The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (128 page)

Proof that something cannot be done or cannot be had. The most famous such result in politics, due to K. J. Arrow , proves that if a choice or ordering system (such as an electoral procedure) produces results that are transitive and consistent ( see
economic man
), satisfies ‘universal domain’ (that is, works for all possible combinations of individual preference), satisfies the weak Pareto condition, and is independent of irrelevant alternatives, then it is dictatorial. ‘Dictatorial’ here has a technical meaning, namely, that the preferences of one individual may determine the social choice, irrespective of the preferences of any other individuals in the society. A non-technical interpretation of Arrow's theorem is as follows. In a society, group choices, or group rankings, often have to be made between courses of action or candidates for a post. We would like a good procedure to satisfy some criteria of fairness as well as of logicality. Arrow's startling proof shows that a set of extremely weak such criteria is inconsistent. We would like a good procedure to satisfy not only these but much more besides. But that is logically impossible.
Impossibility theorems save a great deal of time. For instance, much work by electoral reformers amounts to trying to evade Arrow's theorem. As we know it cannot be done, this removes the need to scrutinize many such schemes in detail. This is not to say that all electoral systems are equally bad, however; there remains an important job for electoral reformers within the limit set by Arrow's and other impossibility theorems.

 
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The refusal of the executive to spend funds which have been appropriated by the legislature. In the United States legislative control over the appropriations process allows members of Congress to play a substantial role in the shaping of public policy. Some occasional use of impoundment by the executive has traditionally been accepted as legitimate. Thus the Director of the Office of Management and Budget is authorized by law to make savings where changes in requirements allow. In addition, impoundments have on occasion been justified by reference to the chief executive's constitutional position as commander-in-chief. President Nixon , however, made much greater use of impoundment than before, appearing to use the device as a means of overturning policies that he found unacceptable. Members of Congress saw this as a serious assault on their constitutional prerogatives and responded by passing the 1974 Congressional Budget Reform and Impoundment Control Act. Under this legislation Presidents seeking to postpone or cancel the expenditure of appropriated funds must follow certain procedures. Postponement requires the chief executive to lay a specific deferral proposal before Congress which may be rejected by a resolution of either the House or the Senate. Cancellation of appropriations, on the other hand, requires the President to submit a ‘rescission’ proposal which is subject to approval by both houses. If Congress chooses not to act on such a proposal within forty-five days the executive is obliged to release the funds.
DM 

 
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A government policy which seeks to regulate the rate of growth of wages and earnings through the use of such devices as norms, upper limits to the rate of increase expressed in cash or percentage terms, and review boards. Incomes policies became increasingly popular in advanced industrial countries as wage push inflation—that is, inflation (believed to be) caused by pressure from wage bargainers—under conditions of full employment became a central economic policy issue in the 1960s. The inflationary consequences of the first oil shock in 1973 further increased reliance on incomes policies as a means of attempting to reduce inflation. Incomes policies were often linked with attempts at price restraint policies, and relied on either voluntary co-operation or statutory measures or some combination of both. They were often implemented more rigorously in the public sector. They were associated with the development of a corporatist pattern of politics. They fell out of favour with Western governments in the 1980s for a variety of reasons: reduced inflationary pressures in conditions of higher unemployment; the poor record of many of the policies implemented over the preceding twenty years; and the return of neoliberal governments in the United States and Britain who believed that the task of governments was to exert monetary discipline so that workers would be dissuaded from seeking high pay rises, and employers would be better placed to resist them.
WG 

 
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A model of the decision-making process in government which maintains that decisions are usually made on the basis of relatively small adjustments to the existing situation. As developed by Charles Lindblom , in an article on ‘
The Science of Muddling Through
’ published in 1959 and in subsequent books, the incrementalist model stated that policymakers started the decision-making process not with some ideal goal in mind but with the policies currently in place. Only a limited number of policy options is reviewed, with changes being made at the margin. Yehezkel Dror criticized incrementalism on the grounds that it would apply only when: existing policy was broadly satisfactory; the nature of the problem did not change; and there was continuity of resources—conditions that would be met only under conditions of unusual social stability. Lindblom nevertheless maintained that in most stable political settings, the conditions for incrementalism were usually met. Incrementalism does seem to describe most budgetary decision-making in Western democracies. It is a less useful model when there is some considerable shock to the decision-making process such as that provided by a war or a grave economic crisis.
WG 

 
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The property that a group's choice between any
a
and
b
should be a function only of the choices of the individuals in the group between
a
and
b
. In particular, it should not change if some individuals in the group change their minds about the merits of
c
and/or
d
. To most, but not all, analysts of electoral systems, independence seems a highly desirable property, and the inconsistency of independence with other desirable properties which is proved by Arrow's
impossibility theorem
therefore seems disturbing. Others, who disagree with the claim that independence is desirable, are less worried by Arrow's theorem and happier with voting systems, such as the Borda count, which violate the independence of irrelevant alternatives.
To understand what is at stake, consider four skaters
A, B, C
, and
D
, and three judges
X, Y
, and
Z
. All four skaters are candidates for the open competition, and
A, B
, and
D
are also candidates for the under-25 competition. Both competitions are judged at the same time. The judges rank the candidates on their performance. Their rankings, in descending order, are:

 Judge
X
:
ABCD
 Judge
Y
:
BCDA
 Judge
Z
:
CDAB

By the Borda rule,
C
wins the open competition, and
B
wins the under-25 competition. Then an argument breaks out about the real quality of
C
's performance. The judges look again at the video replay, and change their minds in various ways, now reporting the following rankings:

 Judge
X
:
ACBD
 Judge
Y
:
BDAC
 Judge
Z
:
DACB

No judge has changed her mind about the relative performance of the three under-25 contenders—their ranking remains unchanged. But the winner of the under-25 competition is now
A
, and
B
comes in only at third place. Thus the Borda rule violates the independence of irrelevant alternatives. See also
path dependence
.