ABSTRACT
Budgets attempt to specify connections between words and numbers on the budget documents and future human behavior. Treatment of budgets as political instruments is justified not only in governmental activities but also in industrial enterprises. Strategies are the links between the goals of the agencies and their perceptions of the kinds of actions which their political environment will make efficacious. The study of budgeting as a political phenomenon in an organizational context may become a major aid in the comparative analysis of governmental policy. A major clue toward understanding budgeting is the extraordinary complexity of the calculations involved. Participants in budgeting deal with their overwhelming burdens by adopting aids to calculation. Budgeting is both incremental and fragmented as the committees deal with adjustments to the historical base of each agency. As in the Soviet Union, American firms often use budgets not to reflect or project reality but to drive managers and workers toward increased production.
