Articles
Author: Astrid Elfferich
This paper analyses ministerial expertise of senior ministers and junior ministers (in Dutch: staatssecretarissen) who held office in the Netherlandsbetween 1967 and 2015. Expertise is differentiated between two independent dimensions: technica!lknowledge with respect to the subject matter of the portfolio, and political knowledge and skills. Results indicate that both types of ministers have considerable politica! and technical expertise, but junior ministers have relatively and significantly more often technical expertise and senior ministers more often have political expertise. Furthermore, the complete outsider (lacking both technical and political skill s) is a rather rare phenomenon in both types of ministers. Besides, although it follows from the watchdog junior minister theory that politica! expertise is needed to function effectively as a watchdog, there is nota significantly higher frequency of politica! expertise in the junior ministers when the junior minister and the senior minister are from different parties than when they are from the same party.
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How to Cite: Elfferich, A. (2017) “Politieke en technische expertise van Nederlandse ministers en staatssecretarissen van 1967 tot 2015”, Res Publica. 59(2).