Policy Analysis in Germany 9781447306269

Table of contents :
Policy analysis in Germany
Contents
List of tables and figures
Tables
Figures
Notes on contributors
1. Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline
The past: policy analysis as a discipline in Germany
The present: exemplary findings
The future: German policy analysis on its way towards further professionalisation
2. Historical forerunners of policy analysis in Germany
Introduction
The discovery of policy and the heritage of Aristotle
‘Reason of state’ and ‘sovereignty’ as new concepts in political theory
The special German development of a Polizei-Staat (police state)
Conclusion
3. The development of policy analysis in Germany: practical problems and theoretical concepts
Introduction
Policy: the missing concept
Planning and the organisation of government
Comparative policy analysis
Implementation and policy instruments
Policy fields and networks
Arguments and ideas
Institutions and governance
Conclusion
4. Professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany: on the way or faraway?
Introduction
Academic and applied policy analysis
Professionalisation of academic and applied policy analysis
Conclusion
5. Methods and study types in German policy analysis
Introduction
Analysis of single cases
Comparative case studies
Qualitative comparative analysis
Macro-quantitative comparisons
Policy network analysis
Conclusion and outlook
6. Policy analysis in the German-speaking countries: common traditions, different cultures, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland
Introduction
Shared traditions
Policy analysis in Germany
Policy analysis in Austria
Policy analysis in Switzerland
Conclusion
7. Federal government: permanent in-house capacities – life within the ‘apparatus’
Introduction
Reform policy, planning and political administrative capacities: a short history since the mid-1960s
Institutional basis of federal policy-making
Strengths and weaknesses: policy-making in the information society
8. Statist policy advice: policy analysis in the German Länder
Agenda-setting and policy analysis under institutional restrictions
Decision-making processes
Policy instruments
Policy innovation
Conclusion
9. Local policy processes: economisation, professionalisation, democratisation
Local policy processes: a complex institutional framework1
Between consociational and competitive democracy
Trends and constraints
Summary and perspectives
10. Federal government in Germany: temporary, issue-related policy advice
Introduction: increasing policy advice in Germany
Background: developments and debates on policy advice in Germany
Bündnis für Arbeit2 and think tanks as components of the Berliner Räterepublik
Opportunities and limits of policy advice from the perspective of organisational sociology and political theory
11. Parliamentary in-house research services and policy-making in Germany – Sancho Panza or David’s sling?
German Bundestag: ‘parliament’ and/or ‘legislature’?
In-house services of the German Bundestag: a systematic overview
Genesis and development of the research services
Specific logic of parliamentary in-house research services
Parliamentary research services: a remedy for ‘deparliamentarisation’?
12. The German Bundestag and external expertise: policy orientation as counterweight to deparliamentarisation?
(How) do parliaments analyse policy?
External expertise: the instruments of the Bundestag
External expertise: instruments of the individual member of parliament
External expertise as counterweight to ‘deparliamentarisation’
13. From hand to mouth: parties and policy-making in Germany
Policy-making as a challenge for political parties
Parties as organised anarchies
Party policy-making: arenas of action and conflicting objectives
Perspectives: strategy-making for organised anarchies
Conclusion
14. Policy analysis by trade unions and business associations in Germany
Introduction
State of research
Changing role of trade unions and employers’ associations within the policy process
Structure of policy-related activities
Conclusion
15. Public interest groups and policy analysis: a push for evidence-based policy-making?
Introduction
Public interest groups as emerging policy actors in Germany
Resources and restrictions of policy analysis: core differences between environmental and consumer groups
What kind of policy analysis? Breaking the boundary of academia
More evidence needed? The ambiguous case of evidence-based policy-making
Policy analysis or policy framing? Strategies of political communication by public interest groups
Facing the different worlds of German policy analysis: the limited use of political science to public interest groups
16. Think tanks: bridging beltway and ivory tower?
Introduction1
An overview of the landscape of German think tanks
Academic think tanks, mainly financed by the state: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB)
Academic think tanks – privately financed: Bertelsmann Foundation
Advocacy think tanks – classical pattern: Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut (WSI)
Advocacy think tanks – recent innovation: Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM)
Conclusion
17. Non-university research institutes: between basic research, knowledge transfer to the public and policy analysis
Introduction
Extramural research landscape in Germany
Research institutes and policy advice: recent developments and the current situation
Conclusion
18. The role of policy analysis in teaching political science at German universities
Introduction
Personal resources for teaching policy analysis: chairs for policy analysis
Policy analysis in study programmes
Identifying and explaining change: teaching policy analysis before and after the Bologna process
Conclusion
19. Academics and policy analysis: tension between epistemic and practical concerns
Introduction
Policy analysis
Epistemic robustness versus practical usefulness
Scientific advisory councils
Impact of policy analysis
Index

