partner In favour of resignation 0.363*** 0.000 Against resignation 70.217** 0.023

Ordinal (N = 64) 0.418*** 0.001

Opposition In favour of resignation 0.311*** 0.006 Against resignation 70.036 0.704

Ordinal (N = 92) 0.352*** 0.001

Interest groups In favour of resignation 70.091 0.341 Against resignation 70.036 0.704

Ordinal (N = 95) 70.073 0.480

Media/public In favour of resignation 0.571*** 0.000 Against resignation 70.051 0.589

Ordinal (N = 111) 0.519*** 0.000

** correlation significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed). *** correlation significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed). The values for the positions ‘in favour of resignation’ and ‘against resignation’ are based on dummy variables. Ordinal values result from the coding as described in the paper.

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Ministry of Defence and the Home Office, but their resignation ratios are not significantly above the average (18.8% and 15.4% respectively). The course, intensity and duration of resignation debates also do not vary significantly with resignation outcomes. Our findings with regard to the length of time between the start of a legislative term and a resignation event differ from ordinary discontinuations where we actually find a cyclical pattern with reshuffles and pull resignations occurring most often at about mid-term. In general, resignation events do not correlate with the relevance of an author demanding resignation. The only findings to report are a moderate and positive correlation of A category authors (0.209) and a moderate but negative correlation of B category authors (70.241) with resignation outcomes. This is although the resignation ratios at first seem to confirm a differing relevance of resignation demands according to author category.31 The resignation ratio with category A is 23.3%, with B 3.9%, and with C 0.0%. However, based on bivariate correlations we find that this is a far from systematic relationship. Also, one can assume that the direction of causality is the other way round. Category A authors restrict their demands for resignation to serious cases where the probability of such an outcome is highest. The parliamentary petition for dismissal and parliamentary committee of inquiry variables are not significant either. What about the idea that ministers may accumulate resignation events before they must resign? Leading the league table here (see Figure 5) is Rudolf Scharping (SPD), whose time expired after his seventh involvement in such a discussion. However, this is the exception rather than the rule.

Figure 5: Accumulation of individual resignation events, 1969-2005

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With one additional exception reaching four events,32 all other ministers who actually resigned left during the course of the first or second event. Comparing the average number of resignation events we find that ministers resigning left after 2.07 events (standard deviation: 1.64), whereas those who did not resign were on average involved in 1.67 events (standard deviation: 1.07). Does the probability of a resignation event ending in actual resignation increase with the number of such discussions for a cabinet as a whole? Our data do not confirm such a pattern for Germany (see Figure 6). Finally, is there a systematic association between time in office and the danger of not surviving a resignation event? This danger does not increase with the duration in office. This association is, if at all,33 in the opposite direction. The average duration of ministers in office who survived a resignation discussion is 36.2 months whereas the duration of ministers who left is only 30.1. The findings on both individual and collective accumulation of resignation events and length of time in office lead us to clearly reject the threshold hypothesis. In contrast, most of the resignation issues moderately but significantly correlate with our dependent variable. Policy disagreements show a negative relationship to resignation. Favouring a third party and personal enrichment positively correlate with the minister losing his job. While political issues show a predominantly negative correlation (with departmental errors being the exception), again placing doubt on the relevance of the ministerial responsibility hypothesis, extra-political issues do so in the opposite direction. Interestingly, an offence occurring before taking office is highly significant and correlates positively, while an offence after taking office

