The Reiterative Nature of Budget Reform: Is There Anything New in Federal Budgeting?

This article will attempt to demonstrate the limitations of budget reforms to bring about fundamental change in budget outcomes. In an effort to determine the extent to which these reforms have had any lasting effect, the author first discusses the history of federal budgeting since the advent of the executive budget in 1921. Second, the author reviews three reforms that are prominent in the U.S. Congress current budget debate—enacting fixed budget targets, granting the president increased power in the budget process through enacting a line item veto, or implementing a performance-based budget. Lastly, the author will cite the limitations of each to bring about lasting changes in budget outcomes or decision processes.     

Thematic memory for politics in children

This paper reports on an experiment designed to test the way (fourth grade) children congnitively process various kinds of information about politics. Our findings provide evidence that children integrate symbols from their immediate political environment into themes. These themes may then serve to organize their political knowledge and mediate receipt of new information. We did not find similar evidence of thematic integration for adult political symbols. These findings raise questions about the degree to which events in the adult political world will directly affect children's developing orientations toward that world.     

debilitating times: compulsory ablebodiedness and white privilege in theory and practice

In this paper I take up a critical position in regard to the theme of debility around which this collection is framed. I argue that theorisations of ‘debility’ do little to progress theory and policy in regard to disability and share many of the problems inherent to the social model. I also suggest that the theorisation of debility is rooted in and reinforces ablebodied privilege. I begin with a critical analysis of the social model of disability and explore the dualisms by which it either negates the body altogether or can only conceive the disabled body in negative terms. I then go on to explore how Puar’s work on debility continues this negation of the disabled body. From this position I use the work of Inahara to excavate the foundations of ablebodied privilege. In Inahara’s work gender is the analytic starting point, but for me white privilege is a much more effective mechanism through which to understand the impact and reproduction of ablebodied privilege—what McRuer refers to as ‘compulsory ablebodiedness’—which I argue underpins Puar’s work. I conclude with some reflections upon how a critical analysis of ablebodied privilege might function and I reiterate its importance for a critical theory that goes beyond the mere repetition of binary structures of ablebodiedness and disability.