ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the formal role that the constitution prescribes for governmental institutions, as well as their actual role in the political process. The cabinet is the most important political institution and the main prize in the political game. The strategy proved to be successful in terms of managing the 1979 electoral agenda, though the political establishment was rather surprised and disappointed with the result of the referendum and consequently did not use this instrument again. The most important division within the bureaucracy since 1945, however, has been the political one. The behaviour of political office-holders is shaped more by their respective institutions than used to be the case. The judiciary increasingly came to have a political impact by not only investigating cases involving politicians, but by also prosecuting them. Giving the opposition formal access to the audit office certainly has increased the latter's political relevance.