Figure 5: Accumulation of collective resignation events, 1969-2005

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does so in the negative direction. The future of ministers confronted with the judiciary follows a significant pattern according to our analysis. If the offence is related to the office, there is a moderately negative association; if not there is a moderately positive association. If the offence does not bear any criminal relevance there is a negative relationship, whereas if it does, a positive relationship can be established if at least an official charge is made. The actor’s position variable is significant in most cases, generally at the 1% level. The exceptions are interest groups with no significant influence and the opposition with a moderate association, again showing that their demands for resignation are generally mere window-dressing. Most important seem to be the roles of the Federal Chancellor and the media. We find that the Federal Chancellor’s position should not be treated as a matter of course. Needless to say, the Federal Chancellor is the only one constitutionally entitled to ask the Federal President to appoint or dismiss a minister. However, one thing a Federal Chancellor cannot do is prevent a resignation under all circumstances. In only one case, ’ resignation (already mentioned in the introduction), did this happen against the explicitly stated wish of the Federal Chancellor. In another case,34 the Federal Chancellor’s position switched from whole-hearted support of the minister to less clear statements. In all cases where the Federal Chancellor publicly positioned himself against the minister, the event ended in resignation.35 Comparing ’s behaviour in resignation discussions with Gerhard Schröder’s in his first term shows an interesting contrast. Kohl much more openly positioned himself in support of his ministers under pressure than Schröder who very often simply opted to keep silent (see Figure 7).

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Figure 4: The federal chancellor’s positioning in resignation events – Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder

Therefore, it is no surprise that the resignation ratio of the Schröder I cabinet is, at 17.2%, higher than the average for the Kohl cabinets (12.5%). Comparing the number of resignation events over time shows that the Schröder I cabinet accumulated an extremely high number, with 29 such occasions. In contrast, the Schröder II cabinet accumulated only nine such events. Although the numbers per year are by no means exceptional, the first Schröder government was unusual in getting involved in so many events every year (see Figure 8). The position of the media and public seems to be the strongest predictor of the outcome of resignation debates, according to the findings in the bivariate analysis. This collective actor is only rarely unified behind a clear position against a resignation.36 This occurred in three cases, two ending in non-resignation and one in resignation. On those few occasions where the media and public jointly argue for resignation there is next to no chance for the minister concerned to stay in office. In our data collection we find seven such cases with six ending in resignation. The most common constellation is that this collective actor shows mixed positions or is indifferent (102 cases with eight ending in resignation).

(b) QCA – A Multicausal Analysis Those factors that have shown promising potential for explaining resignation outcomes in the first, bivariate step will next be considered together in a qualitative, case-sensitive way. Qualitative Comparative Analysis rests on the ontological assumption of multiple conjunctural causality (Ragin 1987).37 Causation is multiple in the sense that different

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Figure 8: Number of resignation events per year, 1969-2005

causes lead to the same outcome (equifinality). Conjunctural causality means that outcomes are determined by the interaction of causes. In this perspective on causality, causes do not have an effect that is independent of other causes, as is assumed for example in linear-additive regression models (Ragin 1997). Instead, the effect of causes is assumed to hinge on the presence of other causes. We consider the ontological assumptions of QCA highly suitable for the study of ministerial resignation. It appears compelling that the effect of certain variables, like the Federal Chancellor’s opinion, is contingent on the presence of other variables, for example the opinion of the minister’s party or the media. At the same time, it seems convincing to start with the assumption that multiple causal paths lead to ministerial (non-) resignation. It is important to note that multiple conjunctural causation is an assumption. As is the case for regression analysis, QCA captures covariation but not causality. It thus requires us to ‘go into the cases’ after the analysis in order to assess whether the causes fed into the analysis are indeed causally linked to the outcome (Ragin 2000). Qualitative Comparative Analysis is only applicable to dichotomous data where conditions are coded as either present or absent.38 The methodological basis of QCA is Boolean algebra (Ragin 1987: 85–124). The application of Boolean algebra allows the necessary and sufficient conditions for the outcome to be derived from the data. A hypothetical notation of a result obtained by QCA is: O¼A*Bþc*D. O is the outcome, uppercase letters indicate the presence of a cause, lowercase letters its absence. Multiplication indicates logical AND, addition refers to logical OR. In this example there are no necessary causes but two sufficient conjunctions. The outcome either occurs when A and B are present, or C is absent and D is present.

