Budgeting for Our Times: Target Base Budgeting

Target base budgeting sets limits on how much a department may request in its budget. Departments must submit two budget requests—one within the target base and another for additional funds. Some supplemental requests may be funded from a reserve pool. Target base budgeting has been used in parts of the federal government over the last forty years. Its use continues to slowly expand. This article examines the experiences in three cities: Rochester, Tampa, and Phoenix.     

Ethnic interests and national ideology during Israel's first decade: addressing the rational Oriental vote

The article offers an empirical foundation through which the electoral behaviour of the new Oriental immigrants into Israel during the 1950s can be interpreted, based on the assumption that their conduct was, in fact, rational. It focuses on the egalitarian wage policy in the important public sector, which led Ben-Gurion and the leaders of Israel's first ruling party, MAPAI, to a confrontation with the European academically educated middle class, and on the political–electoral strategy of MAPAI vis-à-vis the Oriental immigrants during the 1950s electoral campaigns. The article discusses three assumptions: first, that this wage policy was part of the ruling party's attempt to address the interests of the new Oriental working class; second, that this political strategy was publicly discussed, and it addressed the Oriental immigrants’ rational socio-economic calculations for the purpose of securing their political and electoral support; third, that the leaders of nascent Israel and its ruling party presented this policy as a measure towards creating a minimal socio-economic foundation for the process of nation-building during the 1950s.     

Past and Future Budget Classics: A Research Agenda

This article summarizes the content of four classic articles on budgeting that have appeared in Public Administration Review, outlines some of the major changes in budgeting that have occurred since those authors wrote, and, based on those changes, offers a research agenda for the next set of budget classics.