Budgeting Democracy: State Building and Citizenship in America, 1890-1928

Jonathan Kahn

ISBN 10: 0801429501 / ISBN 13: 9780801429507

Verlag: Cornell University Press, 1997

No marks, creases or blemishes. Minimal shelfwear. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 003859

Inhaltsangabe:

There was a time when no government in the United States had a coherent budget system. Jonathan Kahn tells the story of how a small, energetic band of reformers waged a successful campaign in Progressive-era America to introduce fundamentally new systems of public budgeting into many cities, nearly every state, and ultimately the federal government. It is a story that has remarkable resonances today. Kahn suggests that budget reform transformed understandings of citizenship and political accountability while facilitating a conceptual leap from seeing government as a random agglomeration of administrative fiefdoms to envisioning a coherent, interrelated, and unitary state. Kahn argues that public budgets are more than simply technical tools for allocating government resources. They are also cultural constructions that shape public life, state institutions, and the relations between the two. Reformers "invented" the budget, Kahn explains, and then marketed it through exhortations, exhibits, and demonstrations that were replicated throughout the United States. Kahn explains how budget reform narrowed and contained popular engagement with government by promoting new notions of accountability and representation based on passive oversight rather than active political participation. Finally, budget reform transformed federal governance by creating the apparatus to conceive, order, and control a unified executive branch.

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Budgeting Democracy: State Building and ...
Verlag: Cornell University Press
Erscheinungsdatum: 1997
Einband: Hardcover
Zustand: Near Fine