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In order to derive the conditions of ministerial resignation, one must first determine the variables that should enter into QCA. We use the set of the variables that are statistically significant in the bivariate correlations. The variables BEFO_AFT and POL_KIND are already dichotomous. The judicial variable, capturing whether and what judicial measures were taken against the minister, and the positional variables are categorical and thus require recoding.39 The judicial variable is coded 0 if no judicial measures were initiated and 1 otherwise. This dichotomisation appears reasonable since one can assume that the initiation of any judicial measures is a watershed ministers aim to avoid. The category NO_CRIM catches this dichotomisation and is thus used in QCA.40 The positional variables are coded in a similar manner. For each actor, the variable is recoded as 1 if the actor is for resignation and 0 otherwise. This recoding of the positions appears plausible from a theoretical perspective. If an actor wants the minister to resign he makes his opinion public. The absence of such a statement can hence be interpreted as ‘actor is not for resignation’, which is the substantial meaning of a 0 on the dichotomous positional variable. The categories POS_MINIS, POS_CHANC, POS_OWNP, POS_COAL, POS_OPP and POS_MED- PUB of the positional variables capture this dichotomisation and are hence included as dichotomous conditions in the model.41 The model of our QCA is thus:

EVENT: BEFO_AFT+NO_CRIM+POS_MINIS+POS_CHANC+ POS_OWNP+POS_COAL+POS_OPP+POS_MEDPUB+POL_KIND.42

Although REL_OFFICE is statistically significant in the bivariate correlation we do not include it in QCA. This variable is substantially and statistically correlated with the variables BEFO_AFT and POL_KIND that are covered by the model. We thus see little extra value in adding REL_OFFICE to the model.43 After the conditions have been specified, each case is conceived of as a configuration of the selected conditions that is linked to the outcome. The information about the configurations and the related outcomes is depicted in a truth table. The truth table for our data is given in Table 2. The configurations must be read as specified in the model above, i.e. the first figure refers to the first condition, the second figure to the second condition and so on. The bold configuration represents a problem for our analysis because it marks a contradiction in the data. In 24 cases, this configuration is linked to non-resignation and in two cases it is associated

Table 3: Truth table for all configurations

Configuration Outcome Number of cases

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0100000010 0 52 0100001000 0 12 0100000000 0 5 0101010010 0 1 0100001110 0 1 1100001000 0 1 1000000000 0 1 0101001011 1 2 0100111011 1 1 0011001101 1 1 1100000001 1 1 0100101101 1 1 0101101101 1 1 0110000011 1 1 1000111101 1 1 1101111101 1 1 0101001101 1 1 1100001011 1 1 0100001010 C 24 negative and 2 positive outcomes 0 = non-resignation, 1 = resignation. with a demission. This is logically contradictory since one and the same configuration cannot lead to resignations and non-resignations. The best way to resolve contradictions is to go back to the cases and check for incorrect coding of the data or omitted variables whose inclusion remove the contradiction (Ragin 1987: 113–18). Regarding the first potential solution, we did not find any measurement error. A reconsideration of the two positive cases shows that the ministers stepped down in the course of a problematic situation that briefly followed another troublesome situation. In both cases the Minister of Defence was involved. The first case took place during the time of the cold war, when the two German states tried to spot members of their respective intelligence service in the adversary’s authorities like federal ministries. In December 1977 a severe case of espionage became public when three employees of the Ministry were found to be agents of the Eastern German intelligence service. A parliamentary committee of investigation left Minister of Defence tarnished when just a few days later another problem emerged. It became public that the Minister had not been informed about the fact that his own secretary was suspected of being an Eastern German spy. She had even been wiretapped by the military intelligence corps without his knowledge. Once he found out he did not inform the cabinet, which caused even more criticism. He finally resigned in February 1978. ‘Smuggling of arms by order of the state’ was the accusation against the Ministry of Defence in October 1991. The Federal Intelligence Service’s intent, supposedly without knowledge of Minister , to ship tanks out of the inventory of the disbanding former East German National People’s Army to without compliance with the legal regulations,

