Six Theoretical Perspectives on Performance Budgeting Reform

This chapter discusses the implications of six theoretical perspectives for reform strategies and practices. These theoretical perspectives include: performance budgeting as an organizational change process; performance budgeting as a policy diffusion process; performance budgeting as a political process; performance budgeting as a communicative process; performance budgeting as a principal—agent challenge; and and performance budgeting as an institutional change. It is hard to argue against the idea that budgetary actors should consider the outputs, outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and other performance dimensions of public programs when they spend taxpayers’ money. In many countries, performance budgeting initiatives and any related organizational changes are triggered by policy diffusion. Performance budgeting can also be viewed as a process of information exchange and communication. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing emphasis on outcome- or results-oriented performance measurement and budgeting. Principal—agent theories provide a few interesting insights for performance budgeting practitioners.