Green budgeting in an age of austerity: a transatlantic comparative perspective

Abstract

This paper investigates the integration of environmental concerns into government fiscal cycles, or green budgeting. Despite being an increasingly popular means of pursuing environmental policy, the global spread of green budgeting governance norms has been manifestly uneven. However, recent stimulus packages employed by many advanced economies to promote economic growth have had a strong green element. This raises questions over how the current desire for fiscal austerity interacts with existing factors that constrain or facilitate environmental policy via budgeting. By drawing on theoretical arguments that argue macro ‘politics matters’ in budget composition, we develop an analytical framework for explaining budgeting practices. This political preference framework (PPF) is then employed to examine green budgeting in two leading but otherwise contrasting industrialised economies, namely the USA and the UK. From this analysis, it is argued that key veto players have often set the green budgeting agenda in the current age of austerity. The scope for further theoretical, empirical and normative research is consequently discussed.