Citation preview

International Library of Policy Analysis Iris Geva-May & Michael Howlett

Policy analysis in

Germany

Edited by Sonja Blum and Klaus Schubert

Policy analysis in Germany

International Library of Policy Analysis Series editors: Iris Geva-May and Michael Howlett, Simon Fraser University, Canada This major new series brings together for the first time a detailed examination of the theory and practice of policy analysis systems at different levels of government and by nongovernmental actors in a specific country. It therefore provides a key addition to research and teaching in comparative policy analysis and policy studies more generally.  Each volume includes a history of the country’s policy analysis which offers a broad comparative overview with other countries as well as the country in question. In doing so, the books in the series provide the data and empirical case studies essential for instruction and for further research in the area. They also include expert analysis of different approaches to policy analysis and an assessment of their evolution and operation. Early volumes in the series will cover the following countries: Brazil • China • France • Germany • India • Israel • Netherlands • New Zealand • Norway • Russia • South Africa • Taiwan • UK • USA and will build into an essential library of key reference works. The series will be of interest to academics and students in public policy, public administration and management, comparative politics and government, public organisations and individual policy areas. It will also interest people working in the countries in question and internationally. In association with the ICPA-Forum and Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. See more at http://goo.gl/raJUX

Policy analysis in Germany Edited by Sonja Blum and Klaus Schubert

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Policy Press University of Bristol 6th Floor Howard House Queen’s Avenue Bristol BS8 1SD UK Tel +44 (0)117 331 5020 Fax +44 (0)117 331 5367 e-mail [email protected] www.policypress.co.uk

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© Policy Press 2013 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested. ISBN 978 1 44730 625 2 hardcover The right of Sonja Blum and Klaus Schubert to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Policy Press. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the editors and contributors and not of The University of Bristol or Policy Press. The University of Bristol and The Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. The Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Qube Design Associates, Bristol Front cover: image kindly supplied by www.istock.com Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow The Policy Press uses environmentally responsible print partners

Contents List of tables and figures Notes on contributors

vii viii

Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline 1 Sonja Blum and Klaus Schubert Historical forerunners of policy analysis in Germany 19 Klaus von Beyme three The development of policy analysis in Germany: practical problems 29 and theoretical concepts Werner Jann and Bastian Jantz four Professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany: on the way or 45 faraway? Sylvia Pannowitsch five Methods and study types in German policy analysis 59 Volker Schneider, Claudius Wagemann and Frank Janning six Policy analysis in the German-speaking countries: common traditions, 75 different cultures, in Germany,  Austria and Switzerland Nils C. Bandelow, Fritz Sager and Peter Biegelbauer seven Federal government: permanent in-house capacities – life within the 91 ‘apparatus’ Josef Schmid and Daniel Buhr eight Statist policy advice: policy analysis in the German Länder 105 Roland Sturm and Markus M. Müller nine Local policy processes: economisation, professionalisation, 119 democratisation Jörg Bogumil and Claudia Ruddat ten Federal government in Germany: temporary, issue-related policy 135 advice Rolf G. Heinze eleven Parliamentary in-house research services and policy-making in 149 Germany: Sancho Panza or David’s sling? Stefan Marschall twelve The German Bundestag and external expertise: policy orientation as 161 counterweight to deparliamentarisation? Sven T. Siefken and Suzanne S. Schüttemeyer thirteen From hand to mouth: parties and policy-making in Germany 181 Timo Grunden fourteen Policy analysis by trade unions and business associations in Germany 197 Wolfgang Schroeder and Samuel Greef fifteen Public interest groups and policy analysis: a push for 217 evidence-based policy-making? Christoph Strünck sixteen Think tanks: bridging beltway and ivory tower? 231 Sven Jochem

