The formulation and implementation of foreign policy is one of the most important functions of modern governments. Although heads of government usually take the lead in this area, particularly during international crises or as representatives of their country in significant international events; they delegate many key functions to high-ranking officials such as the minister of foreign affairs. Ideally, cabinet ministers should rigorously execute the orders of their principals. In practice, however, ministers may not serve the interests of the person that appointed them, but the interests of particular groups or political coalitions whose goals might not necessarily coincide with the leader's objectives. Recent research suggests that heads of government not only dismiss their cabinet members in order to avoid the problems caused by this delegation of functions, but also remove them as a response to political scandals and exogenous shocks. In addition, the dismissal of government officials is strongly determined by the politics of particular historical periods. For instance, the political instability of countries that have moved to independence might produce a high turnover of ministers, whereas consolidated political systems (particularly Presidential ones) might be associated with a low turnover of cabinet members. A simple statistical analysis of the tenure of Mexican ministers of foreign affairs shows that, indeed, there was high turnover during post-colonial times and low turnover during post-revolutionary years.
Figure 1 presents an estimate of the hazard rate of Mexican ministers of foreign affairs during two different historical periods. The hazard rate represents the rate at which ministers are removed from office during a small interval of time given that they managed to stay in office at least until the beginning of that interval of time. This is best illustrated by a biostatistics example. Indeed, it is more likely that a person will die when she is 90 years old than when she is 30 years old. This suggests that, in order to analyze the rate at which people die, we need to take into account the time they have already lived. The same logic applies to ministers of foreign affairs: in order to analyze the rate at which these ministers are dismissed, we also need to consider how long they have been in office in the first place. Figure 1 presents Kaplan-Meier estimates of the hazard rate of Mexican ministers of foreign affairs.
Clearly, the rate at which these ministers are removed from office varies from period to period. Post-independence years in Mexico, as in many other Latin American countries, were marked by political instability. During these times and up to 1876, ministers did not last in office for more than three and a half years. Moreover, they were very likely to be dismissed very early in their periods in office, as suggested by the peak reached during the first months in office. Although the chances of being removed from office decrease after the first few months, they increase again immediately after the second year in office. Things changed drastically during the administration of Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911). Indeed, his long-lasting, mostly autocratic government produced long-lasting foreign ministers like Ignacio Mariscal. Mariscal was minister of foreign affairs on four different occasions and held office for almost 28 years. The Mexican Revolution brought back instability to the composition of the federal government. In fact, the short-lived governments of revolutionary times consequently had ministers that stayed in office only for a small number of months: from 1911 to 1920 there were twenty seven different ministers of foreign affairs. Ministers of post-revolutionary governments show a remarkable stability in office. Indeed, Figure 1 shows that the hazard of ministers in the post-revolutionary period is not only smaller but also more stable. Indeed, post-revolutionary ministers have a constant likelihood of being removed from office. Only after their fourth year in office are they removed at a higher rate. Indeed, ministers after 1920 stay in office almost two times longer that their colleagues of the 19th century.
In addition to the historical patterns in the tenure of foreign ministers, there are other systematic characteristics of the political survival of these cabinet members. For instance, anecdotal evidence suggests that when heads of government leave office, so do their ministers. Although this is usually the case in post-revolutionary times, most of the ministers in Mexico have been removed before the leader leaves office, particularly in post-independence years. For instance, President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had more than 20 ministers of foreign affairs. In the 19th century, many ministers served under the same President several times. They also occupied other cabinet portfolios. This is not particularly surprising, as the pool of potential ministers was generally small in these times. However, as the pool of potential ministers increased over time, not many ministers actually managed to serve under different Presidents. Notable exceptions are Lucas Alaman, who served with Guadalupe Victoria, Anastasio Bustamante, and General Santa Anna in the post-independence years; and Genaro Estrada, who served under Presidents Plutarco Elias Calles, Emilio Portes Gil, and Pascual Ortiz Rubio. However, for all practical purposes, it can be argued that he was part of the administration of Calles during the Maximato. The modern administrations of post-revolutionary years have not experienced a significant turnover of ministers of foreign affairs. Apart from President Cardenas, who had at least three different ministers, most Presidents had at most two ministers. Presidents Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, Adolfo Lopez Mateos, and Gustavo Diaz Ordaz had only one minister of foreign affairs during their administrations.
Political ambition also shaped the career of some famous and infamous ministers of foreign affairs. Unlike their counterparts in parliamentary systems, cabinet ministers in presidential systems do not usually become heads of government. Cabinet members in presidential systems do not usually depose the leader that appointed them in the first place. However, there are exceptions. In Mexico, Francisco Leon de la Barra, minister of foreign affairs, served as interim President after Porfirio Diaz resigned as President. As minister of foreign affairs under the newly elected administration of President Francisco Madero, Leon de la Barra was a key member of the movement that deposed Madero in 1913. On February 18 of that year, at the US Embassy, Leon de la Barra signed a pact with Victoriano Huerta, a General during the administrations of Diaz and Madero. The pact planned the deposition of President Madero and the provisional presidency of Huerta. In the days that followed, Madero and his vice-President resigned and Leon de la Barra took over as provisional President. Four days after the pact took place, Huerta was the new President of Mexico. Madero, his brother, and his vice-President had all been murdered.
As time went by and the rules of the political game became more firmly established after the Revolution, ministers of foreign affairs became more concerned with the international aspect of their position than with their own survival in government. Alberto J. Pani, minister of foreign affairs between 1921 and 1924, was instrumental in securing the recognition of the government of President Alvaro Obregon by the United States. Such recognition was of strategic importance for the survival of the regime and, indeed, it helped Obregon to be the first post-revolutionary President that finished his mandate. Minister Alfonso Garcia Robles, in office between 1975 and 1976, received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on a denuclearized zone in Latin America. Bernardo Sepulveda, minister from 1982 to 1988, was a key actor during the negotiation process that would bring peace to Central America in the 1980s.
Clearly, ministers of foreign affairs are important members of government. They act as agents of a head of government and are also supposed to best represent their countries' interests abroad. However, their performance is usually shaped by the ministers' own political ambition, competence, loyalty towards a leader, party, or coalition; as well as by their experience, education, contacts, and credibility as diplomats. Variations along these dimensions, as well as the political system that establishes the rules of political survival, explain their tenure in office and the stability of the governments they represent. In Mexico, ministers of foreign affairs have suffered, and benefited from the Mexican political system; and this has produced a diverse and sometimes influential foreign policy.
Alejandro Quiroz Flores is a PhD candidate at the Department of Politics at New York University. He also contributes to the Mexico Blog of the Foreign Policy Association. Alejandro's doctoral research focuses on international relations and methodology, with a special emphasis on political survival and econometrics. He can be reached at alexquirozflores@gmail.com
References
Bethell, Leslie (ed.). 1991. Mexico Since Independence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Dewan, Torun, and Keith Dowding. 2005. The Corrective Effect of Ministerial Resignations on Government Popularity. American Journal of Political Science 49 (1): 46-56.
Huber, John D., and Cecilia Martinez Gallardo. 2008. Replacing Cabinet Ministers: Patterns of Ministerial Stability in Parliamentary Democracies. American Political Science Review 102 (2): 169-180.
Quiroz Flores, Alejandro. The Political Survival of Foreign Ministers. (Forthcoming) Foreign Policy Analysis.