The debate as to how far the office of the Prime Minister has evolved to become more like that of a President is a hot one in political and constitutional theory, but it does have some practical ramifications for the way we think about our leaders. This post shall take a look at the arguments for and against the 'presidentialisation' of the prime minister, and examine the consequences for either side.
Firstly, it is widely accepted that the executive office of the PM has grown in recent decades. In 1970, the cabinet office had just 600 staff, but under Tony Blair, that number grew to over 2,500. As a comparison, the executive office of the President has around 4,000 - though most scholars agree this growth can be attributed to the expansion of the administrative state since the end of WWII. Better, Dowding argues, to look at the role of the executive office. Dowding says the role of staffers in the PM's office is largely based around coordination across government, and the increased centralisation of executive staff shouldn't be confused with 'presidentialisation' - rather, Dickinson and Lebo found the growth in the US executive office staff is due to the president's bargaining relationship with Congress, and the need for a more robust legislative team that the PM, by virtue of the blurred separation of powers, doesn't have. Indeed, the Prime Minister has more authority to grow the executive branch than does the President: in 2006, Tony Blair was able to establish the Ministry of Justice, whereas President George W Bush had to wait for Congress to create the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.
A key debate in this topic is the role of the Cabinet - Dowding argues the Cabinet is still strong, and the increased centralisation of executive staff shouldn't be confused with what former MP Tony Benn calls a 'usurption' of the functions of the cabinet. A complicating factor is the differing approaches taken by different PMs towards their Cabinet: while Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown were considered to rule with an 'iron fist', John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May gave their cabinets more latitude (whether out of political necessity or personality differences). Webb and Pogunkte, whose article directly rebuts Dowding's, believe that the PM's authority over their Cabinet is increasing - what they call a sign of presidentialisation, as the US President has much more control over both the work and the personnel of their Cabinet, with less of a need to draw candidates from the legislature and represent differing wings of the Party.
Party politics also affects our perception of the role of the PM. Removing a sitting Prime Minister is fairly easy: Thatcher, May, Cameron and Blair were all forced to resign after party splits; whereas removing a President (short of assassination) has proved remarkably difficult. Benn believed the Leader of a UK political party often has a veto over policy proposals and manifesto commitments and is "able to use the Government to bring forward the policies which he favours and to stop those to which he is opposed." Dowding agrees that "the vast majority of legislation passed in the British parliament emanates directly from the executive and nothing passes without at least the tacit agreement of the executive." Of course, in the US, the President never formally introduces legislation to the Congress, even their flagship proposals (such as President Biden's American Rescue Plan being introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders, Biden's 2020 rival for the Democratic nomination). Indeed, party loyalty is far weaker in the US, though thanks to polarisation it is becoming more normal.
The personalisation of politics forms Dowding's key thesis: we are mistaking the personalisation of politics for the presidentialisation of the Prime Minister, and the media plays a big role in this. Particularly during the pandemic, simple comparisons can be drawn between the President and the Prime Minister's COVID press briefings, and Dowding argues that media focus more broadly has heightened the role of the Prime Minister to that of the President, and, in turn, prime ministers have begun acting more presidentially (see, for example, May's 2017 general election campaign). However, the rejection of May in 2017 after a campaign that was widely panned for being 'too' presidential is perhaps evidence that the prime minister isn't becoming more presidential. A key example of this is in the role of debates in general election campaigns: in the US, presidential debates have been the norm in every election cycle since 1960, whereas in the UK, the first debate only took place in 2010, and have been haphazardly used since then.
The length of time served by Prime Ministers gives more credence to their 'personalisation': while presidential terms are fixed at 4 to 8 years, PMs such as Thatcher and Blair have served over 10, allowing them to build a stronger 'cult of personality' that can be likened to that of the US president. Furthermore, the PM is taking on more 'ceremonial' responsibilities usually undertaken by the Queen, particularly in the area of foreign policy. Dowding believes that the 'head of state' functions, including that of strengthening alliances, are a key difference between the PM and the President, but the growth of prime ministerial power in foreign policy, particularly during the Brexit negotiations, bring doubt over this claim.
Collective responsibility - the doctrine by which every cabinet member must toe the party line or resign - is arguably weakened in the UK. When Cameron gave his cabinet latitude to campaign on either side of the Brexit referendum, he violated the principle that cabinet members must endorse the position of the government, and May continued to grant (whether she wanted to or not) significant independence up until the Chequers Agreement, which weakened the role of the PM, and heightened the personalities of her cabinet members, particularly then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who used his position to launch a leadership bid after May's resignation.
