These arguments can be translated into the context of Sub-Saharan Africa. Here, cabinet appointments and changes are used by presidents to consolidate their hold on power, in attempts to contain the threat of losing to their political opponents in democratic elections or of being toppled by insiders through coups d’états (Francois et al. 2015, Arriola 2009). This co-opting of elites helps to explain why cabinets can get larger at strategic moments, notably ahead of elections.<sup>5</sup> Moreover, a “winner-takes-all” political system can be unstable, and governments may face frequent threats of coups. Where presidents use ministerial appointments to buy loyalty from members of the elite who might otherwise have mounted leadership challenges, a large cabinet can increase political stability (Hyden 2006: 104). Arriola (2009) tests this hypothesis using data on cabinets for 40 African countries over the period 1970-2000 and finds that cabinet appointments can be used to extend a leader’s tenure and lower the probability of being deposed through a coup, unless leaders overextend their coalitions (Arriola 2009: 1350). Torgler and Frey (2012) analyze more than 100 countries over 20 years and find that large cabinets reduce the likelihood of an assassination attempt on high government officials or politicians. This helps to explain why power sharing arrangements have been used across Africa during attempts to resolve conflict. Somalia, for example, had especially large cabinets following the establishment of the Transitional Federal Government in 2004.

Overall, this discussion yields expectations about the relationship between cabinet size and governance outcomes. Elite clientelism implies that an increase in the number of cabinet ministers is likely to increase corruption and lower the quality of policy formulation and implementation. Yet, in analyzing this relationship, we need to account for other factors that might also be associated with both cabinet size and governance outcomes, in particular pressures to accommodate political allies and to buy off potential rivals.

# **3. A new data set**

To take a fresh empirical look at the relationship between cabinet size and governance and policy outcomes, we assemble a range of relevant data for Sub-Saharan African countries. The variables we include fall into three main groups, which we introduce below. The data appendix provides full variable definitions and sources and summary statistics are in appendix 1.

The main independent variable of interest is the number of cabinet ministers. No off-the-shelf data set exists that reliably captures this information. The _Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive_ initiated by Arthur Banks includes the size of the cabinet.<sup>6</sup> However, the sources used are not fully disclosed and the manual warns that “[i]n many cases, counts are approximate”. Instead, we build on Arriola’s (2009) data set on cabinet size, as it is coded on the basis of information on the membership of cabinets obtained from a single high-quality source, Europa Publications’ _Africa South of the Sahara_ , which is published annually. Focusing on political heads who are ultimately in charge of government departments, the data set records the number of ministers with full cabinet rank for each country and year in the sample. Excluded are members of the executive without cabinet rank, notably junior or deputy ministers, and individuals with lower-level executive functions, as their authority and discretion is limited. This

> 5 In addition, cabinet reshuffles can be used to create an atmosphere of ‘perpetual musical chairs’ that prevents individual ministers from amassing too much power (Roessler 2011: 309).

> 6 Cabinet size is captured by the _Polit10_ variable in the 2018 edition of the Banks data set.

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