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became public. The personal consequences of this were discussed for weeks. Finally, the Minister of the Chancellery Lutz Stavenhagen, who was also in charge of the secret services, resigned but the whole affair also left Stoltenberg harmed. Only a few months later a very similar case came up. Fifteen tanks were delivered to Turkey (where German armament was also used in the Kurdish conflict) despite the explicit decision of the ’s budget committee to stop the supply. Communication problems were the official reason for this second lapse within such a short time. Stoltenberg fired the head of the responsible department, but even then he could not save his own head. He had to resign in March 1992. In which respects do the two resignations differ from other cases where a minister was involved in more than one resignation issue? Two facts make the resignations of Leber and Stoltenberg rather unique: first, the time proximity between the first and the second issue, which was especially evident in the case of Leber; second, the stunning likeness of the first and the second issue with respect to cause and content. Those two very special characteristics, which seem to be decisive in the resignation decisions, have not been specifically coded in our database. This insight suggests that time might play a role in the understanding of ministerial resignations in certain cases (cf. for incorporating time into QCA Caren and Panofsky 2005).44 Remember, however, that we did not find any general evidence for a threshold effect. The simple inclusion of a variable ‘time’ thus does not resolve our problem. Hence, the contradiction between the 24 negative and two positive cases cannot be eliminated by the two most favoured means. A theoretical consideration of the configuration suggests that it is preferable to treat it as leading to non-resignations.45 Since more than 90% of the cases display the expected outcome, we decided to remove the two resignations from the analysis. The configuration can be coded as ‘0’ on the outcome. Although this is only the secondbest option, we consider it justifiable because the number of dropped cases is very small and the theoretical anomaly cannot be eliminated by going back to them.46 The truth table then contains eight negative configurations covering 97 non- resignations and 11 positive configurations covering 12 resignations. The positive and negative outcomes can now be separately minimised with the Quine– McCluskey algorithm (Ragin 1987: 85–124). The algorithm derives a minimal equation from the truth table that entails the information about the causal paths leading to the outcome. The minimal solution for resignations is:47

RESIGNATION = POS_OWNP + POS_MINIS + BEFO_AFT*POL_ KIND + POS_CHANC*POS_OPP + BEFO_AFT*NO_CRIM*pos_ opp.

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The equation suggests that ministerial resignation in Germany is a matter of multiple and conjunctural causation. Five different paths result in ministerial demission:

(1) the minister steps down when his own party is for resignation; (2) when the minister himself wants to resign; (3) when the reason for the discussion about the resignation of the minister precedes entry into office and the reason is political;48 (4) when the Federal Chancellor and the opposition are for resignation; or (5) when the reason precedes the entry into office, and no judicial investigations were initiated against the minister and the opposition is not in favour of resignation.49

According to these findings, the media and public, in our bivariate analysis a rather strong variable, do not seem to play a decisive role when considered in conjunction with other variables. They do not appear in any of the configurations leading to resignation. Instead, the minister’s own party being for resignation appears to be a sufficient condition for resignation. This might be due to discontented party members and voters exerting pressure on the MPs in their constituencies. The Federal Chancellor being for resignation, in conjunction with the opposition, is also a determinant of resignation. The bivariate correlation that indicated a strong impact of the Chancellor is thus found to be confirmed here. The minimal solution for non-resignations is:50 resignation = no_crim*pos_chanc*pos_ownp + pos_chanc*pos_ownp* POS_OPP*pol_kind + befo_aft*pos_minis*pos_chanc*pos_ownp + befo_aft*pos_minis*pos_opp.

This expression can be factored to derive a simpler formula (Ragin, 1987: 100-1): resignation = pos_chanc*pos_ownp*(no_crim + POS_OPP*pol_kind + befo_aft*pos_minis) + befo_aft*pos_minis*pos_opp.

Factoring the raw expression highlights the fact that the conditions in brackets are causally equivalent if they occur in combination with the conjunction standing before the bracket. In substantial terms, the expression indicates that non-resignation results via four different causal paths:

(1) the Chancellor and the minister’s party are against resignation in combination with (a) no judicial investigations started against the minister,

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(b) the opposition being for resignation and a political reason, or (c) a source of trouble that occurred before entry into office and a minister being against resignation, or (2) the troublesome event took place after entry into office and the minister and the opposition are against resignation.