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Policy analysis in Germany seventeen Non-university research institutes: between basic research, knowledge transfer to the public and policy analysis Martin Thunert eighteen The role of policy analysis in teaching political science at German universities Renate Reiter and Annette Elisabeth Töller nineteen Academics and policy analysis: the tension between epistemic and practical concerns Renate Mayntz

247

Index

287

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265 279

List of tables and figures Tables 1.1 4.1 7.1 8.1 8.2 9.1 9.2 9.3 12.1 12.2 14.1 18.1 18.2 18.3

Policy expertise and policy analysts Typology of political advisers providing policy advice Difference between positive and negative coordination Policy innovation by efficiency reforms in the Länder Policy analysis by third parties Functions of self-administration Frequency of citizens’ initiatives and council referenda by Länder Types of bottom-up democratisation Parliamentary functions and the policy cycle Resources of parliamentary policy analysis Press releases and preferred policy areas Chairs with a denomination for policy analysis Bachelor of Arts programmes that fall in the category 5+ with the strongest focus on policy analysis Master’s programmes specialising in policy analysis in German universities

14 54 97 115 115 121 124 131 164 165 200 266 269 271

Figures 4.1 5.1 9.1 11.1 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 13.1 13.2 16.1

Overview of occupational areas of policy analysts and political scientists The scope of policy analysis, research orientations and methods Cash credits per inhabitant (€) in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the new Länder (NL) and Baden-Württemberg (BW) Research sections of Directorate WD: Research Services Number of hearings in the German Bundestag Share of laws with hearings in the German Bundestag Number of topics in hearings of Bundestag committees, 1987–2009 Topics of technology assessment studies by TAB, 1991–2009 Type of events attended by members of parliament in their constituencies Share of issues discussed by members of parliament during events in constituencies Parties and cleavages on the basis of electoral programmes for the national elections, 2009 Percentage of votes for the political parties at the national elections, 1949–2009 Conceptual differentiation of think tanks and case studies

