Suchergebnisse

The Call for a Budgetary Theory: The appeal of Valdimer Key for a budgetary theory marks the interest in public budgeting in modern history. He clearly referred to a normative theory, raising the question: 'on what basis shall it be decided to allocate X dollars to activity A instead of activity B?' [Key, in Hyde & Shafritz 1978, p. 20]. A couple of efforts to develop such a theory failed before Aaron Wildavsky took over the relay baton, issuing the first edition of his seminal The Politics of the Budgetary Process that changed the budgetary landscape almost completely2. He argued that the allocation of scarce resources is not a matter of arithmetics or calculation, but a matter of power. On top of that he claimed that of incrementalism offered both the best description of and prescription to the budget process, introducing now common words as the 'base' and 'fair share' in the vocabulary of budget watchers [Wildavsky 1964]3. Soon, incrementalism became the dominant theory of public budgeting in America and, strange enough, also in Europe where the power of the purse is with the executive rather than the legislative branch of government. Moreover, empirical support was at least mixed, if not to say weak [LeLoup 1978; Rubin 1988].

Introduction: The birth of the EMU featured almost unprecedented transfer of sovereignty from the European member states to a newly created European institution. Ever since, the monetary policy has been the sole responsibility of the ECB at least for the countries in the Eurozone. The budgetary policy though still belongs to the domain of the European member states. However, they are not completely free to pursue there own budgetary policy as this is subject of economic governance or either coordination by the SGP. Sound public finances are considered to be a necessary, though not sufficient condition for price stability. The financial crisis and notably the situation in Greece brought a number of new instruments. In addition to a framework for crisis management, the Task Force on Strengthening Economic Governance called for broader and deeper policy coordination through the introduction of a so-called European Semester, allowing the European institutions to assess the draft budget and to come up with recommendations before it is submitted to national parliaments. In this paper we will critically assess the various proposals that have been done to reinforce budgetary coordination, addressing the question what would make the European member states comply under the new rules of the game where they did not under the old ones.

Introduction: The birth of the EMU featured almost unprecedented transfer of sovereignty from the European member states to a newly created European institution. Ever since, the monetary policy has been the sole responsibility of the ECB at least for the countries in the Eurozone. The budgetary policy though still belongs to the domain of the European member states. However, they are not completely free to pursue there own budgetary policy as this is subject of economic governance or either coordination by the SGP. Sound public finances are considered to be a necessary, though not sufficient condition for price stability. The financial crisis and notably the situation in Greece brought a number of new instruments. In addition to a framework for crisis management, the Task Force on Strengthening Economic Governance called for broader and deeper policy coordination through the introduction of a so-called European Semester, allowing the European institutions to assess the draft budget and to come up with recommendations before it is submitted to national parliaments. In this paper we will critically assess the various proposals that have been done to reinforce budgetary coordination, addressing the question what would make the European member states comply under the new rules of the game where they did not under the old ones.

The study of policy instruments dates from the early seventies, though there has been written a lot before especially in economics about government intervention in relation to market imperfections. A policy instrument refers the means of government intervention in markets or, in broader perspective, society in order to accomplish goals or to solve problems. The behavioral assumption underlying a policy instrument is that it attempts to get people do things that they might not otherwise have done. In the last fifty years we featured a transformation not just in the scope and scale of the role of the government, but also in the proliferation of tools that it has to its disposal for public action. In retrospect a distinction can made between three partly overlapping stadiums in the study of policy instruments.

In the past twenty-five years we have seen a growing body of literature on the determinants of fiscal policy as measured by analyzing cross-national data on budgetary deficits and public debts. The discussion is largely shaped by Jürgen von Hagen's work on the impact of both political and economic institutions. In this paper we will take a slightly different angle, looking at cultural variables. Taking Aaron Wildavsky's cultural theory of budgeting as point of departure, we assume that the budgetary strategy of the countries in the eurozone is related to their political culture or regime. Using empirical data provided by the European Union, we conclude that empirical support for the cultural theory of budgeting is concentrated at the extremes of the political spectrum. However, empirical support is much stronger if we differentiate to the economic situation. The outcome underscores, once again, that it is hard to maintain an anti-cyclical policy during an upswing of the economy.

