{"title":"Technocratic economic governance and the politics of UK fiscal rules.","authors":"Ben Clift","doi":"10.1057/s41293-022-00204-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This exploration of UK fiscal rules and the establishment of an independent UK fiscal watchdog focuses on the practical enactment of rules-based fiscal policy to analyse the politics of technocratic economic governance. Analysing UK macroeconomic policy rules and their operation unearths numerous dimensions of the politics of technocratic fiscal policy-making. Firstly, policy rules are marshalled for partisan purposes. Secondly, a politics of economic ideas surrounds the invention, revision and interpretation of fiscal rules. Thirdly, technocratic economic governance entails a 'politics of method', selecting methodological approaches necessarily built on particular political economic assumptions. Finally, a 'politics of numbers' sees politicians cooking the books to present their economic record favourably against fiscal yardsticks. Successive governments have altered UK fiscal rules, informed by different political economic principles. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) sees itself as a technocratic and apolitical institution, yet its operational work entails contrasting accounts of the economy and policy. The scale of discretion and judgement inherent in operating fiscal rules is under-appreciated. This article finds technocratic economic governance to be a much more social and political process than many advocates of economic rules-based policy acknowledge. It engenders new forms of distinctive fiscal politics within elite statecraft and expert technocracy.</p>","PeriodicalId":46067,"journal":{"name":"British Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8906355/pdf/","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"British Politics","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-022-00204-z","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
This exploration of UK fiscal rules and the establishment of an independent UK fiscal watchdog focuses on the practical enactment of rules-based fiscal policy to analyse the politics of technocratic economic governance. Analysing UK macroeconomic policy rules and their operation unearths numerous dimensions of the politics of technocratic fiscal policy-making. Firstly, policy rules are marshalled for partisan purposes. Secondly, a politics of economic ideas surrounds the invention, revision and interpretation of fiscal rules. Thirdly, technocratic economic governance entails a 'politics of method', selecting methodological approaches necessarily built on particular political economic assumptions. Finally, a 'politics of numbers' sees politicians cooking the books to present their economic record favourably against fiscal yardsticks. Successive governments have altered UK fiscal rules, informed by different political economic principles. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) sees itself as a technocratic and apolitical institution, yet its operational work entails contrasting accounts of the economy and policy. The scale of discretion and judgement inherent in operating fiscal rules is under-appreciated. This article finds technocratic economic governance to be a much more social and political process than many advocates of economic rules-based policy acknowledge. It engenders new forms of distinctive fiscal politics within elite statecraft and expert technocracy.
期刊介绍：
British Politics offers the only forum explicitly designed to promote research in British political studies, and seeks to provide a counterweight to the growing fragmentation of this field during recent years. To this end, the journal aims to promote a more holistic understanding of British politics by encouraging a closer integration between theoretical and empirical research, between historical and contemporary analyses, and by fostering a conception of British politics as a broad and multi-disciplinary field of study. This incorporates a range of sub-fields, including psephology, policy analysis, regional studies, comparative politics, institutional analysis, political theory, political economy, historical analysis, cultural studies and social policy.
While recognising the validity and the importance of research into specific aspects of British politics, the journal takes it to be a guiding principle that such research is more useful, and indeed meaningful, if it is related to the field of British politics in a broader and fuller sense.
The scope of the journal will therefore be broad, incorporating a range of research papers and review articles from all theoretical perspectives, and on all aspects of British politics, including policy developments, institutional change and political behaviour. Priority will, however, be given to contributions which link contemporary developments in British politics to theoretical and/or historical analyses. The aim is as much to encourage the development of empirical research that is theoretically rigorous and informed, as it is to encourage the empirical application of theoretical work (or at least to encourage theorists to explicitly signify how their work could be applied in an empirical manner).
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