52 60 128 153 168 169 170 171 174 175 186 188 232

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Policy analysis in Germany

Notes on contributors Nils C. Bandelow is Professor of Political Science at the University of Braunschweig, Germany. His main academic interests are policy change and learning, comparative politics, health policy, and transport policy. His PhD thesis (Lernende Politik. AdvocacyKoalitionen und politischer Wandel am Beispiel der Gentechnologiepolitik, 1999) applies the Advocacy Coalition Framework to analyse long-term change in German geneticengineering policy. His habilitation treatise (Kollektives Lernen durch Vetospieler, 2005) develops and tests a framework to identify the influence of political institutions on policy learning. Klaus von Beyme studied in Heidelberg, Paris, Moscow, and at Harvard University. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Heidelberg, as well as doctor honoris causa and professor honoris causa at the Lomonossov University in Moscow. In 2012, he received the Dogan Award for High Achievement in Political Science from the International Political Science Association. Recent publications include ‘Transition to Democracy in Eastern Europe’ (1997), ‘Parliament as a Decision-Making Centre’ (1998),‘Parliamentary Democracy, Democratization, Destabilization, Reconsolidation, 1789–1999’ (2000) and ‘Von der Postdemokratie zur Neodemokratie’ (2013). Peter Biegelbauer is Senior Scientist at the Department for Foresight and Policy Development of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology inVienna. Peter Biegelbauer teaches at the Universities of Vienna and Innsbruck on policy analysis, comparative politics, public administration and social science methods. Since 2010 he has been editor of the Austrian Journal of Political Science. In 2013 his book Wie lernt die Politik: Lernen aus Erfahrung in Politik und Verwaltung on learning in politics and administration was published by Springer VS in Wiesbaden, Germany. Sonja Blum is a senior researcher at the Austrian Institute for Family Studies, University of Vienna. Her main academic interests are policy analysis, comparative social policy (particularly family policy), evaluation and the role of evidence and learning in policy-making. Her publications on these issues include the policy analysis textbook Politikfeldanalyse (2011, with K. Schubert) and, from her PhD project, Familienpolitik als Reformprozess (2012) on family policy reform processes in Germany and Austria. Jörg Bogumil is Professor for Public Administration, Regional and Local Policy at the University of Bochum. Among his research interests are the modernisation of local and regional administrations, regionalisation processes and the municipal budgetary crisis. His most recent publications cover among others the new financial management of municipalities and new governance structures in German universities. Daniel Buhr is Professor for Policy Analysis and Political Economy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tübingen. He conducts research and teaches in various policy areas with a special focus on innovation, labour and social policy. In addition to that he is doing research on comparative capitalism and welfare states. Prior to this he worked as a journalist, PR consultant and marketing director. viii

Notes on contributors

Samuel Greef is a research fellow at the University of Kassel, Department Political System of Germany. His research interests include: trade unions, organisations, welfare states, and social policy. Recently he published Die Transformation des Marburger Bundes. Vom Berufsverband zur Berufsgewerkschaft (2012) and, together with Wolfgang Schroeder and Viktoria Kalass‚Berufsgewerkschaften in der Offensive. Vom Wandel des deutschen Gewerkschaftsmodells (2011). Timo Grunden is Interim Professor of Political Science (with a focus on the political system of Germany and comparative governance) at the Justus Liebig University Giessen and deputy director of the research group governance at the University of Duisburg-Essen. His research areas are information institutions in executive, legislature and political parties, public leadership/executive leadership, political consulting/policy advice as well as local politics. Recent publications include the books Regierungszentralen (2011, with Martin Florack) and Politikberatung im Innenhof der Macht (2009). Rolf G. Heinze is Professor of Sociology, currently teaching and researching at the Ruhr-University Bochum. Since 1994, he has been managing director of the Institute for Housing, Real Estate Industry, City and Regional Development (InWIS). He participates in various research projects and works as a consultant for ministries, associations and companies. Heinze was an academic consultant of the Federal Chancellery in the government programme ‘Alliance for Work’and, since 2011, has been a member of the expert group‚ Future Dialogue of the Federal Chancellery. Werner Jann holds the chair for Political Science, Administration and Organisation at Potsdam University, where he is also director of the Potsdam Center for Policy and Management (PCPM), and he is Adjunct Professor at the Department for Administration and Organisational Theory at the University of Bergen, Norway. His main research interests are public sector reform, better regulation, government organisation and public policy. He has served on a number of advisory commissions and has advised, among others, the OECD, EU and UN. Recent publications include a book chapter in Administrative Reforms and Democratic Governance (2011, with Julia Fleischer; eds Jean-Michel Eymeri-Douzans and Jon Pierre) and an article on organisational change in Germany in the International Review of Administrative Sciences (2010, with Tobias Bach). Frank Janning has worked as a senior researcher and associate professor at University of Erfurt, Darmstadt University of Technology, Heidelberg University, Ruhr-University Bochum, University of Hamburg, and University of Konstanz. His research focuses on governance structures and policy discourses in consumer protection, education and family policy and on theoretical and methodological questions in policy research. He recently published Die Spätgeburt eines Politikfeldes. Die Institutionalisierung der Verbraucherschutzpolitik in Deutschland und im internationalen Vergleich (2011), and (with Volker Schneider) Politikfeldanalyse. Akteure, Diskurse und Netzwerke in der öffentlichen Politik (2006)

