Government Budgeting and Financial Management in Practice ─ Logics to Make Sense of Ambiguity

The right turn in U. S. politics has increased conflict over both ends and means in government budgeting and financial management. Overlapping and competing views of the way the world works drive finance officials’ practice. Taking a new look at public financial management that acknowledges the multiple, competing realities, Government Budgeting and Financial Management in Practice: Logics to Make Sense of Ambiguity examines transaction cost economics and other small government, managed-by-the-market techniques as the latest reincarnation of public budgeting and financial management orthodoxy. Gerald J. Miller reviews new research on the continuing validity of the political dimension of government finance decisions and the multiple, intensely argued constructions of reality the finance official must make sense of.
Miller discusses major advances in interpretive approaches to budgeting and finance and how they dominate writing in the broader field of public administration. He also examines the effects of the explosion of information systems, new budget techniques, nonconventional ways of spending, and new technologies. The book uses a question as the motivating force to understand some facets of today’s government budgeting, finance, and financial management: where do the critical assumptions come from to drive financial management? Miller takes the history of reform, developments in the field and the logics finance officials say they use as sources for these assumptions and examines what they reveal about constructions of the government finance world.
Exploring new avenues of financial management thinking, the book discusses ambiguity and interpretations that move the unclear preferences, ends, and goals toward consensus. The author identifies an alternative approach to research that explains important facets of financial management. This approach is drawn directly from practice, events and problems in public organizations and from the creedal bent of many political actors in competition.

Socially Constructed Decisions about Public MoneyFinancial Management as Socially Negotiated ProcessThe Study of Government Budgeting, Finance, and Financial ManagementOrganization of the BookReferencesEndnotesHistory of Government Budgeting and Finance ReformsNormative Development of Government Budgeting and FinanceCoalition Convergence and Divergence in Three StagesA Continuing and Episodic StruggleThe Right Turn in Politics and Related DevelopmentsSummaryReferencesEndnotesThe Practice of Government Budgeting and Finance Is InterpretationPractitioners Define Government Budgeting, Finance, and Financial ManagementTheories about Finance Officials’ WorkWhat Is an Interpretation?StudiesConclusion: Summarizing Practice as InterpretationReferencesEndnotesFiscal Policy Impacts in Public FinanceIntroductionFiscal Policy ImpactsSummary and DiscussionReferencesEndnoteConventional Budgeting with Targets, Incentives, and Performance, Gerald J. Miller, Donijo Robbins, and Jaeduk Keum
Movements toward the Performance-Based ReformsInterrelations among Incentives, Certification, and TargetsThe ResearchResearch FindingsDiscussion and ConclusionsReferencesEndnotesBudgeting for Nonconventional Expenditures, Gerald J. Miller and Iryna Illiash
The Budget ProblemInterpreting Control: A Matter of Substitutable Policy ToolsBudgeting Interpretations: The Social Construction ApproachTrade-Off Criteria, the Poor, and Welfare PolicyThe Context That We Force to Emerge, That We Enact, That We Socially ConstructReferencesEndnotesBudgeting Structures and Citizen Participation, Gerald J. Miller and Lyn Evers
StructuresHow the Budget Processes WorkWhat Works toward Citizen Participation?Participation Designs for BudgetingDiscussion and SummaryReferencesEndnotesRevenue Regime Change and Tax RevoltsThe Analytic Base and General BackgroundThe Performance Budget Indices and Tax RevoltsSummary of Research QuestionsAnswering the Research QuestionFindingsDiscussion and Interpretation of the ResultsPostscriptReferencesDebt Management Networks, Gerald J. Miller and Jonathan B. JusticeThe Bond Sale Process and ParticipantsSimulating Stable and Unstable TeamsDebt Networks and Normative Ambiguity in PracticeReferencesAuctioning Off the Farm with Tax Incentives for Economic Development, Donijo Robbins and Gerald J. Miller
Macro-Level Goals of IncentivesMicro-Level Goals of IncentivesThe Research ProblemThe ExperimentData and FindingsDiscussionSummaryReferencesEndnotesSummaryThe Larger ArgumentReferencesIndex