Much Ado about Everything: Making Sense of Federal Budgeting

White, Joseph; Collender, Stanley E.; Mills, Gregory; Palmer, John L.; Shuman, Howard E.; Mosher, Frederick C.; Wíldavsky, Aaron; Rubin, Irene; Ippolito, Dennis S.; Kamlet, Mark S.; Mowery, David C.; Crecine, J. P.; Winer, M.

doi:10.2307/3109940

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Incrementalism serves as an aid to calculation to policymakers working in substantively complex, yet institutionally stable problem environments. Politicians…simplify the budget process by accepting last years' spending (the base), and begin negotiations from the premise that any increments or decrements will be allocated proportionally, or according to 'fair shares'" (White, 1985). 1 To its supporters, many of the characteristics of the budget process giving rise to the theory of incrementalism still exist (Fischer & Kamlet, 1984;Kelly, 1989).…”

Section: The Debate In Budget Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pitsvada and Draper (1984) argue that the current environment, with indexing, multi-year budgeting, budget presentations, continuing resolutions, and baseline budgets, has added to the tendency to adopt incrementalism. White (1985; and Weiss & Woodhouse (1992) stress its continued practical applicability to various degrees, especially in light of the lack of an alternative.…”

Section: The Debate In Budget Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Incrementalism was also criticized, both before and after the early 1980s, as being too limited in its focus on the formal budget appropriations and authorization process (LeLoup, 1978;Padgett, 1980;White, 1985), or for accounting for the external political environment (Gist, 1982;LeLoup, 1978;Rubin, 1988;Schick 1990). Critiques also focused on the level of data aggregation used in the Wildavsky studies (Gist, 1982;LeLoup, 1978;Meyers, 1994;Natchez & Bupp, 1973;Padgett, 1980), the lack of a definition for an increment (Baily & O'Connor, 1975;Berry, 1990), and changes or instability, in institutional roles (Caiden, 1984;Schick, 1990).…”

Section: The Debate In Budget Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The federal budget's core and periphery: patterns of budget outcomes

Berner

2005

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting &Amp; Financial Management

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Cluster analysis on detailed federal outlay data from fiscal year (FY) 1962 to FY 1995 shows instead of being incremental or not, the budget is both. Spending is initially volatile but becomes incremental over time and with political entrenchment. The theory of incrementalism needs to be updated to reflect this complexity. Also, patterns show that most spending falls into three main groups, which do not correspond to traditional budgetary classifications, and none of the patterns show any major shifts in response to process upheaval. This suggests (1) rethinking how to analyze budget data, and (2) while processes and decision-makers have changed, the decisions have not.

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Section: The Debate In Budget Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Debate In Budget Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Debate In Budget Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The federal budget's core and periphery: patterns of budget outcomes

Berner

2005

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting &Amp; Financial Management

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The contractual nature of budgeting: A transaction cost perspective on the design of budgeting institutions

Patashnik

1996

Policy Sci

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The Theory of the Budgetary Process in an Era of Changing Budgetary Roles Fy48-Fy84

Malachowski

Bookheimer

Lowery

1987

American Politics Quarterly

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The dominant theory of the budgetary process (Fenno, 1966; Wildavsky, 1964) emphasized stable budgetary roles in the making of incremental choices over time. But while the traditional theory has been unusually successful, at least two major problems have developed over the last decade. First, recent empirical research has reconsidered the role of partisanship in the budgetary process. And second, more recent descriptive analyses of the appropriations process have suggested that the institutional roles identified by Fenno and Wildavsky changed to a considerable degree during the 1970s. What, then, is the status of the traditional theory of the budgetary process? We analyze this question by updating Fenno's analysis of the tie period FY48 through FY84 and examining both the changing nature of institutional roles and the influence of partisanship in the play of those roles over time. The analysis is used to reinterpret the traditional theory—especially the traditional interpretations of the roles of advocate, guardian, and appeals court as well as the influence of partisanship—in light of events that have occurred since the original development of Wildavsky and Fenno's model.

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Much Ado about Everything: Making Sense of Federal Budgeting

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

The federal budget's core and periphery: patterns of budget outcomes

The federal budget's core and periphery: patterns of budget outcomes

The contractual nature of budgeting: A transaction cost perspective on the design of budgeting institutions

The Theory of the Budgetary Process in an Era of Changing Budgetary Roles Fy48-Fy84

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