Public administration in The Netherlands is generally approached as a multi-disciplinary field of inquiry, especially in the social sciences. Some schools attempt a more integrating approach preserving the integrity of Public Administration as an academic discipline. Its focus is on: 1. mainstream public administration (theories, models etc. on policy- and decision making, organization, human resource management) and on insights from other disciplines that also have an interest in the study of government such as political science, sociology, law and economics; 2. the structure and functioning of Dutch government at large. Next to serving the regular student body (full-time and day-time students) special evening programs and special streams have been developed. The interest in European administration, particularly the comparative component (i.e. cross-national analysis of administrative systems in the member states) and the implementation and enforcement of European policies at the grass-roots level should attract much more attention.

In 1993, the Clinton administration launched the National Performance Review [NPR], a large-scale effort to create a more entrepreneurial government that ?works better and costs less?. The NPR relied heavily on the input and effort of federal civil servants. Although the rationale for the reduction was formulated in terms of performance improvement, it was as much driven by the goal of cost cutting. A similar effort took place in The Netherlands with the ?Grote Efficiency Operatie? [Operation Efficiency]. During the 1980?s, the Dutch government established six so-called ?major operations? to improve its performance and reduce costs. The history, targets, procedure and organization as well as results of both countries? efforts are analyzed. Comparison of the NPR and the GEO entails certain risks but yields insights that contribute to an understanding of efforts at public sector reform which transcends particular national contexts. Both operations began as efforts to improve efficiency but quickly became focused on personnel reduction.

Times of crisis, such as the financial and economic crisis and, more recently, the migration crisis, open windows of opportunity for agenda setting and policy change. However, the added value of policy analysis and utilization‐focused evaluation is often more contested during crises: do crises provide opportunities for the utilization of expert knowledge and policy learning in order to punctuate policy deadlocks and to induce policy innovation or do crises rather inhibit opportunities for the utilization of expert knowledge and policy learning because of political contestation and establishment of a clear political primacy? Building on empirical data drawn from the Dutch comprehensive spending reviews (2010), advisory reports and policy studies, respectively, in

Introduction: The globalfinancial crisis has created an almost unparalleled process of politicization and policy change. However, has the crisis also been a window of opportunity for policy learning? To put it differently, has policy change been driven by puzzling or by powering? In this second special issue on policy analysis in times of a (perceived) crisis, we address the role of policy analysts and the outcome of their work in times of austerity due to the global financial crisis. What is the impact of the financial and economic circumstances on the application and utilization of policy analysis? What is the added value of arguments and information when the government is running short of funding and time? Does the crisis provide opportunities or obstacles to policy learning? As policy making "entails both intellectual puzzling over what to do under conditions of uncertainty and bounded rationality, and political powering between competing interests" (Heclo1974,pp. 305–306; Hall 1993, p. 289; Hemerijck and Van Kersbergen1999, p. 176) one may question whether policy change, if any, is primarily due to puzzling (policy analysis, policy learning) or rather powering in times of austerity

__Abstract__ This chapter first focuses on the unique character of the European budget [section 2]. We then look back on the Dutch position during the negotiations on the Financial Perspectives 2007-2013 [section 3]2. The subsequent sections respectively address the opening position of the European Commission [section 4] and the Dutch position [section 5] in the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020. The Netherlands aims for modernisation of the budget in which case the current rebate on the Dutch contribution to the European Union could be dropped. The chapter ends with some concluding observations cumulating in a plea for compensation on the expenditure side instead of on the revenue side of the budget.

