Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T03:11:48.497Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Budgetary Policy‐Making under Institutional Restrictions: The Experience of Britain, France, West Germany and the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Roland Sturm
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

POLITICIANS LIKE TO BE REGARDED AS EFFECTIVE IN THE WORK THEY do. They insist that the promises they make and the programmes they decide on are more than mere declarations of goodwill. To practise what they preach is of special importance to governments which stress that their policies are substantially different from the policies of their predecessors. Thus, a departure from conventional politics on the model of the social-democratic consensus was asserted by the previously more pragmatic, now more ideologically minded, Conservative governments in Britain (1979), the United States (1980) and to some degree also by the electoral successes of Conservative parties in West Germany (1983) and France (1986). The conservative ground-swell in current government policies in Western democracies is, however, not restricted to the countries mentioned here, although Britain and the United States have played a special role as pathfinders for the political reorientation process.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1986 , pp. 437 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Dahrendorf, R., Lebenschancen. Anläufe zur sozialen und politischen Theorie, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1979, p. 148.Google Scholar

2 Ashford, D.E., ‘The Structural Analysis of Policy or Institutions Really Do Matter’, in Ashford, D.E. (ed.), Comparing Public Policies. New Concepts and Methods, Beverly Hills/London, Sage, 1978, pp. 81–98 Google Scholar. Sturm, R., ‘Budgetary Politics in the Federal Republic of Germany’, in West European Politics, Vol. 8 no. 3, 1985, pp. 56—63.Google Scholar

3 Stephenson, H., Mrs Thatcher’s First Year, London, Jill Norman, 1980, p. 29.Google Scholar

4 Posner, Michael, Economic Adviser to the Treasury 1975/76 quoted in Young, H. and Sloman, A., But, Chancellor. An Inquiry into the Treasury, London, BBC, 1984, pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

5 Kesler, J.F., L’E.N.A., la société, l’Etat, Paris, Berger-Levrault, 1985, p. 520.Google Scholar

6 For example: Friedman, M. (with Friedman, R.), Free to Choose, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1980, p. 299.Google Scholar

7 LeLoup, L.T. and Woolley, J.T., ‘Legislatures and Monetary Policy: A Comparative Perspective’, paper, IPSA Congress, Paris, 1985.Google Scholar Caesar, R., Der Handlungsspielraum von Notenbanken, Baden-Baden, Nomos, 1981.Google Scholar

8 Vomfelde, W., Abschied von Keynes? Eine Antwort auf die monetaristisch-neoklassiche Gegenrevobition, Frankfurt/New York, Campus, 1985, p. 56.Google Scholar

9 Bundesbank, Deutsche, ‘Zur lähgerfristigen Entwicklung und Kontrolle des Geldvolumens’, in Monatsberichte 37(1), 1985, p. 20.Google Scholar

10 Foot, M.D.K.W., ‘Monetary Targets: Their Nature and Record in the Major Economies’, in Griffiths, B. and Wood, G.E. (eds), Monetary Targets, London/Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1981, p. 15.Google Scholar

11 Phalle, Th. de Saint, The Federal Reserve. An Intentional Mystery, New York, Praeger, pp. 87–129.Google Scholar

12 Woolley, J.T., Monetary Policy. The Federal Reserve and the Politics of Monetary Policy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984, p. 118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Quoted by Th. de Saint Phalle, op. cit., p. 99.

14 Bruce-Gardyne, J., Mrs Thatcher’s First Administration. The Prophets Confounded, London and Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1984, p. 61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 See especially its Third Report 1980/81 on Monetary Policy.

16 Englefield, D. (ed.), Commons Select Committees. Catalysts for Progress?, Harlow, Longman, 1984, p. 17.Google Scholar

17 OECD, France, Paris, OECD Economic Surveys 85/86, 1985, p. 8.

18 BMF (West German Ministry of Finance), Aufgaben und Ziele einer neuen Finanz-politik — Grenzen staatlicher Verschuldung, Bonn, BMF, 1985.