The solution for non-resignations largely corroborates the findings for ministerial resignations. Regarding non-resignations the major determinant is the Federal Chancellor and the minister’s party not being for resignation. Again, the opinion of the public and media is not covered by any of the conjunctions. The results for resignations and non-resignations thus lead us to two broad conclusions: first, the role of the public and media seems to be far less central than one might intuitively expect – at least in terms of a direct factor. The second conclusion corresponds with the first: whether or not a minister has to resign is largely decided within the political arena. As long as the minister’s own party and the Federal Chancellor do not position themselves against the minister, the chances of staying in office are quite promising.

Conclusion Compared with ordinary discontinuations, actual resignations are very rare in Germany. However, resignation events, i.e. demands for resignations that start serious discussions about the future of minister, occur much more often. We have collected and coded detailed information on these events. At present the sample (for 1969 to 2005) is still too small to exploit the rich information we have in order to ascertain which factors are most relevant in determining the outcome. Nevertheless, we have shown how to analyse the phenomenon under study in a systematic way rather than treat each case as a singular event or simply rely on the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. The bivariate analysis suggested a strong role for the Federal Chancellor and the public and media. Qualitative Comparative Analysis put these preliminary findings partly in perspective. By considering the interplay of several factors, the public and media lose importance and, surprisingly, do not seem to play a direct role at all. Instead, the Federal Chancellor and the minister’s own party turn out to be the decisive actors determining the minister’s fate. Where do we go from here? Our study shows that extending the time period covered as well as increasing the number of units of observation by including sub- national governments wherever possible is of central importance – in terms of substance as well as methodology. The way the data were collected and the information coded is no obstacle in this regard. However, only by increasing the number of cases vis-a` -vis the number of variables will it be possible to analyse resignation events with standard statistical procedures. As mentioned, QCA may be a helpful method in small-N to medium-N situations but it cannot wholly escape the

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ratio of cases to conditions dilemma. Second, it is preferable to directly measure political costs involved in resignation discussions. In this article, we basically assume that media and public response are acceptable indirect indicators which the Federal Chancellor takes into account when deciding whether or not to dismiss a minister. In future research, government popularity as well as individual popularity of ministers and the Federal Chancellor or electoral polls should be used as direct indicators. Finally, the consequences of the outcomes of resignation events should be analysed. Do resignations affect the standing of a government in the polls (Dewan and Dowding 2005), public perceptions of its effectiveness and authority or its durability? With regard to both the causal relationship between the political cost– benefit calculus of the Federal Chancellor and resignation outcomes as well as the consequences of these outcomes for a government, a combination of statistical analysis and in-depth case studies of prominent cases as identified by QCA seems to be a promising perspective. Another avenue for future research is to examine the patterns from a comparative perspective. Our analysis is confined to one country. There are still too few data available on other countries, for instance with regard to the volume of resignation events, the distribution of those events among issue categories, or the actual handling of the ministerial resignation doctrine to reach comparative conclusions. However, we are confident that the method we use to study resignation events in Germany for this analysis can easily be transferred to research on other countries as well.

Acknowledgements An earlier draft was presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, Granada, 14–19 April 2005 (Workshop ‘The Selection and De-Selection of Ministers’). We gratefully acknowledge constructive comments by the workshop participants and an anonymous referee. Thanks also to Simon Franzmann, Alexandra Patin and Natalie Ruppert for research assistance.

Notes 1. Home Secretary Rudolf Seiters, as quoted in Su¨ddeutsche Zeitung, ‘Ich trete zuru¨ ck ohne Bitterkeit’, 5 July 1993, p. 1. 2. Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, as quoted in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, ‘Justizministerin denkt nicht an Ru¨ cktritt’, 12 July 1993, p. 2. 3. The Home Office is in charge of the Federal Criminal Police Office, the Ministry of Justice of the Federal Prosecuting Attorney General. 4. This includes male and female office holders, although not surprisingly in Germany a large majority is still male. We do not distinguish between male and female cabinet ministers in the text for reasons of legibility. 5. Paul Simon, ‘Still Crazy After all these Years’, 1975. 6. Coding decisions are made according to the following rules: a push resignation is only coded as such if it was preceded by a resignation event (see below for the resignation event criteria). As a general

