This chapter considers how presidents use their budget powers and the allocation of targeted discretionary spending to manage their coalitions. It considers the costs of budget tool deployment (in terms of time, controversy, and economic resources), and the factors that affect these costs: system-level factors (government transparency, federalism, personal-vote elections), coalition-level factors (coalition size, fragmentation, and heterogeneity), and conjunctural factors (economic crises and energy prices). It explores these factors with cases of budget tool deployment in Ukraine, Ecuador, and Russia. The Ecuadorean and Russian cases illustrate the divergent effects of resource dependence on the cost of budget tool dependence. Finally, it uses data from MP surveys to show the high value that legislators attribute to budget tools, and to illustrate how the composition of coalitions affects the costs that presidents are likely to face.
Correction to: The effect of financial scarcity on discretionary spending, borrowing, and investing
