Kitchen Cabinet

" Kitchen cabinet " is a term for a permanent, informal circle close confidant to a person in a high position of power; in the narrow sense to a head of government. He shall be slightly pejorative that it linguistically the constitutional cabinet faces ( as the totality of a government minister ), the " kitchen cabinet" as in the Constitution provided real center of power. All German Chancellor nutz (ed) these informal advisors circle.

Origin of the term

The term is borrowed from English, where " Kitchen Cabinet " appeared first in the U.S. under the presidency of Andrew Jackson. This was formed in 1831 after the Petticoat affair greatly to his cabinet, but at the same time put an advisory group consisting of confidants to, only one of which, Roger B. Taney, was part of the official Cabinet. The term was publicly published for the first time, as on 13 March 1832, the U.S. Senator George Poindexter in an article in the Telegraph newspaper wrote about his vote against the appointment of the ' kitchen cabinet member ' Martin Van Buren as ambassador to England, Jackson advisory group was " publicly usually under the name ' Kitchen Cabinet ' known '.

The term is still in the English-speaking common, especially for semi - and unofficial advisory boards of U.S. presidents and British prime ministers.

Features

An Advisory Board, which is referred to Germans as kitchen cabinet, characterized usually by some features:

• Selection by the decision-makers: the decision which forms the circle of advisers around him, determined the ' members ' will. Often, a previously less -predominant discussion group over time developed into a kitchen cabinet as confined advisory body of the decision maker.
• Openness and confidentiality: If the participants of the kitchen cabinet have placed absolute mutual trust, especially with regard to the confidentiality of the spoken word, there can much more open mind and without regard to political interests or official language regulations are drafted.
• General horizon: A kitchen cabinet is not usually limited to a specific policy area.
• Spatial proximity to decision makers: In order for a kitchen cabinet meet ad hoc if needed, include the members often closest to the working environment of the decision maker.

The open atmosphere for discussion, it is the decision-maker and possibly other important, for kitchen cabinet belonging to people there is often more possible to thrash views and to form solid, often together opinions expressed. Thus it may be that important (political ) decisions are made in this confidential committee or be prejudiced.

Ultimately, the public status of a particular Advisory Board is named as kitchen cabinet usually by outsiders so.

Historical examples

In public, the personal adviser circle of Helmut Kohl for his decades of office manager Juliane Weber was often referred to as kitchen cabinet.