The last few decades a revival of the performance budgeting generating a complete performance industry. Initiated by the Anglo-Saxon countries, notably New Zealand, the performance movement is widespread today. In this paper we focus on the efforts of the three European countries - Finland, the Netherlands and Spain - to link inputs to outputs and/or the results by looking at three questions: " What is the rationale for budgetary reform? " What is the orientation of budgetary reform: outputs or results? " Is budgetary reform successful? Fiscal stress is a key driver in all cases, but not the only reason for budgetary reform. Other factors such as the Maastricht criteria for qualification and participation in the EMU have served as a trigger for budgetary reform. The approach differs from country to country, but they are all focused on the performance informed budgeting. Besides, the latest developments point in the direction of a more down to earth attitude to the expectations of budgetary reform. The success of budgetary reform hinges on the quality of performance information that is assumed a necessary but not sufficient condition for the use of performance information. All complain about the quality of performance information. Moreover, they all struggle with the link of the inputs to the outputs or results that makes us conclude, addressing the question that we raised in the subtitle of our paper, that the ends do not justify - neither moral nor empirical - the means as well as resources.

Abstract The national Courts of Audit are going through a series of developments [Pollitt & Bouckaert 2004: 73-74]. Traditionally their mission is to check the legality of public expenditures. However, with a legality of almost 100 percent, the Dutch Court of Audit shifted its attention to the efficiency of government spending. The pursuit of efficiency in the public sector is at the heart, too, of the VBTB that can be seen as the Dutch interpretation of the international trend into the direction of performance informed budgeting1. Academically tributary to the body of knowledge of policy analysis and evaluation, the VBTB is making a clear cut distinction between the drafting of the budget and accounting for the budget. The latter is the domain of the Court of Audit, scrutinizing the annual reports of ministries, basically raising three questions: 1.Have we achieved what we intended to achieve? 2.Have we done what we should have done? 3.Has it cost what we expected it would cost? More precisely, the Court of Audit is looking at the availability as well as the quality of the information provided by government. The findings are submitted to parliament on the third Wednesday of May. In this paper we focus on the interaction between the Court of Audit and the standing committee on Public Expenditures in parliament in charge of the VBTB. In addition, attention will be paid to the utilization of the findings of the Court of Audit in next year's budget.

The integration of immigrants is an intractable policy controversy in Dutch politics: the Blok Committee was established by Parliament to offer a resolution. However, its evaluation study ' Building Bridges', itself became controversial. This paper asks: Why did the policy evaluation of the Blok Committee become so fiercely contested? We argue that the debate on immigrant integration can be characterized by frame-conflict: there were fundamental differences in how immigrant integration was defined and normatively interpreted by act

The concept of subsidiarity is introduced in the context of the European Union by the Maastricht Treaty [1991]. That treaty laid the foundations for the Europe of the future. However, the notion is much older as it is deeply rooted in the Christian-Democratic ideology, notably Roman Catholic religion. It has been applied to the various denominations in The Netherlands, which were institutionalized for years in pillars. The elites at the top of these pillars pursued a politics of accommodation that explains, at least partly, the relative stable political situation. The consequences were important since The Netherlands is a country in which public and private organizations contribute to the realization of the welfare state. Besides, it is also a country in which local government takes an important share in the implementation of public tasks. Ideologically subsidiarity, sovereignty in the private domain and functionally and territorial decentralization found each other. The result was a relatively small central government, a strong decentralized government and strong social organizations. The question may be raised what happened with the principle of subsidiarity since the outcome in the Netherlands is rather centralization than decentralization. In addition, one may question what can be learned from the Dutch experience for the process of European integration. In this paper we address the question to what extent the developments in The Netherlands have their parallel in the European context. We conclude that concepts like subsidiarity are a device for a strong society with a relatively weak center and decentralized governments.

A couple of years ago Joschka Fischer, the German minister of Foreign Affairs articulated his European dream, calling for a specification of the 'Finalität', that is the ultimate goal of the process of European integration. It came at a moment that Europe is challenged by two conflicting developments - globalization and localization - labeled by Tom Courchene as 'glocalization' [Watts 1994]. The outcome of the process of European integration is still unclear, but will be in line with the striking characterization of Alexis de Tocqueville of the original idea of the American federation.