Naomi Caiden

Planning and budgeting in poor countries

This substantial treatment of budgeting in poor countries and discussion of the relationship between planning and budgeting covers over eighty nations and three-fourths of the worlds population. While there are many treatments of planning, the approach of this study is radically different. The authors argue that the requisites of comprehensive economic planning do not exist in poor countries, and that in the effort to create them, planners merge into the environment they have set out to change. Caiden and Wildavsky provide a unique and thorough examination of planning and budgeting by governments of poor countries throughout the world, and recommend reforms that are workable and realistic for these countries. They analyze the political, economic, and social developments that influence budgeting and planning in developing countries.

The New Rules of the Federal Budget Game

In recent years the capacity of the federal budget process has been more and more open to question. To some observers the process appears on the verge of collapse, disintegrating into a muddle of spiralling deficits, missed deadlines, ad hoc decision making and hazy budget figures.1 There are a large number of widely varying proposals for reform to remedy a multitude of perceived problems. 2 But what may be overlooked in the confusion of present tribulations is the extent to which the federal budget process has already adapted to the pressures upon it. Fiscal stress, economic fluctuations and the need to accommodate seemingly irreconcilable demands have narrowed options and heightened conflict. But even more significantly, they have also begun to transform the rules by which the federal budget game used to be played. While reforms may still be indicated, their potential for success may be enhanced by changes which have already taken place. What are these rules? They extend beyond the laws and regulations which stipulate the framework of the budget process. Such formal rules are generally reinforced, modified, or even superseded by informal understandings, the interplay of power relationships, and adaptations to trends and events. Where these informal means of doing business attain some regularity and stability and are sanctioned by mutual expectations of reciprocal behavior, they, too, constitute rules. The rules of a budget process derive from its nature. It is a means of simultaneously allocating and rationing resources for a future given time period within a specified time cycle. In the federal budget process this task is theoretically accomplished through annual comprehensive decision making governed by the provisions of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act. In the past, observers have indicated that the process has also been facilitated by incremental decision making dependent on budget growth which has blurred issues, prevented conflicts and maintained the structures of the budget process.I Over the past few years this pattern of conducting financial decision making has come under strain in two main ways. The most marked feature has been a change in the composition of federal expenditures, reflecting growth in the long-term commitments of the federal government and differentiation of its activities.4 These developments have built into the budget a paradoxical combination of both stability and sensitivity, inflexibility, and unpredictability. Prevailing concepts of budgeting, which have stressed an annual framework for decision making, have had difficulty in accommodating this transformation.

Budgeting in developing countries: a review of recent literature

Recent literature on budgeting in developing countries may be divided into two main areas, the first concerned with the application of program and performance budgeting to individual countries, and the second with analysis of comparative budget systems. Program and performance budgeting remains a dominant prescription despite its questionable record in practice. While there are several useful descriptive studies in practice. While there are several useful descriptive studies of budgeting these there are insufficient for purposes of generalization and further research is needed to explore specific areas in depth, construct comparative frameworks, evaluate budgetary capacity, clarify assumptions, and utilize insight from related areas of study.

Comparative public budgeting

The comparative study of public budgeting has been undertaken in a number of ways, including application of general theory, appraisal of budget innovations, construction of empirical models, case studies, and focus on specific issues or problems. Each of these methods has advantages and drawbacks, but lack of accepted methodology should not be a barrier to continued research, theorizing, and application in the highly practical endeavor of improving the handling of pub1ic finances through comparative analysis.

Approaches and Guidelines for Monitoring, Measuring and Evaluating Performance in Public Sector Programs

AbstractPerformance measurement and evaluation of the public sector may be seen as critical to efforts to streamline governments; gain greater efficiency, productivity and effectiveness; enhance transparency and accountability; regain public trust in governmental institutions; and contribute to a reorientation of the role and functions of government. As ideas of governance have emerged, stressing cooperation between government, the non-profit and private sectors, and indirect ways of delivering public services have been adopted, the need to measure, monitor and evaluate the use of funds, quantity and quality of services, and the meeting of standards and compliance with contracts, has become essential. Performance measures are not panaceas, and there are important limitations to their use. But even small steps may bring important results.

After the Earthquake: The President's Budget for FY 1996

What changes has the political earthquake of November 1994 wreaked on the federal budget and, in particular, on the presidents budget? Are the policy dynamics of federal budgets so entrenched that they transcend politics and are impervious to shocks? Or do the political changes presage radical policy changes, reversing decades of cumulative commitments? Are budgetary institutions and processes flexible enough to accommodate enhanced conflicts while maintaining their integrity and purpose? This article discusses the fate of the 1995 budget and the initial problems faced in the presidents budget for 1996.

From The Summit: The President's Budget for 1989

The presidents budget is a political document, a prediction and an institution. As a political document, its version of the past and vision of the future are open to criticism. As a prediction, its projections arguable in the light of experience and professional judgment. As an institution, its contribution to the general capacity of government is subject to debate.

The Limits of Convergence: Globalization and Organizational Change in Argentina, South Korea and Spain

particularistic appeals, and to stand a fighting chance of carrying out these reforms, Biglaiser argues that there must be a high proportion of neoliberal economists in key positions for reform to take place, and that most military regimes do not in fact appoint a high proportion of neoliberal economists. Guardians of the Nation also provides a more fine-grained example of how military regimes are likely to resist one particular type of market-oriented reform: privatization. As he notes, positions at state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are often doled out to military officers as means of securing loyalty, which makes it much less likely for such regimes to do away with these patronage opportunities. In Chile, for example, although extensive privatization did occur within a few years after the military government took power, it was only in the mid-1980s that some of the largest (and most strategic) SOEs were privatized, and only after more civilians had been placed in high positions within the SOEs by the Pinochet regime. Though Biglaiser does not have overwhelming evidence that this was the main source of changes in privatization policy in Chile, his evidence from Argentina and Uruguay—where little privatization occurred under military rule—does suggest that military governments are quite unlikely to engage in extensive privatization programs. In the final chapter, Biglaiser extends the logic of his argument to democratic regimes that attempt to carry out economic reform, and in so doing, he places his work squarely in the politics of economic reform literature. His contribution to this literature is to focus attention on the ways in which institutions structure the appointment strategies of reformist chief executives, either facilitating or blocking reform. As in the rest of the book, his analysis here is instructive and original and does what the best books in comparative politics should do: it opens up new lines of inquiry that can be applied in a wide variety of countries. Guardians of the Nation should be widely read.