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rule, we prefer to code cases according to official statements rather than media speculation. Nevertheless, once we detect conspicuous discrepancies we report them in a footnote. However, the number of cases with discrepancies between the official communique´ and media reports is fairly small. 7. For a similar delineation see Sutherland (1991: 101). 8. We borrow these terms from migration research where push and pull motives of migration are distinguished, see Lee (1972). 9. This is clearly the case with 3 out of 11 ministers who were shuffled out during a term: (Minister of Transport, 1974), Marie Schlei (Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1978), and (Minister of Defence, 1989). 10. It is probably no coincidence that cabinet members exposed to public or internal party criticism may suddenly find themselves posted to Sarajevo or as an official in Nairobi. This happened to former Federal Minister for Special Tasks and Head of the Federal Chancellor’s Office Bodo Hombach in 1999, who ended up as Special Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South-East Europe. He was unpopular with the left wing of the SPD who blamed him for poor coordination and communication within the, at the time, crisis-prone government. Furthermore, allegations about financial irregularities regarding the construction of his private home came up. Nevertheless, when he stepped down the worst intra-party criticisms were already three months away and accusations regarding his house were too vague to start a serious resignation debate. The former Minister of Regional Planning, Building and Urban Development Klaus Töpfer became Executive-Director of the United Nations Environment Programme in 1998. His intra-party standing was alright and he was far from being involved in any scandal. However, journalists argue that he had become too powerful for some party leaders and that Nairobi was considered to be the right place for him to spend the next years. Out of the 13 pull resignations covered from 1969 to 2005, Hombach is indeed the only one where the official reasons given for his resignation are doubtful and the connection between leaving the cabinet and his intra-party standing as well as personal enrichment allegations is rather obvious. With regard to neutral resignations, two out of a total of six can be argued to have an unequivocally ‘pushy’ character: Hans Leussink (Minister of Education, 1972) and (Health Minister, 1992). 11. In a comparative perspective readers might miss the sex scandal. However, the German media and public do not pay too much attention to politicians’ private conduct, as long as it does not affect their administrative capabilities. 12. Our compilation, for the period 1969 to 1998 based on Kempf and Merz (2001). 13. From 1969 to 1992 the collection is based on a microfilm search; from 1993 to September2005 we used an online Lexis-Nexis search with the following two search combinations: ‘!rücktr!+!minister!+!bundes!’ and ‘entlass!+!forder!+!minister!+!bundes!’. Due to an unexplained omission the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is not included in the Lexis-Nexis database for 2 June 1999 to 6 July 1999. Here we had recourse to the traditional microfilm collection. We tested for external validity by comparing the units of observation found in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung with the Süddeutsche Zeitung. 14. Dowding and Kang’s (1998: 425) analysis of the United Kingdom follows a similar procedure with The Times. 15. This is called a ‘Bauernopfer’ (scapegoat), a term originating in chess, in the German language. 16. A = party leader, leader of parliamentary party, general secretary of party, candidate for federal chancellorship. B = e.g. deputy leader of parliamentary party, party spokesman on policy areas, manager of parliamentary party, leader of state party group in parliament, ‘the Opposition’, leader of state party, Minister of state government, Prime Minister of state government, chairman of major interest group. C = e.g. MP, MEP, local politician, spokesman of party-affiliated organisation, spokesman at demonstration.

