Limits to learning: the struggle to adapt to unintended effects of international payment for environmental services programmes

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - This article pioneers new thinking on learning by organizations created by international environmental agreements, especially...     

Cutback Management in the Netherlands

In this article cutback management is defined as the effort of cabinet ministers to facilitate budgetary cutback decisions through institutional change. Institutions are conceived as formal and informal rules for budgetary decision making. The article presents a sketch of the ways in which successive Dutch cabinets over the 1975–98 period attempted to cut back the expenditures of central government by institutional change and outlines the results that were achieved. The article focuses on three institutions: (1) macrobudgetary norms, (2) rules of budgetary discipline, and (3) procedures for the preparation of cutback decisions. The article identifies two kinds of effective resistance against cutbacks: (1) political resistance emanating from cabinet ministers and (2) bureaucratic resistance emanating from the administrators of executive agencies. It analyzes how the various forms of institutional change affect these forms of resistance and evaluates the results of the cutback effort.