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Bastian Jantz is a research fellow at the Chair for Political Science, Administration and Organisation at Potsdam University. His main research interests are welfare state reforms, public sector modernisation, regulatory reform and better regulation. Currently, he is working in the international research project ‘Reforming the Welfare State: Accountability, Democracy and Management’ funded by the Norwegian Research Council. Recent publications include a chapter on sunset legislation in the book Better business regulation in a risk society (2011,with Sylvia Veit; eds Alberto Alemanno, Frank den Butter, André Nijsen and Jacopo Torriti), as well as an article on accountability changes in labour market administrations in the International Review of Administrative Sciences (2013, with Werner Jann). Sven Jochem is Professor of Political Science at the University of Konstanz, Germany. His research interests are comparative policy-making and comparative interest intermediation as well as democratic theories. Most recent publications include: Die politischen Systeme Skandinaviens [The Political Systems of Scandinavia] (2012), and Reformpolitik im Wohlfahrtsstaat. Deutschland im internationalen Vergleich [Reform Politics of the Welfare State. Germany Compared] (2009). Stefan Marschall is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Social Sciences of Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf. He is a specialist in German politics, political communication and comparative as well as transnational parliamentarism. He has published textbooks on the political system of Germany and on parliamentarism, as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters on political (online) communication and parliamentary affairs. Renate Mayntz is Professor and Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG) in Cologne. Her main research interests lie in the fields of policy development and implementation. Among her latest publications is the edited book Crisis and Control. Institutional Change in Financial Market Regulation, published in 2012 with Campus. Markus M. Müller is Honorary Professor of Political Science at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen. His main research interests are comparative political economy and comparative government.Among his publications is the Casebook Internationale Politik, published in 2011. Sylvia Pannowitsch is a researcher at the Institute for Political Science, Darmstadt University of Technology. Her research focuses on public policy. In her PhD thesis, she analysed the influence of veto players in German healthcare policies. Currently, she is working on a project that studies the influence of knowledge orders on policy change in German and British employment policy. Recent publications include Vetospieler in der deutschen Gesundheitspolitik: Ertrag und Erweiterung der Vetospielertheorie für qualitative Fallstudien (2012). Renate Reiter is a senior researcher at the Department of Political Sciences (Chair of Policy Analysis) at the FernUniversität in Hagen (Germany). Her major academic interests are: comparative social and health policy, comparative urban social policy and the comparison welfare-state change (decentralisation, marketisation) in Germany x