19 Sturm, R., ‘Ausgabenkontrolle ira britischen Parlament nach den Parlaments-reformen 1979 und 1984’, in Zeitschrift für Pariamentsfragen, 16, 1985, pp. 545—61.Google Scholar

20 Cf. J. Bruce-Gardyne, op. cit., p. 98.

21 Shell, D.R., ‘The House of Lords and the Thatcher Government’ in Parlimentary Affairs 38, 1985, pp. 16–32.Google Scholar

22 Sturm, R., Der Haushaltsausschuβ des Deutschen Bundestages, Opladen, Leske, 1987.Google Scholar

23 BMF,op. cit., p. 11.

24 See Dischamps, J.-C., ‘La politique des finances publiques en France (1981—84)’, in Hanusch, H., Roskamp, K.W. and Wiseman, J. (eds), Public Sector and Political Economy Today. Essays in Honour of Horst Claus Recktenwald, Stuttgart and New York, Gustav Fischer, 1985, pp. 101–111.Google Scholar and Machin, H. and Wright, V. (eds), Economic Policy and Policy-Making Under the Mitterrand Presidency 1981—1984, London, Frances Pinter, 1985 Google Scholar, for detailed reports on the economic and budgetary policy decisions of the Socialist governments.

25 Deutscher Bundestag, Stenographische Berichte, 10 Wahlperiode, 81. Sitzung, 12 September 1984, p.5866.

26 Quoted in Krause, A., ‘French Budget Aims to Reduce Taxes, Spending’, in International Herald Tribune, 13 09 1984, p. 1.Google Scholar

27 Lauber, V., ‘Changing Assumptions in French Economic Policy’, Paper. ECPR, Salzburg, 1984.Google Scholar

28 Hayward, J., ‘“Alternance” and Economic Policy Alternatives: Some Franco-British Contrasts’, paper, Colloque. Association Française de Science Politique, Paris, 1985, p. 20.Google Scholar

29 For details see among others Shuman, H.E., Politics and the Budget. The Struggle Between the President and the Congress, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall, 1984, pp. 217—74Google Scholar. Schick, A, Congress and Money. Budgeting, Spending and Taxing, Washington, D.C., The Urban Institute, 1980 Google Scholar; Schick, A., Reconciliation and the Congressional Budget Process, Washington, D.C., American Enterprise Institute, 1981.Google Scholar

30 H.E. Shuman, op. cit., p. 246.

31 Salamon, L.M. and Abramson, A.J., ‘Governance. The Politics of Retrenchment’, in Palmer, J.L. and Sawhill, I.V. (eds), The Reagan Record, Cambridge, Mass, Ballinger, 1984, pp. 49–53.Google Scholar

32 J.L. Palmer and I.V. Sawhill, op. cit., p. 9.

33 Peterson, G.E., ‘Federalism and the States. An experiment in Decentralization’, ibid., pp. 217–59Google Scholar. McKay, D., ‘Theory and Practice in Public Policy: The Case of the New Federalism, in Political Studies 33, 1985, pp. 181–202.Google Scholar

34 Sturm, R., ‘Zentralismus und lokale Autonomie: Die britische Kommunalver-waltung in der Krise?’, in Doring, H. and Grosser, D. (eds), Groflbritannien — Ein Regierungssystem in der Belastungsprobe, Opladen, Leske, 1987, pp. 109—20.Google Scholar

35 Holton, R., ‘Industrial Politics in France: Nationalisation under Mitterrand’, in West European Politics 9(1), 1986, pp. 67–80.Google Scholar

36 Uterwedde, H., ‘Mitterrands Wirtschaftspolitik — Was bleibt vom Sozialismus?’, in Aus politik und zeitgeschichte 19, 1985, p. 7.Google Scholar

37 The Economist, 15 March 1986, p. 71.

38 Frankfurter Rundschau, 10 April 1986, p. 1.

39 The Economist, 12 April 1986, p. 67.

40 L.M. Salamon and A.J. Abramson, op. cit., p. 54.

41 Barker, A. (ed.), Quangos in Britain. Government and the Network of Public Policy-Making, London/Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1982.Google Scholar

42 J. Bruce-Gardyne, op. cit., p. 70.