ABSTRACT
Since 1945 the British Cabinet system has moved from being a highly unified machine, in which business was marshalled through the Cabinet and its committees according to strict procedures, to a more diffuse but tightly coordinated system. Germany and France have slightly different requirements since their Cabinets are weaker and individual ministers more autonomous. The German Chancellor’s Office has a staff of several hundred who shadow the work of departments to keep the Chancellor in touch and are actively involved in inter-departmental coordination. Although there have been various innovations in support of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet system in recent years, little effort has been made to appraise their effectiveness. Cabinet government is not a subject that lends itself to a pithy summing-up. The system, always in a state of perpetual evolution, lost a number of its familiar points of reference in the 1970s and 1980s, and may not yet have settled on its new course.
