How Much of a Sea-Change? Land Policies after the Reforms of Federalism

Abstract

The reforms of German federalism in 2006 and 2009 that widened the scope of Länder powers and rearranged Germany's fiscal structures were met with great expectations as well as outright hostility. This article analyses how the resulting patterns of Länder policies and their determinants differ from the period between re-unification and the 2006 reforms. It focuses on higher education and environmental law, the two areas over which initial reform attempts in 2004 had failed and where changes were especially far-reaching and debates especially emotional. If indeed a new type of federalism, and of Land-level politics in particular, has emerged, it would be most likely to manifest itself regarding these policies. Our theoretical approach contrasts expectations of intensified policy competition between the Länder with institutional, partisan and political-cultural factors working towards continued co-ordinated, incremental muddling-through. So far, our empirical analysis shows, the latter seem to dominate.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Achim Hildebrandt is Senior Researcher at the University of Stuttgart. His research focuses on comparative public policy and federalism.

Frieder Wolf is Privatdozent in Heidelberg. He has published widely on Länder politics and education policy.

Notes

1. Wolfgang Lieb, Föderalismusreform: Vom kooperativen Föderalismus zum Wettbewerbsföderalismus – künftig herrscht zwischen den Ländern das Recht des Stärkeren, available from http://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=267 (accessed 20 Dec. 2005).

2. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, ‘Föderalismusreform: “Großer Wurf” oder “Stümperwerk”?’, 10 March 2006.

3. Wolfgang Renzsch, ‘Die zweite Stufe der Bundesstaatsreform’, in Christoph Egle and Reimut Zohlnhöfer (eds), Die zweite große Koalition. Eine Bilanz der Regierung Merkel 2005–2009 (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2010), pp.457–60.

4. E.g. Ed Turner and Carolyn Rowe, ‘Party Servants, Ideologues, or Regional Representatives? The German Länder and the Reform of Federalism’, West European Politics 36/2 (2013), pp.382–404.

5. See issue 50/2006 of Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte with contributions by Fritz Scharpf, Werner Reutter and Hans-Peter Schneider, among others.

6. See Caroline Schulze Harling, Das materielle Abweichungsrecht der Länder. Art.72 Abs.3 GG (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2011), pp.225–9 with numerous references.

7. See the recent special issue of German Politics 24/1 (2015); Frank Decker and Julia von Blumenthal, ‘Die bundespolitische Durchdringung der Landtagswahlen. Eine empirische Analyse von 1970 bis 2001′, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 33/1 (2002); Charlie Jeffery and Dan Hough, ‘Regional Elections in Multi-Level Systems’, European Urban and Regional Studies 10/3 (2003); and Thomas Braeuninger and Marc Debus, Parteienwettbewerb in den deutschen BundesLändern (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2012), pp.22–3 and p.203. Frieder Wolf and Andreas Krämer have analysed this proposition regarding subacademic education in ‘On the Electoral Relevance of Education in the German Länder’, German Politics 21/4 (2012) – with rather cautioning results.

8. This is a reproach often directed from North Rhine-Westphalia to Bavaria. See Landtag Nordrhein Westfalen, Plenarprotokoll 16/22 (27 Feb. 2013), p.52.

9. We are aware that the following implies a rather wide interpretation of the advocacy-coalition framework. For a discussion of its conceptual underpinnings and its applicability to parliamentary systems see Nils Bandelow, ‘Advocacy Coalition Framework: Grundlagen, Kernaussagen und Anwendungsmöglichkeiten’, in Georg Wenzelburger and Reimut Zohlnhöfer (eds), Handbuch Policy-Forschung (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2014), pp.305–24. Also see Paul A. Sabatier, ‘Advocacy-Koalitionen, Policy-Wandel und Policy-Lernen: Eine Alternative zur Phasenheuristik’, in Adrienne Héritier (ed.) Policy Analyse. Kritik und Neuorientierung Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Sonderheft 24 (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1993) pp.116–48.