Notes on contributors

and France.Recent publications include Politiktransfer der EU. Die Europäisierung der Stadtentwicklungspolitik in Deutschland und Frankreich (2010) and the article ‘Öffentliche Daseinsvorsorge, privat organisiert? Ein deutsch-französischer Vergleich der Bereitstellung der Krankenhausinfrastruktur’ published in Zeitschrift für Sozialreform (2012, with Tanja Klenk). Claudia Ruddat is a research associate at the Chair for the Sociology of Economy and Labour (Rolf G. Heinze) at the Ruhr-University Bochum. She recently defended her dissertation thesis at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences on the justification of recent German labour market policies. Her main research interests are policy analysis, social policy and the delivery of social services. Fritz Sager is Professor of Political Science at the Center of Competence for Public Management at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He specialises in administrative studies and theory, policy research and evaluation, organisational analysis and Swiss politics. His research has been published in the Public Administration Review, Governance, Public Administration, Policy & Politics, Political Studies, West European Politics, the Journal of Urban Affairs, the American Journal of Evaluation, Public Money & Management, Evaluation and the Swiss Political Science Review, among others. Josef Schmid is Professor for Political Economy and Comparative Policy Analysis and currently the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Tübingen. He focuses on comparative welfare state analysis as well as education, labour, health and social policy. Other research areas encompass parties and political organisations. He was a member of the Commission for Sustainability in Financing the Social Security Systems at the German Federal Department for Health and Social Security (Rürup Commission). Volker Schneider is Professor of Political Science at the University of Konstanz where he holds the Chair of Empirical Theory of the State. He works on the theory of the modern state, policy networks, technology policy and government-business relations. Most recently he co-authored a book (with Johannes Bauer and Achim Lang) on: Innovation Policy and Governance in High-Tech Industries (2012). Wolfgang Schroeder is Professor at the University of Kassel, Department Political System of Germany. Currently, he is State Secretary of Brandenburg’s Ministry for Labour, Social Affairs, Woman and Family. Research interests include industrial relations, changes in the political and economic system, political parties, and welfare states. Recently, he has published, together with Bernhard Weßels, Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland (2010) and Die Gewerkschaften in Politik und Gesellschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Ein Handbuch (2003). Klaus Schubert holds the chair in German Politics and Policy Analysis at the Institute for Political Science of the University of Münster, Germany. Major fields of research and publication are comparative policy analysis, especially social and welfare policies, as well as politics and economics. He is active on the editorial board of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. Recent publications include Ökonomische Theorien der Politik (2011, with Jochen Dehling), Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0 (2009, with xi

Policy analysis in Germany

Nils C. Bandelow) and The Handbook of European Welfare Systems (2009, with Simon Hegelich and Ursula Bazant). Suzanne S. Schüttemeyer is Full Professor of Government and Policy Research at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. She is editor-in-chief of the Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen (Journal of Parliamentary Affairs) and member of the Independent Commission of the German Bundestag on the Legal Status of Deputies. Her research focuses on parliaments in Germany and the European Union. She is a leader of the research project ‘Citizens and Representatives in France and Germany’. Sven T. Siefken is Assistant Professor at the Martin-Luther-University HalleWittenberg. His research interests are policy studies, parliaments and national government. He is currently focusing on the constituency work of members of parliament and on parliamentary control. Previous work has dealt with the role of expert commissions in the political process. Christoph Strünck is Full Professor of Political Science at Siegen University, Germany. He has taught at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and was visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His main areas of interest are social policy, consumer policy, interest groups politics, third sector research, and local politics. Recent publications include: ‘Contested solidarity? Emerging markets for social services in Germany and the changing role of third sector organizations’, in A. Evers and A. Zimmer (eds), Third sector organizations in turbulent environments (2010) and ‘Claiming consumers’ rights. patterns and limits of adversarial legalism in European consumer protection’, published in German Policy Studies (2008). Roland Sturm holds a Chair of Political Science at the Friedrich-AlexanderUniversity Erlangen-Nuremberg. His research interests are comparative public policy, comparative politics, German politics, European integration and political economy. Among his recent publications are Das neue deutsche Regierungssystem (2012; with H. Pehle), Föderalismus (2010) and Politik in Großbritannien (2009). Martin Thunert is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Social Studies at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) at Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg. He has taught at Hamburg University and Mannheim University, and was Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, US. Thunert is the co-founder and co-editor of the quarterly journal Zeitschrift für Politikberatung (ZPB) (Journal for Policy Advice and Political Consulting), published at Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden. His research interests are North American studies, policy analysis and policy advice, think tanks, comparative politics and transatlantic relations. Recent publications in English include ‘Expert policy advice in Germany’ in: S. Brooks, D. Stasiak and T. Zyro (eds), Policy Expertise in Contemporary Democracies, (Ashgate, 2013), and (with Wilfried Mausbach and Dietmar Schloss (eds),The American Presidency, Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Heidelberg, Winter Verlag, 2012).

