When delegating governing tasks to a coalition partner, the president would like to give a minister ample administrative powers to be able to effectively accomplish the political mission. Due to information asymmetries, the president runs the risk that this discretion might be used to pursue policy outcomes that may harm the president's preferences. This trade-off between delegation and control is key to understanding governance strategies the president chooses to minimize agency risks and coordinate public policies. With Brazil as a case study, this article demonstrates that presidents have strategically made frequent use of junior ministers as watch-dogs of coalition partners, especially when coalition allies are ideologically distant from the president's preferences. Yet neither the portfolio salience nor the president's decision to share powers with coalition partners proportionally seems to interfere in such strategic decisions.

中文翻译：

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我们中间的看门狗：总统如何监督巴西多党总统政权中的联盟

在将执政任务委派给联盟伙伴时，总统希望给予部长足够的行政权力，以便能够有效地完成政治使命。由于信息不对称，总统冒着这种自由裁量权可能被用来追求可能损害总统偏好的政策结果的风险。授权和控制之间的这种权衡是理解总统选择最小化机构风险和协调公共政策的治理策略的关键。本文以巴西为案例研究表明，总统战略性地频繁使用初级部长作为联盟伙伴的监督者，尤其是当联盟盟友在意识形态上与总统的偏好相距甚远时。然而，投资组合的显着性和总统都不是