PUB4862 ASSIGNMENT 10 2025
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL GUIDE FROM UNISA. THE REPORT IS
NOT PREPARED NOR APPROVED BY UNISA, RATHER REPRESENTS A
POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE TASK CONSISTENT WITH THEORY OF PUB4862.
THIS REPORT IS INTENDED TO ASSIST STUDENTS IN GETTING STARTED WITH
THEIR ASSIGNMENT, AND IN NO CASE THIS DOCUMENT SHOULD BE USED
FOR CHEATING. WE BELIEVE THIS WILL BE A GOOD STARTING POINT AS IT
WAS PREPARED BY OUR TEAM OF PROFESSIONAL PRIVATE TUTORS WHO
ARE EXPERTS IN THE FIELD, AND IT WAS PREPARED USING VARIOUS
SOURCES. ANY SIMILARITY WITH ANY EXISTING THEORY OR DISCUSSION BY
OTHER AUTHORS IS EXCUSED. THE AUTHORS HOWEVER DO NOT CLAIM
MONOPOLY TO KNOWLEDGE HENCE MODIFICATION OF THE ANSWERS
CONTAINED IN THIS FRAMEWORK MAY NOT BE PROHIBITED AS IT
CONTRIBUTES TO EXPANSION OF KNOWLEDGE. FOR ANY FURTHER
GUIDELINE ABOUT THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HERE AND THE MODULE
IN GENERAL, CONTACT PASSMATE TUTORIALS.
WE ASSIST WITH OTHER MODULES INCLUDING:
ECSs, FACs, MACs, MNGs, INTs, TRLs, HMEMS, PRMs, PROs, MNBs, DSC, QMI,
MNMs, MNO, MNPs, FIN, PUBs, MNMs, RESEARCH among others.
WE OFFER CLASSES, ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES, EXAMINATION
PREPARATION, RESEARCH AND RESEARCH PROPOSALS, DISSERTATION
EDITING etc.
OTHER THAN UNISA, WE ALSO ASSIST STUDENTS AT VARIOUS INSTITUTIONS
INCLUDING MANCOSA, REGENT, REGEYNESES, BOSTON, STADIO, OLG, UJ,
UP etc
For any enquiries the following numbers can be used for calling, sms, whatsapp
and telegram
CONTACT PASSMATE TUTORIALS @061 262 1185/068 053 8213/0717 513 144 or
email
, PUB4862 ASSIGNMENT 10 2025
Introduction
The chronic crisis in South African municipalities, characterized by maladministration,
finance mismanagement, and public finance acts non-compliance, poses a
fundamental challenge to democratic government and service delivery. This failure in
the system raises serious questions about the capacity of these institutions of local
government to perform their constitutional mandate. To assess their capacity for
accountable, rational, ethical, open, and responsible conduct, there is a need for a
theoretical framework. The incremental approach to policy and budget formation,
traditionally outlined by Charles Lindblom as the science of muddling through, is a
robust but paradoxical framework for this analysis. The approach outlines that policy
and budget formation decisions are not created through extensive rational scrutiny but
through incremental, marginal adjustment of the current regime based on restricted
analysis and bargaining among restricted actors. It will argue here that while the
inherent virtues of the incremental approach may, under certain conditions, foster
stability and controllability, in the pathology-ridden context of South African
municipalities, it inadvertently reinforces irresponsibility, irrationality, unethical
conduct, opacity, and unaccountability. The model, by default, moreover, incapacitates
responsiveness to complex, multidimensional policy challenges like corruption,
effectively turning it into an instrument of perpetuating, rather than healing, systemic
malady.
The Incremental Model: A Theoretical Framework for "Muddling Through"
Before applying the model, one should first understand its basic principles. The
incremental model emerged as a critique of the rational-comprehensive model, which
perceives policymaking as a direct line where objectives are clearly defined, all options
exhaustively examined, and the optimal solution selected. Lindblom argued that this
synoptic ideal is unachievable in complex societies due to cognitive limitations, the
enormous cost of analysis, the instability of social values, and time constraints.
Instead, he proposed that policymakers and administrators inevitably engage in
"successive limited comparisons. Decision-making is characterized by: a) confinement
to a limited set of policy alternatives that are marginally different from the status quo;
b) focus on short-run effects and not long-run, fundamental aims; c) partisans' mutual
adaptation process rather than centralized control; and d) dependence on fixed
routines and existing budgetary baselines. Radical incrementalism suggests a
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL GUIDE FROM UNISA. THE REPORT IS
NOT PREPARED NOR APPROVED BY UNISA, RATHER REPRESENTS A
POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE TASK CONSISTENT WITH THEORY OF PUB4862.