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Notes on contributors

Annette Elisabeth Töller holds the Chair for Policy Analysis at the FernUniversität in Hagen (Germany), Institute of Political Sciences. Her main fields of research are: environmental policy in Germany and Europe, voluntary regulation, comparative measuring of the Europeanisation of national policies, privatisation of state action. Among her recent publications are Politikfeldanalyse im Studium (i.E., with Renate Reiter); Umweltpolitik in Deutschland (with Michael Böcher), an article on the failed educational reform in Hamburg published in Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen (2011, with Sylvia Pannowitsch, Céline Kuscheck, Christian Mennrich) and an article on measuring and comparing the Europeanisation of public policies published in the Journal of Common Market Studies (2010). Claudius Wagemann is Professor for Qualitative Methods of the Social Sciences at the Goethe University Frankfurt. His research interests include comparative methodology (above all, set-theoretic methods, such as QCA), interest groups, social movements, and the quality of democracy. He recently co-authored (with Carsten Q. Schneider) a textbook on QCA, published with Cambridge University Press, and his latest research project on Private Interest Government with Routledge.

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one

Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline Sonja Blum and Klaus Schubert1

Policy analysis today is not only one of the most important sub-disciplines of political science in Germany, but it is also an integral part of the discipline internationally and has contributed significantly to scientific debates, theory and methods developments. This introductory chapter gives a short overview of the discipline of policy analysis in Germany, its history and its main characteristics. An argument running as a common thread throughout the book is thereby developed, namely, that there is a typically German dualism between academic and applied policy analysis. Also focusing on this aspect, we discuss some of the main findings and arguments of the book chapters within this volume.Against that background, we then provide an outlook on German policy analysis on its way towards further professionalisation. This book offers the first comprehensive review of policy analysis activities in Germany. This profound knowledge on the status quo is of high practical relevance for the future development of policy analysis in the different spheres where it is practised. Not least, the book aims to identify possible ways to extenuate the German divide between academic and applied policy analysis.

The past: policy analysis as a discipline in Germany Establishment of the discipline State-centred societies such as Germany often have a long tradition of political administration as well as internal and external education and advice to political administrators and decision-makers. So the forerunners of policy analysis in Germany – for example, studies on the ‘good policeyen’ – can be traced back well into the 18th and even the 17th centuries. In the early 19th century academically inspired, groundbreaking reforms of state and administrative structures, the SteinHardenberg Reforms, established Prussia as a role model of modern and efficient state administration, and helped push one of the poorest German countries into the first rank of the Deutsche Länder (see Chapter 2). On the other hand, policy analysis as a discipline and in its modern form has only developed since the 1970s, when it was first applied in the policy reforms of the social-liberal coalition governing Germany. While academic policy advice in the 1950s had been exclusively given by the legal professions and in the 1960s was accompanied by economists, social scientists then entered the field (Müller-Rommel, 1984). Similar to the US, from where some of the styles and methods were transferred, the so-called ‘planning euphoria’ of that time was followed by a rude awakening: disenchantment regarding the actual role of scientific knowledge within political processes on the one hand, and political steering

