The Politics of Budgets
Getting a Piece of the Pie

Few studies acknowledge the competition that surrounds budgets. We show when governments can make preferred changes and when they cannot.

Christine S. Lipsmeyer (Author), Andrew Q. Philips (Author), Guy D. Whitten (Author)

9781316631287, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 March 2023

300 pages
22.7 x 15.3 x 1.9 cm, 0.49 kg

While governments prefer to alter budgets to fit their ideological stances, the domestic and international contexts can facilitate or constrain behavior. The Politics of Budgets demonstrates when governments do and do not make preferred budgetary changes. It argues for an interconnected view of budgets and explores both the reallocation of expenditures across policy areas and the interplay among budgetary components. While previous scholars have investigated how politics and economics shape a single budgetary category, or collective categories, this methodologically rich study analyzes data for thirty-three countries across thirty-five years to provide a more comprehensive theoretical approach: a 'holistic' framework about the competition and contexts around the budgetary process and an of examination of how and when these factors affect the budgetary decision-making processes.

1. Introduction
2. A Theory of Budgets
3. Political Competition and the Expenditure Pie
4. The Effects of Elections, Economics and International Shocks on the Expenditure Pie
5. Four Sides of the Budgetary Ledger
6. The Effects of Elections, Economics and External Shocks on the Budgetary Ledger
7. Conclusion: The Budgetary Mix.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]