10. Frieder Wolf and Achim Hildebrandt, ‘Sechzehn Länder, sechzehn Felder: Erträge des Vergleichs’, in Achim Hildebrandt and Frieder Wolf (eds), Politik der BundesLänder. Staatstätigkeit im Vergleich (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2008), pp.363–70.

11. Fritz W. Scharpf, Föderalismusreform. Kein Ausweg aus der Politikverflechtungsfalle? (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2009), p.101.

12. Stephan A. Jansen and Tim Göbel, ‘Die deutsche Hochschulfinanzierung im internationalen Vergleich – Explorationen und Provokationen’, in Christof Prechtl and Daniel Dettling (eds), Für eine neue Bildungsfinanzierung. Perspektiven für Vorschule, Schule und Hochschule (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2005), p.107.

13. For an over-exaggerated reading of this, see Jan Erk, ‘Federal Germany and Its Non-Federal Society: Emergence of an All-German Educational Policy in a System of Exclusive Provincial Jurisdiction’, Canadian Journal of Political Science 36/2 (2003).

14. See the table showing how the Länder exercise their right to deviate from federal legislation in Hans-Peter Schneider, Der neue deutsche Bundesstaat. Bericht über die Umsetzung der Föderalismusreform I (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2013), p.599.

15. See Hans-Joachim Koch and Susan Krohn, ‘Umwelt in schlechter Verfassung? Der Umweltschutz nach der Föderalismusreform’, Natur und Recht 28/11 (2006).

16. Axel Volkery, Föderalismus und Naturschutz. Anatomie eines Spannungsfeldes (Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag), p.263.

17. Michael Böcher, ‘Zwischen Konflikt und Kooperation – Aktuelle Herausforderungen für die Naturschutzpolitik aus politikwissenschaftlicher Sicht’, in Karl-Heinz Erdmann and Christiane Schell (eds), Zukunftsfaktor Natur – Blickpunkt Mensch (Münster: BfN-Schriftenvertrieb im Landwirtschaftsverlag, 2003), p.290.

18. http://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/schleswig-holstein/Kein-A-20-Weiterbau-Wirtschaft-schockiert,autobahn861.html (accessed 22 Aug. 2014).

19. Konstantin Schwarz, ‘Aufschub für den Juchtenkäfer’, Stuttgarter Nachrichten, 27 Feb. 2013, available from http://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.stuttgart-21-aufschub-fuer-die-juchtenkaefer.ddbd974b-8841-4bc7-a4e5-5a609be49143.html (accessed 22 Aug. 2014).

20. For an overview, see Michael Böcher and Annette Elisabeth Töller, Umweltpolitik in Deutschland. Eine politikfeldanalytische Einführung (Wiesbaden: Springer VS), pp.117–20.

21. Felix Frhr. von Stackelberg, Die Abweichungsgesetzgebung der Länder im Naturschutzrecht (Berlin: Springer, 2012), p.13.

22. In certain matters of concurrent legislation the federal government's legislative competence is subject to the enabling clause, which provides that the federal government has the right to legislate on these matters only if and to the extent that the establishment of equal living conditions throughout the federal territory renders federal regulation necessary (Art.72(2) GG). This does not include nature conservation; that is, federal competence is not restricted.

23. Scharpf, Föderalismusreform, p.101.

24. Hans-Joachim Koch and Susan Krohn, ‘Umwelt in schlechter Verfassung? Der Umweltschutz nach der Föderalismusreform’, Natur und Recht 28/11 (2006), p.679 and BUND press release dated 5 March 2009, available from http://www.bund.net/nc/presse/pressemitteilungen/browse/67/ (accessed 30 May 2014).

25. For the SPD, economic growth is of primary importance as well. In Germany it tends to promote it by supporting large projects that tend to harm the environment. As Claus Schmiedel, a longstanding leader of the SPD group in the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg, puts it: ‘[w]here there are excavators, we’re doing well’. Roman Deininger, ‘Es fehlt an Sympathie’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 27 March 2013, available from http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/zwei-jahre-gruen-rot-in-baden-wuerttemberg-zuendeln-in-der-konfliktkoalition-1.1634279-2 (accessed 5 June 2014).

