Community, Diversity and Autonomy: The Challenges of Reforming German Federalism

Abstract

In federal states with territorially based ethnic, linguistic or religious cleavages, the allocation of competences among the levels of government may be determined by highly salient normative convictions and conflicts. In their absence, the economic theory of federalism and the subsidiarity principle might offer some highly abstract guidelines. Of greater practical significance are country-specific points of departure, path-dependent institutional developments and concrete challenges that might provoke a change of direction.

Germany, for instance, is a polity with a unitary political culture but also with institutionally entrenched sub-national governments. Thus the post-war decades saw a continuous expansion of federal legislative competences combined with a continuous increase of practices of ‘cooperative federalism’ and ‘joint decision-making’. As a result of high consensus requirements, both the federation and the Länder lost the capacity for autonomous political action. When, under the pressures of German unification, Europeanisation and economic globalisation, the demands for decisive policy changes were often frustrated, the blame was directed at federal institutions. Hence the reform of German federalism, the ‘first phase’ of which began in 2003 and was completed in 2006, sought to increase the capacity for autonomous political action by replacing joint decision-making with the allocation of exclusive competence to both the federation and the Länder. It can be seen already, however, that the reforms that were in fact adopted fall far short of the original goals. I will discuss the reasons for this relative failure and will outline a more promising approach to the management of concurrent competences that might also be useful elsewhere.

Notes

The text is the slightly edited version of a presentation at the International Conference on the Future of Federalism, hosted by the Law Council of Australia and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, 10–12 July 2008

See, e.g., Wallace E. Oates, ‘An Essay on Fiscal Federalism’, Journal of Economic Literature 37/3 (1999), pp.1120–49; Gareth Davies, ‘Subsidiarity: The Wrong Idea, in the Wrong Place, at the Wrong Time’, Common Market Law Review 43 (2006), pp.63–84.

For an elaboration of this approach, see Fritz W. Scharpf, Games Real Actors Play. Actor-Centered Institutionalism in Policy Research (Boulder: Westview, 1977).

In East Germany, cultural differences and continuing economic disadvantages have given rise to demands for more effective equalisation efforts, rather than for greater political autonomy.

This has been confirmed though careful statistical analyses by Simone Burkhart, ‘Divided Government in Deutschland. Eine empirische Analyse 1976–2005’, PhD Dissertation, University of Cologne, 2007. See also Oscar W. Gabriel and Everhard Holtmann, ‘Ober sticht Unter? Zum Einfluss der Bundespolitik auf die Landtagswahlen: Kontext, theoretischer Rahmen und Analysemodell’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 38/3 (2007), pp.445–62.

See, e.g., Konrad Morath (Herausgeber), Reform des Föderalismus. Beiträge zu einer gemeinsamen Tagung von Frankfurter Institut und Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft, Köln (Bad-Homburg: Frakfurter Institut, 1999).

See R. Zohlnhöfer's, ‘An End to the Reform Logjam? The Reform of German Federalism and Economic Policy-Making’, German Politics 17/4 (2008), pp. 457–69.

See, e.g., Wolf Linder, ‘Die deutsche Föderalismusreform – von aussen betrachtet. Ein Vergleich von Systemproblemen des deutschen und des schweizerischen Föderalismus', Politische Vierteljahresschrift 48/1 (2007), pp.3–16.

In addition to the materials in this special issue of German Politics, the mandate, membership, deliberations and materials of the Commission are fully documented in Deutscher Bundestag, Bundesrat (eds.), Dokumentation der Kommission von Bundestag und Bundesrat zur Modernisierung der bundesstaatlichen Ordnung (Berlin: Zur Sache, 1/2005). Authors with a political role in the reform process have commented on the issues involved in Rainer Holtschneider and Walter Schön (eds.), Die Reform des Bundesstaates: Beiträge zur Arbeit der Kommission zur Modernisierung der bundesstaatlichen Ordnung 2003/2004 und bis zum Abschluss des Gesetzgebungsverfahrens 2006 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007). A full analysis of the legal aspects and implications of the reform has been provided by one of constitutional law experts participating in the Commission in Hans Meyer, Die Föderalismusreform 2006. Konzeption, Kommentar, Kritik (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2008). My own book-length analysis will be provided in Fritz W. Scharpf, Kein Ausweg aus der Politikverflechtungsfalle? (Frankfurt/M.: Campus, 2009 – forthcoming).

The tight deadline was determined by the anticipation of two critical Land elections in 2005 that would interfere with the search for bi-partisan consensus. Subsequently, the red–green coalition parties lost both of these elections, and Schröder then opted for the dissolution of the Bundestag and national elections – which he lost narrowly in September of 2005. The reforms were then adopted by the new grand coalition.

Additional evidence about public preferences for relatively homogenous cross-Land provisions are contained in T. Peterson, H. Scheller and O. Wintermann, ‘Public Attitudes towards German Federalism: A Point of Departure between Public Opinion and the Political Debate’, German Politics 17/4 (2008), pp.559–86.

See Gerhard Lehmbruch, Parteienwettbewerb im Bundesstaat (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1976); Fritz W. Scharpf, Bernd Reissert and Fritz Schnabel, Politikverflechtung: Theorie und Empirie des kooperativen Föderalismus in der Bundesrepublik (Kronberg: Skriptor, 1976).

See Arthur Benz, Föderalismusreform in der Entflechtungsfalle (Theodor-Eschenburg Vorlesung an der Universität Tübingen, 10 Nov. 2006), MS Feruniversitätate Hagen.

What could have been done was to limit the reach of the Bundesrat veto so that it would apply only to those parts of a federal statute that directly affected the administrative or fiscal concerns of the Länder. This option was never even considered by the prime ministers.

See, Fritz W. Scharpf, Verfassungsreform mit Vetospielern, in Klaus Dieter Wolf (ed.), Staat und Gesellschaft – fähig zur Reform?, 23. Wissenschaftlicher Kongress der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007), pp.47–57.

The case is interesting from a theoretical-methodological perspective. What I presented so far was essentially an explanation in the framework of historical institutionalism which, like its companions of rational choice and sociological institutionalism, take the ‘framing’ of actors' perceptions and preferences as a given part of the explanans that accounts for choices and outcomes (Peter Hall and Rosemary Taylor, ‘Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms’, Political Studies 44 (1996), pp.936–57). What is excluded is the question of the ‘appropriateness’ of these frames and the possibility that a ‘reframing’ might have allowed agreement on solutions that could be more attractive for all parties concerned.

This is of course a big if. Neo-liberal and Hayekian theorists would deny the need for, and justification of large parts of the regulatory ‘acquis’ accumulated by national and subnational governments during the post-war decades. If increasing interdependence and mobility have rendered these regimes unviable, that would be no reason for reconstructing them at European or global levels (e.g., Manfred E. Streit and Werner Mussler, ‘The Economic Constitution of the European Community. From Rome to Maastricht’, European Law Review 1 (1995), pp.5–30). But even these authors see a need for some regulation at higher levels.

See, e.g., James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent. Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962).

Horst Ehmke, Wirtschaft und Verfassung. Die Verfassungsrechtsprechung des Supreme Court zur Wirtschaftsregulierung (Karlsruhe: C.F. Müller, 1961).

The proposal was first formulated in the dissenting vote of Senator Ernst Heinsen in the 1976 report of the Enquetekommission Verfassungsreform (Bonn: Zur Sache 2/77, pp.76–7).