Zahid Shariff
The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA, USA
Keywords: incrementalism, rational-comprehensive, base, fair share
Contents
- Introduction
- Basic Issues
2.1 Larger connections
2.2 Some distinctions
2.3 Characteristics of budgeting - The Demise of Incrementalism
- Broader Context, Limited Horizon
4.1 Gentlemanly government
4.2 Denouncing reform
4.3 Either/or - Contradictions: Holding on and Letting go
5.1 Rejecting and accepting
5.2 More inconsistencies
5.3 Policy and counseling - Encountering Change
6.1 Reducing and increasing conflict
6.2 Governmental (in)capacity
6.3 Imbalanced perspective
6.4 Sympathy and inaction - Return to Basics
7.1 Theoretical building blocks
7.2 Different kinds of incrementalism - Conclusions
Bibliography
Biographical Sketch
Summary
Aaron Wildavsky was most closely associated with the notion of budgetary
incrementalism. He tried to make the remarkably plausible phenomena – that the
budget of any year in most cases is likely to be only slightly different from the last, or
the next, year – into a theoretical construct and an empirically sound proposition. But
he invested some ideological capital in it too, since he believed that incrementalism was
linked with fragmented political structures, decentralization, market economy, and
social interaction. Those who opposed budgetary incrementalism were invariably
identified by him as the ones wanting to embrace rational-comprehensive decisionmaking which was, in turn, identified, in his mind, with a unified, planned, and
centralized social interaction. This perspective on budgeting prevailed in the United
States for almost three decades, and the credit for that goes to his steadfast defense of it
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through his many publications and his harsh denunciation of its critics.
Eventually, however, Wildavsky abandoned budgetary incrementalism. He did so for a
variety of reasons. I revisit its short and unhappy life, and conclude that his claims on
many occasions were questionable, ideological, inconsistent or too vague to measure.
For example, the consequence of conceding the death of incrementalism was not, as he
had said so often in the past, its replacement by rational-comprehensive decision
making.
Similarly, after arguing against those who had been suggesting that growing percentage
of entitlements in the American federal budget rendered incrementalism obsolete, he
suddenly embraced that view without any explanation. Yet another contradiction was
his position on conflict (“dissensus”), which he argued was avoided by incrementalism
since only parts, not the whole, of the budget was dealt with at one time. But then he
suddenly discovered the desirability of dissensus-producing changes: the federal budget
process reform in 1974 (with emphasis on the whole in which the parts had to fit), and
the constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget (which would make budget
a zero-sum game)! Wildavsky seemed motivated by ideological considerations. As long
as incrementalism produced the politically appropriate budgetary results, he supported
it, but when it did not, he pronounced its demise. - Introduction
The very large number of eulogies by eminent scholars at the untimely death of Aaron
Wildavsky appropriately stressed his considerable contributions in a variety of fields.
The superlatives used when praising his life’s prolific writings clearly revealed how
large the shadow that he cast was. The breadth of his knowledge was often combined
with an ease of communicative style in writing and speaking that were quite remarkable.
Few scholars attain his stature; fewer still exert the influence in so many areas as he did.
As sufficient time has elapsed since his death in 1993, it may be appropriate to revisit
his legacy in one area that had a profound impact in public administration: his theory of
incremental budgeting. (No implications or inferences are to be drawn from this article
about his theoretical and empirical work in several other fields.)
The significance of incrementalism in the United States is hard to exaggerate. It lies,
first, in the fact that the debate and conflict over governmental preferences must now
proceed, as never before, with a heightened awareness of the fiscal framework; the
fiscalization of public policy is not just another trendy phrase .And when budgetary
decisions are being made, it is believed that it is incrementalism with which we have to
contend. Second, incrementalism, soon after it was launched by Wildavsky, was quickly
exported to many areas of theoretical interest and public policy debates, where its
attractiveness and applications were ultimately based on the belief that it had concrete
and empirical validation in fiscal processes and outcomes. Too often, it provided
another justification for timidity or caution. The news that budgetary incrementalism is
now not only defunct but was originally built on shifting sands, when fully digested, is
likely to release a lot of creative energy in a variety of contexts that had previously been
stifled by stern references to its undeniable factual validation. Third, its demise
represents a greater loss to government budgeting because it is an area of study in public
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administration that is not known for theoretical diversity. While some are not sanguine
about the gap in budgetary theory being filled any time soon, and discourse theory does
not look promising, Rubin is hopeful that budgetary theory will now “mushroom…over
the next few years.” With the theoretical deck cleared, her expectation seems plausible.
