Means, Motives, and Opportunities

Means, Motives, and Opportunities illuminates how states spend public money through the lens of governmental structure, executive power, and interest group competition. Christian Breunig and Chris Koski argue that policymaking is a function of not only policymakers’ means (powers), but of their motives (issues) and opportunities (interest group competition) for change. Using over twenty-five years of data across all fifty US states, four in-depth case studies, and multiple examples of budget battles, the book describes a budget-making environment in which governors must balance the preferences of interest groups with their own, all while attempting to build a budget that roughly balances. While governors are uniquely powerful, the range of changes they can make is largely impacted by interest group competition. By showing how means, motives, and opportunities matter, the book shows how spending decisions at the state level influence nearly every aspect of American life.

Author Biography

Christian Breunig is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Konstanz and Director of the German Policy Agendas project. He has received three awards from the American Political Science Association and was a policy fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in 2022–23. Chris Koski is Professor of Political Science and Daniel B. Greenberg Chair of Environmental Studies at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He chaired the Public Policy (2022–23) and Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (2020–23) sections of the American Political Science Association and is the co-author of The Real World of American Politics: A Documentary Introduction (2022).