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17. This idea is similar to hypotheses about government popularity and voting behaviour in mid-term and second-order elections (see Miller and Mackie 1973; Reif and Schmitt 1980). 18. According to the Basic Law, the German constitution, a parliamentary petition for dismissal does not push the minister out of office automatically. Technically, it is a call to the Federal Chancellor to ask the Federal President to dismiss a minister. 19. However, not every resignation issue is suitable for the establishment of such a committee. 20. The minister’s position is coded ‘against’ when he is unwilling to resign and ‘in favour’ when he offers his resignation. In a few cases the position is coded as ‘unclear’, for example when there are rumours in the news that a minister has privately offered to resign. 21. In all cases where the Federal Chancellor publicly supports the minister concerned we code the position as ‘against resignation’. 22. For the coding of the positions of media and public see below. 23. One can find mixed positions either with collective actors or when an actor changes his opinion during a resignation debate. 24. A prominent pull resignation was the one of (Free Democrats – FDP,Minister for Economic Affairs). In 1988 he took the post of EU Commissioner for Industrial Affairs, Information Technology and Telecommunications. Surprisingly, after a short while he was pulled out of this office as well, this time by the Spanish telecommunications company ‘Telefonica’. The most recent pull resignation was in 1999, when Franz Müntefering, Minister of Transport, Building and Housing, took the post of secretary general of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). 25. The most spectacular protest resignation in the last 30 years was surely Oskar Lafontaine’s(SPD, Finance Minister) in 1999, who, after resigning, kept absolute silence for days, before he complained about the intra-governmental lack of team spirit. Interestingly, the Ministry of Finance seems to be particularly susceptible to protest resignations. Alex Möller and did so in 1971 and 1972 respectively. 26. ‘Health problems’ were the official reasons both for the resignation of Health Minister Gerda Hasselfeldt (Christian Social Union – CSU, 1992) and Minister of Education and Science (FDP, 1994). 27. Long-time Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (FDP) resigned in 1992 at the age of 65. 28. ThisfindingofahighlyvariableresignationratioamonggovernmentsdiffersconsiderablyfromDowdinga nd Kang’s (1998: 416–17) results for Great Britain. The overall average in Germany (12.6%) is significantly lower than in Britain (35%), but this is due to the fact that the ratio depends very much on what is counted as an event. The higher the threshold for identifying resignation events, the higher the ratio because the value in the denominator decreases. 29. The Christian Democratic Union and the Bavarian Christian Social Union form a parliamentary party together in the Bundestag, the federal parliament. 30. In terms of parties’ ratios Dowding and Kang (1998: 417) reach a similar finding comparing the Conservatives and Labour in Britain. 31. See note 16 for the coding of the authors that are subsumed under each category. 32. This was (FDP). 33. The statistical association is far below a significant level here. 34. This refers to the resignation of former Minister of Transport, Building and Housing, Reinhard Klimmt (SPD) in 1999. 35. Among those is one case concerning a minister of the smaller coalition party. However, this was due to a very peculiar constellation. In the course of a dramatic intra-government conflict between the SPD and the FDP concerning social, economic, and financial affairs in 1982, the publicly pro- resignation minded Federal Chancellor, (SPD), did not make use of his constitutional powers against the Minister for Economic Affairs, (FDP). The four FDP ministers, however, resigned en bloc during the running resignation issue.

