This research note analyzes the incentives of different types of policy areas for a president to keep or dismiss a minister. It uses ministerial survival analysis to compare foreign and domestic policy areas, focusing on comparable and analogous presidential decisions among countries and portfolios. The research utilizes ministerial survival data for education, finance, health, and foreign policy between 1945 and 2020 in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Using Cox regression models, we find that a foreign policy portfolio has a positive effect on ministerial survival, but the specificity of this portfolio does not hold for autocratic governments. Autocracies show higher levels of ministerial survival in all four portfolios, but a foreign policy portfolio is no more stable than domestic portfolios. Democratic presidents have the incentive to signal stability to the international audience, preserving the foreign policy portfolio from the frequent ministerial changes in domestic portfolios.

本研究报告分析了不同类型的政策领域对总统保留或解雇部长的激励。它使用部长级生存分析来比较外交和国内政策领域，重点关注国家和投资组合之间可比较和相似的总统决策。该研究利用了 1945 年至 2020 年间阿根廷、巴西、智利、墨西哥、巴拉圭、秘鲁和乌拉圭教育、财政、卫生和外交政策部门的生存数据。使用考克斯回归模型，我们发现外交政策组合对部长的生存有积极影响，但这种组合的特殊性并不适用于独裁政府。独裁国家在所有四个投资组合中都表现出较高的部长生存率，但外交政策投资组合并不比国内投资组合更稳定。民主党总统有动力向国际受众发出稳定信号，保护外交政策组合免受国内部长频繁变动的影响。