The Prime Minister, of course, has a very different role to the president in the legislature, beginning with the simple fact that PMs serve within the legislature, whereas Presidents don't. This blurry separation of powers gives the PM, who has an inbuilt majority, far more control over legislative affairs, meaning the end result is far closer to their initial proposals than the US President. Obamacare, for instance, didn't even include the public healthcare option that Obama had campaigned on. This brings us back to party loyalty: candidates have to toe the party line in the UK, as it is the centralised party who is largely responsible for selecting them to stand for election, whereas in the US, candidates are chosen in primaries by the voters, and therefore have far less respect for their establishment party. In the US, it is common to see legislators actively distance themselves from their party leaders (two examples include Senator McCain and President Trump, or Representative Ocasio-Cortez and President Biden). Crucially, the PM has the power to appoint legislators to the House of Lords, whereas the President has absolutely no power to appoint any legislators, even for an interim period. Dowding makes the separation of powers a key component of his argument, but Webb and Pogunkte dispute this, saying that the entire debate as to the 'presidentialisation' of the prime minister must focus on the role of the prime minister/president within the executive, not the legislature.
When considering Prime Ministerial accountability to Parliament, Dowding makes a lot of reference to 'veto players' who can pour cold water on the president/prime minister's plans, and his belief that there are far fewer veto players in the UK system supports his hypothesis that we do not have a presidential PM. Gover and Russell, however, argue that while the 'veto players' in the UK system are less rigid and have less strictly legal authority (we don't, after all, have a constitution to inform us), parliament still exercises a powerful veto over the government, and this was never seen so clearly as it was under May's premiership, when Parliament thrice rejected her Brexit deal. PMs, according to Benn, are also in a more unique position to "control the flow of information about the work of the government. Alone among ministers he has the power to inform Parliament, or the public, directly on any matter." While, like most things, this was brought into doubt by the role Parliament played in May's premiership, it is true that the US Congress has far more robust oversight powers and responsibilities that can force Presidents to reveal information that may be politically damaging.
Finally, as has already been mentioned, it is far harder to remove a US President than it is to remove the UK Prime Minister. Indeed, Benn says the Conservative leaders are disposed of as soon as they are thought to have failed (and this was the case with Thatcher, Cameron and May in clear terms over the poll tax, referendum and Brexit deal, respectively). While Presidents often have their legislative agenda derailed (as President Trump found out when Congress rejected his healthcare plan), Blackburn believed it unprecedented when May didn't resign following the first, or the second, rejections of her Brexit plan. Trump, however, even after inciting violence against lawmakers, still wasn't removed from office or barred from holding federal office in the future.
A key criticism of Dowding's approach levelled by Webb and Pogunkte, is that Dowding focusses too much on a comparison between the US and the UK. The argument that the prime minister is becoming presidential is not a question of laws - we are quite clearly not moving towards a presidential system of government - but a question of perception and politics, which still play a significant role in our ever-evolving constitution. Your answer to whether the prime minister has become presidential likely depends on this issue: are you a strict constitutionalist, who sees a robust parliamentary model of government and the personalisation of the prime minister, or are you less inclined to focus on parliamentary sovereignty, and more inclined to focus on the perceptions and political realities that make up all aspects of our constitution, even when the laws haven't changed?
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Sources:
- Robert Blackburn, 'The UK Parliament in Turmoil: The Impact of Brexit, 2016-20' (2020)
- Keith Dowding, 'The Prime Ministerialisation of the British Prime Minister' (2012) 66 Parliamentary Affairs 617
- Tony Benn, 'The Case for a Constitutional Premiership' (1980) 33 Parliamentary Affairs 7
- Daniel Gover and Meg Russell, 'Parliament and legislation: Perhaps Westminster is more powerful than you think?' (2015) The Constitution Unit
- Paul Webb and Thomas Pogunkte, 'The Presidentialisation of Politics Thesis Defended' (2013) 66 Parliamentary Affairs 646
- Ryan Sheehy and Caroline Newman, 'Bill Clinton, White House alumni headline UVA's Presidential Ideas festival' (UVA Today, 23 May 2019) <https://news.virginia.edu/content/bill-clinton-white-house-alumni-headline-uvas-presidential-ideas-festival>
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