26. Schulze Harling, Das materielle Abweichungsrecht der Länder. Art.72 Abs.3 GG, p.228.

27. Austria is a federal republic with 8.5 million inhabitants living in nine states; the Swiss Confederation has 8 million people living in 26 cantons.

28. Ronald L. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems (Montreal: Queen's University Press, 1999), pp.63–8.

29. Stackelberg, Die Abweichungsgesetzgebung der Länder, pp.19–20.

30. Ibid., p.23. How the Länder used the discretion provided by the Öffnungsklauseln and Unberührtheitsklauseln cannot be discussed here due to space restrictions. This article focuses exclusively on how the Länder exercised their rights to deviate from federal conservation legislation.

31. In the other four states, the old state nature conservation laws remain in effect in the areas not governed by federal legislation.

32. http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bnatschg_2009/ (accessed 29 May 2014).

33. For these two Länder only those deviations could be determined that are clearly marked as such. For the question of documenting the deviations see Stackelberg, Die Abweichungsgesetzgebung der Länder, pp.168–75.

34. The statistical analysis confirms this impression. The correlation coefficient for the number of deviations and debt per capita in 2012 is r = –.20 and for the number of deviations and the size of the population in 2012 r = –.06.

35. Schleswig-Holsteinischer Landtag Drucksache 17/108, p.81.

36. Schneider, Der neue deutsche Bundesstaat, p.627.

37. Stackelberg, Die Abweichungsgesetzgebung der Länder, p.129.

38. Ibid., pp.175–250. The analysis includes only deviations that can be clearly interpreted as a lowering of standards.

39. The EU's agri-environmental schemes played an important role here. Meinhard Forkert, ‘Vertragsnaturschutz’, in Jochen Kerkmann (ed.), Naturschutzrecht in der Praxis (Berlin: Lexxion, 2007), pp.528–9.

40. Michael Klöpfer, Umweltrecht (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2004), p.857.

41. The following analysis does not include a deviating regulation in Schleswig-Holstein, which uses the stricter formulation ‘nature conservation agencies have to confirm’ instead of ‘confirmation is required’ (§2(6) LNatSchG). This difference does not have any practical relevance as the nature conservation agencies are bound by the directory provision in the federal law (Stackelberg, Die Abweichungsgesetzgebung der Länder, p.182). The deviation was therefore not included in this article, which focuses exclusively on deviations that clearly lower the standards.

42. Some states formulate negative lists as rebuttable presumptions; Saxony-Anhalt, for example, stipulates in §6 NatSchG LSA that certain activities are usually not to be regarded as interferences. Thus exemptions are possible if an activity would cause undue environmental damage. For this reason, these negative lists will not be considered here.

43. Bürgerschaft der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg Drucksache 19/5988, p.2.

44. Schneider, Der neue deutsche Bundesstaat, p.619 and p.609.

45. Hamburg's legislation provides for a greater share of connected areas to be designated as conservation habitats and a higher protection status of permanent grassland as well as lakes and rivers and shore areas outside the port. Schneider, Der neue deutsche Bundesstaat, p.612f.

46. Frieder Wolf, Die Bildungsausgaben der BundesLänder im Vergleich (Münster: LIT), pp.83–4.

47. Hochschulräte as such had already been made possible by a reform of the federal Hochschulrahmengesetz in 1998 which occurred at the height of enthusiasm for New Public Management. When the Hochschulrahmengesetz was abolished in the reform of federalism, some Länder chose to empower them much further as vehicles for entrepreneurial strategies within a much more competitive relationship between Länder higher education policies. (Föderalismusreform I was agreed upon in March 2006; North Rhine-Westphalia's Hochschulfreiheitsgesetz, for example, dates from June 2006.)

48. ‘Man tut so, als hätten die Hochschulen bisher unter der Knute der Düsseldorfer Ministerialbürokratie gestanden und als würden sie nunmehr in das Reich der Freiheit entlassen. [ … ] Da avanciert die Uni zur GmbH und das Seminar oder Institut zum Profitcenter. Hochschulen [ … ] werden zu reinen Wirtschaftsunternehmen bzw. akademischen Berufsschulen, was für Wissenschaft und Forschung verheerende Konsequenzen hat. Denn im Bildungsbereich bestimmt künftig, wer Geld hat und bezahlt.’ Christoph Butterwegge, ‘Marktabhängigkeit ist keine Freiheit!’, available from http://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=237 (accessed 2 Feb. 2006).