THIS REPORT IS INTENDED TO ASSIST STUDENTS IN GETTING STARTED WITH
THEIR ASSIGNMENT, AND IN NO CASE THIS DOCUMENT SHOULD BE USED
FOR CHEATING. WE BELIEVE THIS WILL BE A GOOD STARTING POINT AS IT
WAS PREPARED BY OUR TEAM OF PROFESSIONAL PRIVATE TUTORS WHO
ARE EXPERTS IN THE FIELD, AND IT WAS PREPARED USING VARIOUS
SOURCES. ANY SIMILARITY WITH ANY EXISTING THEORY OR DISCUSSION BY
OTHER AUTHORS IS EXCUSED. THE AUTHORS HOWEVER DO NOT CLAIM
MONOPOLY TO KNOWLEDGE HENCE MODIFICATION OF THE ANSWERS
CONTAINED IN THIS FRAMEWORK MAY NOT BE PROHIBITED AS IT
CONTRIBUTES TO EXPANSION OF KNOWLEDGE. FOR ANY FURTHER
GUIDELINE ABOUT THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HERE AND THE MODULE
IN GENERAL, CONTACT PASSMATE TUTORIALS.
WE ASSIST WITH OTHER MODULES INCLUDING:
ECSs, FACs, MACs, MNGs, INTs, TRLs, HMEMS, PRMs, PROs, MNBs, DSC, QMI,
MNMs, MNO, MNPs, FIN, PUBs, MNMs, RESEARCH among others.
WE OFFER CLASSES, ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES, EXAMINATION
PREPARATION, RESEARCH AND RESEARCH PROPOSALS, DISSERTATION
EDITING etc.
OTHER THAN UNISA, WE ALSO ASSIST STUDENTS AT VARIOUS INSTITUTIONS
INCLUDING MANCOSA, REGENT, REGEYNESES, BOSTON, STADIO, OLG, UJ,
UP etc
For any enquiries the following numbers can be used for calling, sms, whatsapp
and telegram
CONTACT PASSMATE TUTORIALS @061 262 1185/068 053 8213/0717 513 144 or
, PUB4862 ASSIGNMENT 10 2025
Introduction
The chronic crisis in South African municipalities, characterized by maladministration,
finance mismanagement, and public finance acts non-compliance, poses a
fundamental challenge to democratic government and service delivery. This failure in
the system raises serious questions about the capacity of these institutions of local
government to perform their constitutional mandate. To assess their capacity for
accountable, rational, ethical, open, and responsible conduct, there is a need for a
theoretical framework. The incremental approach to policy and budget formation,
traditionally outlined by Charles Lindblom as the science of muddling through, is a
robust but paradoxical framework for this analysis. The approach outlines that policy
and budget formation decisions are not created through extensive rational scrutiny but
through incremental, marginal adjustment of the current regime based on restricted
analysis and bargaining among restricted actors. It will argue here that while the
inherent virtues of the incremental approach may, under certain conditions, foster
stability and controllability, in the pathology-ridden context of South African
municipalities, it inadvertently reinforces irresponsibility, irrationality, unethical
conduct, opacity, and unaccountability. The model, by default, moreover, incapacitates
responsiveness to complex, multidimensional policy challenges like corruption,
effectively turning it into an instrument of perpetuating, rather than healing, systemic
malady.
The Incremental Model: A Theoretical Framework for "Muddling Through"
Before applying the model, one should first understand its basic principles. The
incremental model emerged as a critique of the rational-comprehensive model, which
perceives policymaking as a direct line where objectives are clearly defined, all options
exhaustively examined, and the optimal solution selected. Lindblom argued that this
synoptic ideal is unachievable in complex societies due to cognitive limitations, the
enormous cost of analysis, the instability of social values, and time constraints.
Instead, he proposed that policymakers and administrators inevitably engage in
"successive limited comparisons. Decision-making is characterized by: a) confinement
to a limited set of policy alternatives that are marginally different from the status quo;
b) focus on short-run effects and not long-run, fundamental aims; c) partisans' mutual
adaptation process rather than centralized control; and d) dependence on fixed
routines and existing budgetary baselines. Radical incrementalism suggests a
