The Grey Eminence of Politics? The Power, Preferences, and Social Policy Impact of Ministries of Finance

Ministries of Finance play a key role in countries’ governments and accordingly in policy-making. Despite this apparently crucial role, political scientists have hardly studied Ministries of Finance (MoF). We simply do not know how much power MoFs have, what the sources of their power are, and under what conditions they use their influence. Moreover, we don’t know much about their policy preferences – do they have preferences at all, and if so, what do they want? What do they want when it comes to social policy? This paper (based on a larger book project) provides the first attempt to systematically capture the power and policy preferences of MoFs empirically. I argue that power is multidimensional and analyze five dimensions of MoF power, including power related to formal institutions, organizational capacity, expertise, reputation, and networks. Likewise, I analyze the policy preferences of MoFs, studying both the organization as a whole as well as the individual bureaucrats working in the MoFs. Empirically, I draw on several novel data sources that I collected for this project, including an expert survey that covers MoFs in all OECD democracies, as well as data on the administrative capacities of MoFs. Moreover, I employ a country-comparative survey among senior level bureaucrats to study their preferences. Overall, the results contribute to our understanding of the politics of social policy-making by opening the “black box” of a crucial state agency – arguably the “grey eminence” of politics.