How well did the theory of incremental budgeting explain budgetary processes and
outcomes before Wildavsky abandoned it, and why did it take so long for that to
happen? These are the major issues explored here. - Basic Issues
2.1 Larger connections
Any analysis of Wildavsky’s contributions should start with an acknowledgment of his
successful effort in lifting the study of government budgeting from a dull, arid, and
neglected concern to a lively, and sometimes even profound, level of intellectual
discussion. He accomplished this in many ways. “Perhaps the ‘study of budgeting’ is
just another expression for the ‘study of politics,’” he wrote, “yet one cannot study
everything at once, and the vantage point offered by concentration on budgetary
decisions offers a useful and much neglected perspective from which to analyze the
making of policy”. Until he made those connections, “the fact that budgeting involves
politics, was best not acknowledged in writing.” The breadth of his vision enabled the
rubric of budgeting to expand in ways that facilitated the discussion of fiscal policy,
Congressional rules and informal norms, political ideology, rationality and its
limitations, trust and conflict, and even human nature. Because of his writings, the
anticipated drudgery of teaching or enrolling in a course in budgeting often receded, as
a variety of stimulating ways of viewing its many dimensions opened up. That is no
small feat.
2.2 Some distinctions
The development and popularity of incrementalism, in one sense, are relatively easy to
understand. It confirms the “dailyness” of our lives, where change is slow and gradual.
It reflects also the practical advice offered frequently about testing the water before
leaping into the uncharted ocean; reducing the costs of failure when undertaking new
initiatives; and keeping open the possibility of quick retreat. Wildavsky also
distinguished and contrasted incrementalism from another way of viewing decision making which is often called “rational-comprehensive.” The expectations associated
with the latter (which are sometimes exaggerated) follow a process that includes
knowing the goal to be achieved, identifying all the means of accomplishing it,
calculating the costs and benefits of each one of them, and letting the comparisons
among them determine the optimum decision or choice. Since the constraints both of
time and resources are enormous, it is not so hard to show that rationality of this kind is
rarely, if ever, relied on by decisions makers in the public sector. In addition to
incrementalism, Simon’s notion of “satisficing” and Lindblom’s “muddling through”
were offered as more realistic notions of what the decision-makers actually do.
(Incidentally, while these limitations of decision-makers in the public sector often
attract intense and concentrated attention, they apply in varying degrees to the private
sector as well, a fact that is often ignored when perceiving differences between political
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satisficing and market rationality.)
2.3 Characteristics of budgeting
But budgetary incrementalism, while it relied partly on such folksy wisdom and was
eagerly distinguished from the rational-comprehensive model, had certain specific
characteristics that went far beyond these considerations. They were repeatedly
described by Wildavsky, perhaps most fully in The Politics of the Budgetary Process,
which became a widely read and cited work over the years, and went through four
editions. The major elements of his incrementalism, which were noted at the federal
level (but began almost immediately to be applied at all levels of government), may be
quickly summarized:
• Traditions: Bureaucratic agencies pad their budgetary requests, the budget office
trims them, and the House Appropriations Committee acts as the “guardian of
the purse”, from which appeals are sometimes taken to the somewhat more
generous Senate Finance Committee;
• Fiscal outcomes: Debate and discussion over an appropriation Bill are over the
requested increase or increment (called the “fair share”) over last year’s
appropriation (called the “base”), which is often left unexamined;
• Atmosphere: Budget committees operate in an environment of trust, deference to
the committee chairpersons, secrecy, and loyalty to the committees’
recommendations;
• Assumptions: The budget is expected to record all fiscal commitments
(“comprehensiveness”,) which are reviewed once a year (“annualarity”). while
the spending level remains fairly close to the revenues generated (“balance”);
and
• Process: Congress deals with one part of the budget at one time (i.e. one
appropriation bill, and then another, and occasionally a revenue bill as well), and
this fragmented and sequential pattern avoids the conscious linking of means
with ends.
