Territorial Local Level Reforms in the East German Regional States (Länder): Phases, Patterns, and Dynamics

Abstract

The article deals with the territorial reforms at municipal and county government levels which, following German unification in 1990, were carried out in the re-established (five) regional States (Länder) each of which, according to the German tradition and federal system, has the power to pass legislation on local government institutions as well as territorial structure. Conceptually influenced (‘institution transfer’, ‘institutional isomorphism’) by the territorial reform policies that were carried out in the West German Länder during the 1960s and 1970s, the East German Länder, after 1990, embarked on a ‘carrot and stick’ strategy. In a first (‘participatory’) phase, reform commissions were set up and public hearings held, followed by a (‘voluntary’) phase during which local governments were given the opportunity to ‘voluntarily’ agree to the territorial scheme proposed by the Land government. Finally, however, again in line with previous practice in West German Länder, if such local consent was not achieved, the Länder decided by binding (‘coercive’) legislation. In the period immediately after 1990, most East German Länder refrained from redrawing the boundaries of the multitude of small municipalities. Instead their strategy was largely to retain the latter while, again in a ‘carrot and stick’ approach, promoting the creation of a layer of intermunicipal bodies meant to operationally support the (administratively inept) small municipalities. Recently, a new round of territorial reforms has opened in most East German Länder, aimed at establishing territorially enlarged municipalities through mergers and, at the same time, reducing the number of intermunicipal bodies. A main reason for this ‘reform of the reform’ has been that the very small municipalities have proved politically and economically ever less viable, and that the intermunicipal bodies lack direct democratic legitimacy and have exhibited serious coordination problems and ‘transaction’ costs.

Key Words:

• East German Länder
• institutional transfer
• institutional isomorphism
• participatory and voluntary phase
• ‘coercive’ reform legislation
• intermunicipal bodies
• ‘transaction costs’

Notes

1 In Article 28 of the Federal Constitution, local self-government is described as the ‘right of the municipalities to settle (regeln) all matters of the local community (örtliche Gemeinschaft), within the frame of the law, in their own responsibility’.

2 About 33 per cent the total number of local government personnel are employed by kreisfreie Städte as compared to 37 per cent by ‘normal’ (‘two-tier’) municipalities and 26 per cent by counties, figures for 1994 (Wollmann, 2008a: 59).

3 As an exception in the Land of Rheinland-Pfalz, the so-called ‘community unions’ (Verbandsgemeinden) have been ‘invented’ as an (innovative) type of intercommunal body that is a kind of ‘double-decker’ municipality with an elected council and an elected mayor on both ‘decks’.

4 For instance in the local elections held in Land of Brandenburg in 1998 in one-third of the municipalities there were just as many councillor candidates as there were seats. In 11 (small) municipalities out of 1,474, no council could be elected. In a similar vein in 152 (small) municipalities, no mayor could be elected for lack of candidates.

5 See above note.

6 In the wording of the Constitutional Court ruling at hand: ‘rational task fulfilment’, rationale Aufgabenerfüllung.

7 In the formulation of the Constitutional Court ruling: ‘civic democratic decision-making’, bürgerschaftlich-demokratische Entscheidungsfindung.

8 See Thiede (2007).