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36. One of the few examples where this happened is the interesting case of the discussion about Foreign Secretary ’s militant past as a street-fighter which ended in a nonresignation. 37. It would be possible to develop a regression model capturing multiple conjunctural causality (Braumoeller 2003). A regression model, however, requires specifying deductively configurations of conditions. QCA, in contrast, derives these configurations inductively from the data. We consider the inductive approach more appropriate. The deductive specification of a regression model might be feasible when one has a strong theory at hand, as for example in research on deterrence (Braumoeller 2003). Research on ministerial resignation is in its infancy and comparatively weak. Therefore, the inductive approach is more suitable for our purposes. 38. Interval-scaled data can be handled with fuzzy-set analysis (Ragin 2000; Ragin and Pennings 2005). Apart from the fact that the data can be easily dichotomised, we consider it not convincing to conceive of conditions as ‘nearly sufficient’ or ‘hardly necessary’ (cf. Symposium 2005). 39. The significant categories of the judicial and positional variables could be entered into QCA. Each category could be conceived of as a dichotomous condition. In this instance 15 conditions would be covered by the model. The ratio of conditions to cases would be too unfavourable, even for QCA that was designed for small-n and medium-n settings. The problem would lie in the simplifying assumptions that are made in the minimisation of the truth table (see below). Ceteris paribus, the smaller the ratio of cases to conditions, the fewer logically possible configurations are observed empirically. This boosts the simplifying assumptions tremendously. Since the less simplifying assumptions are the better (Ragin 1987), it is advisable to reduce the number of conditions on theoretical grounds. By recoding the categorical variables in this manner, the number of conditions decreases to nine. 40. NO_CRIM is a significant category of the judicial variable. 41. All positional conditions are significant categories of the respective positional variable. 42. BEF_AFT¼date of offence, NO_CRIM¼criminal relevance, POS_MINIS¼minister’s position, POS_CHANC¼Federal Chancellor’s position, POS_OWNP¼position of the minister’s party, POS_COAL¼position of the coalition partner, POS_OPP¼position of the parliamentary opposition, POS_MEDPUB¼position of the media and public, POL_KIND¼political or extra-political kind of resignation issue, REL_OFFICE¼ relationship of offence to office. 43. By leaving this variable aside, we also mitigate the problem of simplifying assumptions to some degree. 44. Note that our analysis is based on a decision-theoretic framework. We model resignation events from the perspective of the Federal Chancellor as the actor who has the formal power to dismiss a minister. 45. The ministers, the Chancellor, the minister’s party, the coalition, and the media are not in favour of resignation. This speaks against a demission. The opposition, in contrast, is for a demission. This variable thus also suggests that the minister does not resign. In addition, no judicial steps are initiated against the minister. The other two factors do not clearly speak for or against a demission. 46. Charles Ragin considers the manipulation of data a viable solution toward the removal of contradictions if the most preferred means are not applicable (Ragin 1987: 118). 47. Positive outcomes are minimised and configurations that exist logically, but not in the truth table (so- called remainders), are treated as ‘don’t cares’ in order to derive the minimal solution. The solution results automatically on the basis of the minimisation done by QCA 3.0 (http://www.u.arizona.edu/*cragin/fsQCA/software.shtml) so that there is only one minimal solution. 48. The only case with this configuration is the resignation of Horst Ehmke. He resigned as Minister of Research, Technology and Postal Affairs, taking responsibility for an issue which he had been concerned with as Chancellery Minister in Willy Brandt’s first cabinet – the ‘Guillaume Affair’. Brandt’s top personal assistant turned out to be an Eastern German spy. The Chancellor resigned and thus the whole cabinet left office; however, Ehmke made his decision to leave his post public before Brandt announced his step. Generalising on this, one could argue that if an issue with a political

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dimension with roots in the past comes up, and therefore is apparently considered to be grave enough to be subject of public discussion, then the minister is in serious trouble. 49. Due to the German unification in 1990, four Eastern German politicians participated in Kohl’s cabinet as ministers without portfolio. Just two and a half months later one of them, GDR’s last prime minister, elected after the fall of the Berlin Wall in April 1990, Lothar de Maizière, fell victim to a media campaign concerning his alleged activity for the Ministry for the Safety of State in the GDR, which coordinated information gathering about suspected regime opponents. De Maizière, denying the allegations fiercely, was asked to give evidence of his innocence – an extremely difficult task that he was unable to accomplish. Being a side-entrant in politics he soon became fed up with the conduct in the Bonn Republic and resigned, although the opposition’s calls for resignation were noticeably absent. This is due to the fact that the opposition was aware of the particularity of this matter in German–German history and did not participate in convicting on unproven accusations a person widely considered as behaving with integrity. This explains why this resignation is clearly an exception and unlikely to be repeated. 50. Negative outcomes are minimised and remainders are set as ‘don’t cares’. For negative outcomes, several minimal solutions are obtainable. The above solution is derived by selecting by hand the prime implicants pos_chanc*pos_ownp*POS_OPP*pol_kind and no_crim*pos_chanc*pos_ownp. The minimisation leading to this solution does not produce any simplifying assumptions contradictory to those underlying the minimisation of positive outcomes (cf. Vanderborght and Yamasaki 2003).

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