Ideology, Unionization, and Personnel Politics in the Federal Budget Process

This article studies how administrations seek to shape the federal workforce through the budget process. I develop a theory of personnel politics in which presidents balance ideological and interest group demands in distributing human resources across the federal government. I argue administrations advantage organizations with which they are ideologically aligned and that agencies with higher levels of union penetration see increased budgeted personnel levels, particularly during Democratic presidencies. Using an original dataset of budgeted personnel levels from fiscal years (FY) 1983–2016 and a series of regression analyses, I find strong support for these hypotheses. I also examine the sensitivity of presidential strategy to congressional preferences, agency professionalization, and leadership politicization, providing insights into how this control strategy interacts with the broader environment. Overall, these results have implications for understanding the political dynamics of human capital and capacity in the federal bureaucracy, the administrative presidency, and the politics of performance in federal agencies.

THE BUDGET PROCESS AND INTER-BUDGET RELATIONS IN MODERN RUSSIA

Questions of the organization of the budget process, relate not only to the ergonomics of the budget process, they go back to the problem of reproduction of state solvency. Meanwhile, the dependence of the state’s solvency on its efficiency, which, in turn, is a function of budget policy and features of decision-making on the use of public Finance, is not yet fully realized. The role and place of strategic planning documents in the budget policy, their relationship with the basic laws that directly affect the budget and tax, debt policy, financial relations of the Federal budget withthe budgets of the subjects of the Russian Federation, local budgets need to be clarified. It is not clear what role national projects should play in budget policy and how they should be reflected in the budget pr oces s. In the study of the chain links of such dependencies the author uses an extraordinary approach. Evaluation of the effectiveness of the budget process is carried out not by means of financial and economic indicators, the main parametersof the budget system, but based on the goals, objectives and expected results of budget policy. The principles of transparency and stability of the budget process, understood asquite applied and «counting» parameters, are proposed as the basis of the study. The criteria for evaluating the conditions of efficiency of formation, consideration, execution and control of budget decisions are introduced. As the results of the study, the author characterizes the tasks and tools to optimize the Federal budget process.

Party Rhetoric in Federal Budget Communications

This chapter explores differences in federal budget communication associated with the development and passage of the Federal Budget Resolution for Fiscal Years 1999, 2000, and 2001. While theory suggests that party-based differences within budget communication exist, empirical studies have not yet explored the full extent of these differences. The goal of this research is to illustrate the significant party-based differences in the goals and values communicated by the actors within the federal budget process. These findings inform our understanding of how actors within this key governing process communicate. This understanding will better equip public administrators to engage others in dialogue and debate that facilitates agreement and understanding.