Policy Sciences 29: 227-234, 1996.

9 1996Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Wildavsky on budget reform

L. R. J O N E S
Department of Systems Management, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93943, U.S.A.

Abstract. A large part of the literature on budgeting in the United States is concerned with reform.
The goals of proposed reforms are couched in similar language - economy,efficiency,improvement,
or just better budgeting.... However,any effectivechange in budgetary relationships must necessa-
rily alter the outcomes of the budgetary process. Otherwise, why bother? Far from being a neutral
matter of 'better budgeting,' proposed reforms inevitably contain important implications for the
political system, that is, the 'who gets what' of governmental decisions (Wildavsky, 1961: p. 186).
... budgeting is a subsystemof politics, not vise versa - because of the current tendency to overload
budgeting. As much as I respect the importance of budgeting and the talents of budgeteers, to
substitute budgeting for governing will not work (Wildavsky,1992b: p. 439).

Introduction

Aaron Wildavsky studied the budgetary process for over thirty years. He was its
H o m e r and arguably its Newton. He taught that budgeting is politics and
reminded us that politics is the art of the possible, that democratic budgets
are compromises, and that compromise budgets are necessarily incremental
(Wildavsky, 1978; Jones and McCaffery, 1994: pp. 22-24). Hence, a satisfactory,
democratic budget is one that distributes dissatisfaction more or less equally to
all. He cautioned us against radical change, not only in spending and tax
policies, but also in the budgetary process itself. We may sometimes lament the
foibles of the American budgetary order, he argued, but the alternatives to our
confusing, disjointed and adversarial method of resource allocation are even
worse. Nevertheless, Wildavsky was predisposed to a number of procedural
budget reforms where they sustained and enhanced the American constitu-
tional order, which assigns the power of the purse to Congress.

Normative proposals and positive science

Wildavsky started with V. O. Key's (1940: p. 1137) question: 'On what basis shall
it be decided to allocate X dollars to Activity A instead of Activity B.' But,
instead of trying to answer it, Wildavsky concluded that Key had asked the
wrong question (Wildavsky, 1961: p. 190). The question should have been: how
is it decided to allocate X funds to activity A and not Activity B. Wildavsky also
hypothesized that the answer was clear '... the obvious truth [is] that the budget
is inextricably linked to the political system' (Wildavsky, 1961: p. 185). Of
course, Wildavsky's reformulation was one of the opening shots in the behav-
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ioral revolution in political science. His question could only be answered by

observation and measurement.
Wildavsky's proximate goal was a theory that would account 'for the oper-
ation and outcomes of the budgetary process.' He believed that a theory of
'budgetary effectiveness and influence would describe the power relationships
among the participants, explain why some agents are more successful than
others in achieving their budgetary goals, state the conditions under which
various strategies are or are not efficacious, and in this way account for the
pattern of budgetary decisions' (Wildavsky, 1961: p. 189). The key to his ap-
proach was the notion of the budgetary base: '...it would not be fruitful to
devise a measure ... [to] give an objective rank ordering of agency budget
success in securing appropriations ... [because] the agency which succeeds in
getting most of what it desires ... may be the one which is best at figuring out
what it is likely to get. A better measure would be an agency's record in securing
appropriations calculated as percentages above or below the previous years'
appropriations' (Wildavsky, 1961: p. 189). Because of the impact of intervening
variables (Wildavsky, 1975: pp. 65-68), including shifts in service demand, wars
and other disasters, advances in scientific knowledge, '... beyond the control of
an agency,' he acknowledged that change from the base was an imperfect
measure of agency performance. Consequently, he called for 'intensive study
of each agency's appropriation history...' (Wildavsky, 1961: p. 185) to under-
stand and explain budgetary success or failure (Wildavsky, 1975: pp. 47-65),
which, in turn, led to an emphasis on power, influence, strategy and contingent
response.
Wildavsky's definition of good budget theory also identifies what he ulti-
mately sought to achieve by studying the budgetary process. He believed that
good normative models had to be predicated on good positive models of
the budgetary process. 'The point is that ... until we know something about
the 'existential situation' in which the particpants find themselves, proposals
for major reform must be based on woefully inadequate understanding'
(Wildavsky, 1961: pp. 189-190).

The failure of comprehensive budget reform and the promise of policy analysis

During the 1960s and 1970s, Wildavsky was best known as a critic of executive
budget reform: performance budgeting, PPBS, zero-based budgeting, cost-
benefit analysis, etc. These nostrums were embraced by a succession of Presi-
dents and then ignored by Congress. Wildavsky clarified the objectives of these
reforms, then he explained why they would fail and, typically, why they should
fail (Wildavsky, 1966a; 1966b; 1969; 1975). More than anything else these re-
forms were wrong-headed because they were not predicated on a satisfactory
understanding of the budgetary process.
Wildavsky was especially critical of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo. He ad-
mired competent policy analysis that could 'speak truth to power' (Wildavsky,