George M. Guess

If you intend to write a comparative analysis of phenomenon A, you first need a general theory of A, or at least a general vocabulary for discussing A. You can then analyze each particular manifestation A1, A2, A3... through the vantage point provided by that theory or vocabulary. Without the theory, the comparison will not be of much value.

Although the authors of this book seem to possess great expertise in the field of public budgeting across the world, this book is still a complete failure as a comparative analysis. The authors recognize the need for a theoretical framework, but their sorry attempt at a general theory of budgeting in chapter 1 is so vague that the project sinks at the dock. All they really manage to say is that there exist different budgeting systems, budgeting occurs in different policy contexts, and "political cultures" are different. Instead of presenting a theory, they basically just admit that the systems they are about to compare are too complex to be theoretically explicated.

The concept of "political culture" seems to be their favorite tool for concealing this problem. In many chapters they go on and on about political cultures in different countries, but these narratives are uninformative and carry no comparative explanatory power. Politics obviously influences budgeting, but unless you can apply a general theory of culture (which the authors do not), the cultural explanation is just an excuse. The authors present a litany of details on budgets and governments from across the world, but the amount of true comparisons remains small.

The authors also have a maddening habit of using acronyms everywhere. Instead of just writing ministry of finance, they always have to write MOF. That's the only acronym which stuck to my mind in this book. They also make frequent references to OMB, CBO, CEE/FSU, IFMS, MTEF, etc. It's completely impossible for the reader to remember what twenty different acronyms mean if they are only spelled out once somewhere in the text. Would it really be too much trouble to use the entire expression instead of an obtuse acronym? At the very least, they could have included a list of acronyms somewhere in the book.

In conclusion, this book made me angry, frustrated and bored. Angry at the arrogance of authors who think that their readers know every acronym that they know. Frustrated by the author's failure to put their expert knowledge into a sensible general framework which would explain and illuminate public budgeting. And bored by page after page of disconnected snippets of information which I forgot as soon as I turned to the next page.… (altro)