49. It must be admitted, though, that Dr Peter Bettermann, CEO of an industrial conglomerate and at the time head of Heidelberg university's Hochschulrat, gave the most academically high-minded speech by far when Heidelberg university hosted the selection committee for the first initiative for excellency (participatory observation by one of your authors).

50. See the roman a clef Roman Lucios Groh, Wir sind Uni: Eine bildungspolitische Provinzposse (Berlin: Tredition, 2013).

51. Frank Nullmeier, ‘“Mehr Wettbewerb!”: Zur Marktkonstitution in der Hochschulpolitik’, in Roland Czada and Susanne Lütz (eds), Die politische Konstitution von Märkten (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2000), p.210.

52. Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Lage der Studierenden in Deutschland 2012. 20. Sozialergebung des Deutschen Studentenwerks durchgeführt vom HIS-Institut für Hochschulforschung (Berlin: BMBF, 2013). For very instructive additional analyses (by land and east–west, for example), see http://www.sozialerhebung.de/erhebung_20/soz_20_auszaehlung (accessed 2 July 2014).

53. An especially instructive case is Bavaria. See http://volksbegehren-studiengebuehren.de/das-bundnis/das-bundnis-bundnispartner/ (accessed 3 July 2014).

54. See Frieder Wolf and Sebastian Mahner, ‘Tropfen auf den heißen Stein oder folgenschwerer Paradigmenwechsel? Studiengebühren und private Hochschulausgaben in Deutschland’, Die Hochschule 7/1 (2008) and Frieder Wolf, ‘Bildungs-Ostalgie vs. OECDisierung’, in Manuela Glaab, Werner Weidenfeld and Michael Weigl (eds), Deutsche Kontraste 1990–2010. Politik – Wirtschaft – Gesellschaft – Kultur (Frankfurt: Campus, 2010), pp.533–5.

55. A more emotional debate ensued regarding the question whether advanced technical colleges (Fachhochschulen) would have to add the suffix (FH) to their degrees that they felt to be discriminatory. Under the Bologna system, they quite successfully stylise themselves as ‘universities of applied sciences’, and their bachelor and master degrees carry no such stigma.

56. Sebastian Mahner Bologna als Ländersache. 16 Länder, eine Reform: Die verschlungenen Wege zu Bachelor und Master in Deutschland (Münster: LIT, 2012), pp.124–6.

57. However where there is a will, there is often a way: when the federal grand coalition offered 2.15 billion euros to the Länder in 2007 in order to boost all-day childcare (another move not in line with traditional CDU programmes), there was clearly no federal educational power to base this on. So it was agreed between Bund and Länder to declare the funds to be ‘necessary to aid economic growth’ which made them legal under Art.74(1) no.7 GG. See Reimut Zohlnhöfer, ‘Der Politikverflechtungsfalle entwischt? Die Effekte der Föderalismusreform I auf die Gesetzgebung’, Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 19/1 (2009), p.44.

58. Scharpf, Föderalismusreform, pp.110–16.

59. In the same package, the Büchergeld (book money) that had been part of the much scarcer performance-based federal scholarships was replaced by a general cost-allowance. Thus the Bund implicitly admitted that even the best students do not read any more these days.

60. The Länder that spent the money on schools felt treated unfairly by the minister, since – maybe tellingly for communication in the grand coalition state – there is a competing documentation of the initial political compromise that lists schools as a second legitimate recipient besides higher education institutions.

61. The ratio of google hits for Bundesforschungsministerin Schavan to Bundesbildungsministerin Schavan is 0.45, while the same ratio for Wanka is 0.35. Given the high numbers involved (five to six figures), this is strongly significant.

62. Arthur Benz, Föderalismus als dynamisches System: Zentralisierung und Dezentralisierung im föderativen Staat (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1985).