Prime Ministerial Predominance? Core Executive Politics in the UK

Abstract

Prime ministerial predominance can enable the prime minister to lead, if not command, the core executive, and, in concert with others, to direct, if not control, its policy development. Leadership predominance facilitates prime ministerial predominance within the executive, and prime ministerial predominance reinforces leadership predominance within the party. Such predominance arises from the prime minister's ability to access a series of personal and institutional power resources. The more resources, the more powerful and predominant the prime minister is; the fewer resources, the less powerful and predominant they are. Such resources are necessarily transient, being accumulated and inevitably dispersed, acquired and lost, and are never permanent. When possessed, they can grant the prime minister considerable, if never overwhelming, intra-executive authority and influence, and the opportunity to be a stronger, but not the only element within the core executive.