An attempt was made to reinforce the validity of some of these characteristics of
incrementalism by applying mathematical rigor. Actual appropriations of federal
agencies were explained through simple linear decision rules through eight equations. - The Demise of Incrementalism
But all that changed. In The New Politics of the Budgetary Reform, Wildavsky
abandoned incrementalism. That dramatic development was based on his
acknowledgment of some important changes. Much of the government spending now
escaped annual review, he argued, with 46% of the federal budget going to entitlements
and 14% to interest on the accumulated debt. Of the rest, 28% was allocated for defense,
which only left 12% as discretionary spending, and much of the annual budget fights
were about this relatively small proportion. Furthermore, the Appropriation Committees
were not allowed to regulate the massive expansion of federal credit; only for the
amounts by which the debtors defaulted did these off-budget figures surface in their
deliberations. These developments violated the expectations of comprehensiveness,
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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC POLICY – Vol. II – Revisiting Budgetary Incrementalism – Zahid Shariff
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annualarity, and balance. Incrementalism was dealt another blow by the 1974 Budget
and Impoundment Control Act, which made it virtually impossible for the old budget
committees to adhere to norms of secrecy and loyalty, and required the new budget
committees to connect the means (i.e. revenues) with the ends (i.e. spending). - Broader Context, Limited Horizon
4.1 Gentlemanly government
A scholar should be clear, Wildavsky insisted, “as to what he is about and to make his
intentions clear to others. To be above board, to put one’s cards on the table is an
essential requirement of scholarship”. Since he regrettably did not fully meet that
requirement, it is perhaps appropriate to put his cards down on the table for him. What
they reveal is that he was an ardent supporter of neo-conservative ideology, greatly
disturbed about the events of the 1960s, pained by the existing claims on government
and the adding of new ones, discouraged by the federal government doing more and the
states less, and convinced that governmental initiatives were often misdirected or
wasteful.To a degree, budgetary incrementalism served these ideological interests very
well, as one would expect its reliance on gradual accommodation to change in an
atmosphere of secrecy, manageable conflict, trustworthy leaders, and informal norms to
do. These are unmistakable signs of very considerable satisfaction with gentlemanly
government. “The insiders had a monopoly on budgetary information, and they did not
share much with the outsiders. In that world, budgets were made by government talking
to itself”. But budgeting was only a part of the general perspective, that included faith in
secrecy and deal-making that was beyond the reach of popular pressures.
Despite complaints about elitism and decisions favoring “special interests” made
“behind closed doors in smoke-filled rooms”, so often made about budgeting by the
U.S. Congress, Helco and Wildavsky in The Private Government of Public Money
demonstrated that in terms of public participation, openness of the decision process, and
ultimately, service to the public good, things could be worse.Wildavsky, and his
followers, did not seem to have noticed that as these values and practices were
celebrated, others—civil rights, openness, accountability, and inclusiveness—were - ignored
Bibliography
Caiden, N. and White, J. (Eds.) (1994). Public Budgeting & Finance14 (Spring). Symposium on “Aaron
Wildavsky: An appreciation.” [Contained articles by leading scholars of budgeting eulogizing Aaron
Wildavsky]
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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC POLICY – Vol. II – Revisiting Budgetary Incrementalism – Zahid Shariff
©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS)
Davis, O.A., Dempster, M.A.H, and Wildavsky, A. (1966). “A theory of the budgetary process.”
