ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that understanding of the concept of "incrementalism" has become extremely muddied, possibly to the point where the term may have outlived its usefulness; but the problems which motivated the early scholarship remain at the heart of political theory and practice. The concept of intelligent trial-and-error supplements and focuses that of disjointed incrementalism. The chapter summarizes the main criticisms, using them to help reconceptualize the questions most worth asking about political decision making in the light of incrementalist insights. A. Wildavsky and several collaborators mounted significant empirical research projects on budgeting in the US and Britain, showing that both individual political actors and the system as a whole operated pretty much as Charles E. Lindblom described. The story Lindblom told apparently was good enough to appear seamless and complete, not inviting elaboration and testing, yet also difficult to use, or even to fully believe.
