Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Notes on contributors
- one Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline
- two Historical forerunners of policy analysis in Germany
- three The development of policy analysis in Germany: practical problems and theoretical concepts
- four Professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany: on the way or faraway?
- five Methods and study types in German policy analysis
- six Policy analysis in the German-speaking countries: common traditions, different cultures, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland
- seven Federal government: permanent in-house capacities – life within the ‘apparatus’
- eight Statist policy advice: policy analysis in the German Länder
- nine Local policy processes: economisation, professionalisation, democratisation
- ten Federal government in Germany: temporary, issue-related policy advice
- eleven Parliamentary in-house research services and policy-making in Germany: Sancho Panza or David's sling?
- twelve The German Bundestag and external expertise: policy orientation as counterweight to deparliamentarisation?
- thirteen From hand to mouth: parties and policy-making in Germany
- fourteen Policy analysis by trade unions and business associations in Germany
- fifteen Public interest groups and policy analysis: a push for evidence-based policy-making?
- sixteen Think tanks: bridging beltway and ivory tower?
- seventeen Non-university research institutes: between basic research, knowledge transfer to the public and policy analysis
- eighteen The role of policy analysis in teaching political science at German universities
- nineteen Academics and policy analysis: the tension between epistemic and practical concerns
- Index
nine - Local policy processes: economisation, professionalisation, democratisation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Notes on contributors
- one Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline
- two Historical forerunners of policy analysis in Germany
- three The development of policy analysis in Germany: practical problems and theoretical concepts
- four Professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany: on the way or faraway?
- five Methods and study types in German policy analysis
- six Policy analysis in the German-speaking countries: common traditions, different cultures, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland
- seven Federal government: permanent in-house capacities – life within the ‘apparatus’
- eight Statist policy advice: policy analysis in the German Länder
- nine Local policy processes: economisation, professionalisation, democratisation
- ten Federal government in Germany: temporary, issue-related policy advice
- eleven Parliamentary in-house research services and policy-making in Germany: Sancho Panza or David's sling?
- twelve The German Bundestag and external expertise: policy orientation as counterweight to deparliamentarisation?
- thirteen From hand to mouth: parties and policy-making in Germany
- fourteen Policy analysis by trade unions and business associations in Germany
- fifteen Public interest groups and policy analysis: a push for evidence-based policy-making?
- sixteen Think tanks: bridging beltway and ivory tower?
- seventeen Non-university research institutes: between basic research, knowledge transfer to the public and policy analysis
- eighteen The role of policy analysis in teaching political science at German universities
- nineteen Academics and policy analysis: the tension between epistemic and practical concerns
- Index
Summary
This chapter examines how public policies are designed and implemented at the municipal level. The characteristics of municipal decision-making processes are analysed on the basis of the general institutional setting. The concepts of consociational and competitive democracy are essential to understand variance at the municipal level and to allow a structured comparison of local decision-making processes in the different German Länder. In the following, we concentrate on the central modernisation impulses since the 1990s, which can be attributed to two somewhat contradictory trends: economisation and participation. Regarding economisation, we distinguish:
• administrative modernisation through elements of new public management (NPM), in particular the German ‘new steering model’ and ‘new financial management’;
• cost-saving programmes in the context of the current municipal budgetary crisis.
Regarding participation, we focus on:
• amendments of the respective municipal constitutions, in particular, strengthening the role of the mayor and integrating more elements of direct democracy;
• the renaissance of civic participation and the ‘discovery’ of active citizenship, that means the concept of a ‘citizens’ community’.
The guiding question for our analysis concerns the way in which municipal politics takes up these measures, and whether changes in municipal decision-making processes have been brought about. Against the backdrop of these considerations, the last part of this chapter focuses on the further advancement of municipal democratisation.
Local policy processes: a complex institutional framework
The approximately 11,300 German municipalities vary enormously in size. While reforms of the municipal territories have reduced the number of municipalities and augmented their size in order to achieve more efficient administration units, these reforms have been carried out quite differently in the German Länder . In North Rhine-Westphalia (396 municipalities) and the new Länder of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) (220-907 municipalities) in particular the number of municipalities was reduced. Rhineland-Palatinate (2,306 municipalities), Bavaria (2,056 municipalities), Schleswig-Holstein (1,116 municipalities) and Baden-Württemberg (1,101 municipalities), however, still have a high number of small and very small municipalities.
Municipalities in the legal state structure
As well as the federal state and the German Länder, the German municipalities are constitutionally guaranteed (Article 28 II of the Gundgesetz [GG], or Constitution) self-governing bodies. As such, they are a separate level in the administrative architecture of the federal state organisation. Judicially, however, they are part of the Länder and therefore subject to their regulatory law and decisional authority.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Policy Analysis in Germany , pp. 119 - 134Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2013