| What is the cabinet? | an advice giving group selected by the president. the traditional members are the heads of the executive departments |
| What are the different pools of recruitment for the cabinet? | Congress, serving or state governors, big city mayors and Academia |
| What is the president really looking for on his cabinet? | Policy specialists |
| How important is a balanced cabinet? | Gender is now an important factor, with Biden having five women, Obama had 6 ethnic minorities, average age tends to reflect the age of the president |
| How frequent are cabinet meetings? | Frequency of cabinet meetings vary from one president to another |
| What are the functions of the cabinet meetings? | policy debate, prompting actions, personal contact, monitoring congress, presenting the big picture, team spirit, collegiality, exchanging information |
| How does policy debate show a function of the cabinet? | cabinet meetings can be used as a place to discuss foreign policy and therefore can become very intense. this allows the president to broaden his policy contributions |
| How does personal contact show a function of the cabinet? | provides the president with a chance to see cabinet members who he otherwise would not have seen. Due to many departments being situated far away from the white house he has no obvious reasons to see 'second tier' cabinet members such as secretary of agriculture |
| How does monitoring congress show a function of the cabinet? | Some presidents use congress meeting s=to check up on legislation going through congress that they are interested in. |
| How does presenting the big picture item show a function of the cabinet? | At cabinet meetings the president can present so called big picture items that are meant to effect all departments such as the budget, upcoming elections or major legislative initiative |
| How does collegiality show a function of the cabinet? | Since the Nixon administration which was known for it's lack of openness, it has been very important for presidents to appear collegial and consultative and a good photo oppurtunity |
| How does team spirit show a function of the cabinet? | Due to a lot of the cabinet members being strangers to the president, cabinet meetings can help build team spirit and wield the cabinet into the president's team to follow their plan. |
| How does exchanging information show a function of the cabinet? | cabinet meetings provide opportunities for both information giving and information gathering. President Carter's cabinet meetings usually took the form of going clockwise around the table asking for updates |
