Incrementalism is the dominant theory for explaining government decisions about policy and budgets, but it is of little use in explaining the large-scale budget changes and policy redirections that are actually observed. This article reviews recent efforts to explain both large and small changes in government decision making, and argues that punctuated equilibrium theory offers a better way of relating politics, government institutions, and policies. This new theory incorporates both incrementalism and large-scale changes into its view of government as a complex, interactive system. Extending the new theory specifically to budgeting produces the avalanche budget model, which traces how a government of different levels and processes generates both the stability and upsets found today in policies and budgets. Major changes are now and have been much more common in government policies and budgets than previously imagined, and this article examines some of the implications of that finding.
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