How does the allocation of cabinet offices in coalition governments affect policy making? We address this question empirically by analyzing environmental policy outputs in European countries. A main hypothesis is that environmental policy outputs are likely to be “greener”, the more important such policy issues are for the party in charge of the ministry controlling this policy area. In addition, we argue that institutional constraints like the agenda-setting power of the prime minister or the minister of finance clearly restricts the discretion of other cabinet members. Furthermore, we suggest that ministerial discretion decreases if the saliency of a policy area, of which a minister is in charge, increases among the other cabinet parties. These arguments are tested by a country-comparative dataset that contains information on environmental policy outputs, the agenda-setting power of cabinet actors, their party affiliation and their issue saliencies.