American Political Science Review 60 (September), 529-547. [An attempt to provide quantitative
validation for incrementalism]
Dempster, M.A.H. and Wildavsky, A. (1979). “On change: Or, there is no magic size for an increment.”
Political Studies, 27 (September), 371-389. [Defense of incrementalism based not on size of increment
but regularity of relationships between agencies and Congress]
Gosling, J. J. Budgetary politics in American governments. New York: Garland Publishing. [A textbook
in the field of government budgeting]
Jones, L. R. and McCaffery, J. (1994). “Budgeting according to Aaron Wildavsky: A bibliographic
essay.” Public Budgeting & Finance 14 (Spring), pp. 16-43. [Literature review of incrementalism as
viewed by Wildavsky]
Joyce, P. G. (1996). “Jesse Burkhead and the multiple uses of federal budgets: A contemporary
perspective.” Public Budgeting and Finance16 (Summer), 59-78. [A different perspective provided by
another well-known scholar in bugeting]
Lindblom, Charles. E. (1959). “ The ‘science’ of muddling through.” PAR 21, 78-88. [A seminal work in
public administration that presents an alternative to incrementalism]
McSwite, O. C. (1997). Legitimacy in public administration: A discourse analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage Publications. [A major work in post-modernist understanding of public administration]
Neuby, B. L. (1997). On the lack of a budget theory. Public Administration Quarterly, 21 (Summer),
131-142. [Review of budgetary literature which gives considerable attention to Wildavsky]
News & Views, (1990). (published by the American Society for Public Administration Section on
Budgeting and Financial Management). [A professional society’s newsletter]
Ruhin, I. (1990). “Budget theory and budget practice: How good the fit?” PAR 50 (March/April), 179-
- [Review of budgetary theory in view of changed fiscal and economic circumstances]
Schick, A. “From the old politics of budgeting to the new.” Public Budgeting & Finance 14 (Spring),
135-144. [Critique of changes in budgetary processes enacted by Congress]
Sementelli, A. J. and Herzog, R. J. (2000). “Framing discourse in budgetary processes: Warrants for
normalization and conformity.” Administrative Theory & Praxis 22 (March), 105-116. [An attempt to
understand budgetary realities in a post-modernist framework]
Simon, H. (1947). Administrative Behavior. New York: Macmillan. [A major work that showed the
flawed assumptions of scientific management]
Steinfels, P. (1979). The neo-conservatives. New York: Simon and Schuster. [A review and critique of a
group of influential scholars, many of whom were liberals before they turned conservative]
White, J. (1994). “(Almost) nothing new under the sun: Why the work of budgeting remains
incremental.” Public Budgeting & Finance 14 (Spring), pp. 113-144. [A spirited defense of
incrementalism even after Wildavsky had abandoned it]
Wildavsky, A. (1964). The Politics of the Budgetary Process. Boston: Little, Brown. [It launched
incremental budgeting and became probably the best known work in government budgeting.
–. 1971. The Revolt of the Masses. New York: Basic Books. [A collection of Wildavsky’s essays that
reveal his strongly-held conservative views, particularly against what many viewed as the gains made in
the 1960s.
–. 1985. “The once and future school of public policy.” The Public Interest 79 (Spring), 25- 41.
[Reflections on starting the first school of public policy in the principal publication of the neo conservatives]
–. 1988. The New Politics of the Budgetary Process. Glenview, IL.: Scott, Foresman. [Here Wildavskly
abandoned incrementalism after defending it fiercely in the past]
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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC POLICY – Vol. II – Revisiting Budgetary Incrementalism – Zahid Shariff
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Biographical Sketch
Zahid Shariff is Member of the Faculty at The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington. Dr.
Shariff’s research and teaching interests are focused in a number of areas. One is public administration,
where he concentrates on public administration theory and fiscal policy, and has published several
relevant articles in Social Science Quarterly, Social Policy, Administration & Society, and in edited
books. A second area is international affairs and comparative policy and administration, and in that field
has published articles in The Annals of the American Society of Political and Social Science, Public
Management and Policy, and Lahore Journal of Economics.
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