The Political Behavior of Defense Ministers: A Study of Portugal, 1976-2015

ABSTRACT Defense ministers have not received the scholarly attention commensurate with the resources they command in national executives. This paper develops and tests propositions regarding the behavior of different types of defense ministers (military, pure experts, partisan experts, and purely partisan). Blending organizational theory and military psychology, our analysis investigates ministerial turnover in defense portfolios and relations with the legislature and the branches of the armed forces. Propositions are tested using a combination of original and secondary data on Portugal (1976-2015), an ideal case for this study, as well as cross-national evidence. Our findings indicate that military ministers from the army are associated with a higher army budget and larger land force, less accountability vis-à-vis the legislature, and a longer tenure in office. Experts, overall, are associated with a higher-quality army and a lower tenure in office, with mixed results for parliamentary accountability, depending on the type of the expert. These results have significant implications for the study of defense policy, civil-military relations, and cabinet politics, particularly in consolidating democracies featuring a relatively high share of either military officers or experts heading the defense ministry.