Policy Punctuations: U.S. Budget Authority, 1947-1995

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 128.235.Baumgartner and Jones (1993) described a process of punctuated equilibrium in their study of policymaking in the United States since World War II. Evidence was drawn from a series of particular issue-areas, but the model has implications for all areas of policymaking. In this paper, we explore the validity of this approach with a new dataset that tabulates congressional budget authority at the Office of Management and Budget subfunction level across all areas of the federal budget for the entire postwar period.We find that government spending is characterized by much greater change than is typically portrayed in the literature, even if there is great stability for most categories most of the time. In addition, overall patterns of spending have been affected by two large-scale punctuations. These punctuations divide national spending into three epochs. one of postwar adjustment, lasting until FY 1956; one of robust growth, lasting from 1956 through 1974, and one of restrained growth, beginning in FY 1976. We test the epoch hypothesis against three plausible rival hypotheses: changes in the robustness of the postwar economy; partisan divisions; and public opinion. The epoch hypothesis survives all of these rivals whether modeled individually or together. This paper provides empirical evidence that punctuations occur, not just in some programs or subsystems, but also throughout government. The General ApproachPolicymaking within subsystems in the United States is dominated by a process alternating between periods of relative gridlock and periods of dramatic change (Baumgartner and Jones 1993). Such punctuated equilibria seem characteristic of many complex systems. They are evident in the evolution of species (Eldredge 1985), in economics, when new technologies disrupt prevailing patterns of doing business (Thurow 1996), and in computer simulations of iterated games (Lindgren 1992). These punctuations interspersed with periods of stasis may have both exogenous and endogenous causes. Complex interactions among Policy Punctuations 3 tively divide the postwar period into three epochs, which seem to correspond to widely shared, but dramatically different, conceptions of the proper role of government during these three periods.We test our finding of two large-scale punctuations against three plausible rival hypotheses. The first is that the epochs are in fact simply reflective of changes in the robustness of the postwar economy. In good times, more is spent; in lean times, less. Second, we study the hypothesis that spending eras reflect partisan divisions. When Democrats control both the executive and legislative branches, they increase the size of gove...

Punctuations and agendas: A new look at local government budget expenditures

“…Although most overall budget changes are budget increases, punctuated changes are more likely large budget cuts rather than large budget increases. This also counters what Jones, Baumgartner, and True (1998) found at the federal level. This greater tendency for punctuated decreases emphasizes the fiscal limitations of local government as compared with the federal government.…”

“…Punctuations indicate successful mobilization of support that insert a new item onto the agenda, change the relative positions of the current items on the agenda, or delete a current item. Jones, Baumgartner, and True (1998) extend PET to budgeting at the federal level. They find that punctuated policy shifts resulted in punctuated budget decisions that cannot be fully explained by political parties, the economy, or public opinion.…”

Understanding the historical turn in the policy sciences: A critique of stochastic, narrative, path dependency and process-sequencing models of policy-making over time

“…Much of this evidence has been put forward by Baumgartner and Jones in their many works on US public policy-making (Jones et al, 1998;Jones and Baumgartner, 2005;True, 2000) although other authors have also found evidence of such processes at work in other countries as well (John and Margetts, 2003).…”

The Worldwide Diffusion of Market-Oriented Infrastructure Reform, 1977–1999

“…Because political actors are relatively certain about the outcomes that an existing policy will produce but view reform as creating uncertain long-run political benefits and large or uncertain short-run political costs, they are typically likely to maintain the status quo (Drazen and Grilli 1993;Fernandez and Rodrik 1991). However, the poor economic performance of a state-owned infrastructure industry (Henisz and Zelner 2005) may serve as a "focusing event" (Kingdon 1984: 106) that, by increasing political actors' short-run costs of inaction (Hoffman 1999;Seo and Creed 2002), moves major policy reform-such as the adoption of market-oriented policies-to the top of the policymaking agenda (Jones, Baumgartner, and True 1998).…”