Clift Ben
Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.
Br Politics. 2023;18(2):254-278. doi: 10.1057/s41293-022-00204-z. Epub 2022 Mar 9.
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.
对英国财政规则的探索以及英国独立财政监督机构的设立，聚焦于基于规则的财政政策的实际制定，以分析技术官僚式经济治理的政治情况。剖析英国宏观经济政策规则及其运作，揭示了技术官僚式财政政策制定政治的诸多层面。首先，政策规则被用于党派目的。其次，围绕财政规则的发明、修订和解释存在着经济理念的政治。第三，技术官僚式经济治理需要一种“方法的政治”，选择必然基于特定政治经济假设的方法路径。最后，“数字的政治”表现为政治家篡改账目，以对照财政标准美化其经济记录。历届政府依据不同的政治经济原则改变了英国的财政规则。预算责任办公室（OBR）将自身视为一个技术官僚且无政治倾向的机构，但其实际工作涉及对经济和政策的不同描述。在实施财政规则过程中，内在的自由裁量权和判断力的程度未得到充分认识。本文发现，技术官僚式经济治理是一个比许多基于经济规则的政策倡导者所承认的更为社会化和政治化的过程。它在精英治国术和专家技术官僚体制中催生了独特的新型财政政治形式。