1

Policy analysis in Germany

problems that led to the establishment of implementation studies on the other (see Saretzki, 2007, p 589). During the following two decades, policy analysis as a political science discipline was gradually introduced at German universities, for example, with the early establishment of the Department of Administrative Science2 at the University of Constance in 1969 (see Chapter 3, for a much more detailed discussion). The German University of Administrative Sciences had already been founded in Speyer in 1947.3 Overall, the discipline was not developed at those universities which had always been leading the field – in particular, Bonn, Freiburg, Heidelberg or Munich – but, as Gellner and Hammer (2010, p 10) point out, at the new universities in Constance or Mannheim as well as in external research institutes such as the Max Planck Institute4 or the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB, Social Science Research Center Berlin). Stoop (2009; see also Chapter 16) recollects the highly controversial establishment of WZB in 1969: its founding fathers were 15 members of the Bundestag (National Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany) – Christian as well as Social Democrats – who wished to improve academic policy advice.The chairs of Berlin’s universities as well as the West German University Rector’s Conference and the labour union warned of an outsourcing of academic research and its loss of freedom; even the LA Times reported on the fight over ‘the first American-style think tank in Europe’ (Stoop, 2009, p 59). This particular case of WZB is also telling for the establishment of policy analysis in general. At that time, the young discipline met with harsh criticism from at least two sides. First, traditional political scientists blamed it for neglecting the most important categories such as ‘power’,‘institutions’,‘democracy’ and ‘participation’ (see Hartwich, 1985). Neo-Marxists, on the other hand,‘denied the autonomy of the political system […] and regarded administrative institutions merely as a reflection of social structures’ (Chapter 3; see Ronge and Schmieg, 1971), a fact that they saw blurred by the policy sciences.These debates culminated in a symposium in Hanover in 1984, where policy analysis and its relation to political science were heatedly discussed5 (see Hartwich, 1985). Nowadays this event is a popular anecdote and topic of conversation of the more experienced generation of policy analysts in Germany, but it also seems to be more than that, still influencing the boundaries of the discipline.

Perspectives on the discipline Focusing on the main areas and the development of academic research, Manfred G. Schmidt (1987, pp 185-200) distinguished between different stages of (comparative) policy analysis in Germany, corresponding to international developments. The first stage of the 1960s was characterised by raising the ‘Does politics matter?’ question, which is actually often answered in the negative. In the second stage, policy analysts predominantly advocated the counter-thesis: ‘Politics matters!’ The third stage was then marked by turning away from these dualistic positions, asking to what extent polity and politics determined policy. A fourth stage is currently identified, in which the focus is on inter- and supranational influences as well as Europeanisation (Chapter 3, this volume; Obinger et al, 2013, p 2). Taking a more structural than contentoriented focus, policy analysis from the 2000s onwards has entered the stage of a ‘normal discipline’ within political science in German universities.This is illustrated, for instance, by the publication dates of textbooks: after the first textbooks of the late 1980s and early 1990s (such as Schubert, 1991), no new textbook came out for 2

Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline

almost a decade. Then, starting with Schubert and Bandelow (2003, 3rd edn, 2013), the publication of new policy analysis textbooks picked up pace, with Schneider and Janning (2006), Janning and Toens (2008), Blum and Schubert (2009, 2nd edn, 2011) or Gellner and Hammer (2010). In the early days of German policy analysis, marked by debates on its academic status, some kinds of ‘meta examinations’ on the state of the discipline were published. Highly important was, as mentioned, the book after the Hanover symposium edited by Hartwich (1985). Eight years later, Héritier’s (1993) special issue of the leading German political science journal Politische Vierteljahresschrift not only focused on the state of the art regarding theories and methods, but also on policy analysis as scientific political advice. In the meantime, however, no such review of the state of the discipline has been published – although, admittedly, some books on policy analysis have discussed questions of the discipline, for example, the one edited by Holtmann (2004).6 Rather, as argued above, policy analysis developed into a ‘normal’ political science sub-discipline, wherefore such ‘navel-gazing’ seemed to be no longer necessary, as it had been in the fight over the legitimacy of the sub-discipline. As Saretzki (2007, p 589) wondered a few years ago: ‘In retrospect, the discussion on the role of policy research appears to be the last general debate on the collective self understanding of political science in Germany for almost 20 years.’ However, we think it is high time for an encompassing meta study of German policy analysis for two reasons. First, the discipline has changed tremendously during the almost 30 years since the books edited by Hartwich or Héritier were published. Second, and at least as important, most areas of this volume were not part of these early ‘meta studies’ (nor any others, to our knowledge), namely, policy analysis for governments, political parties or interest groups. Until now, discourses on policy analysis in Germany were rather focused on academic policy analysis and, to be concise, policy analysis in the broad sense of this book does not seem to be a larger part of the self-conception of the German discipline at all. Now how does this background shape today’s characteristics of German policy analysis?

Characteristics of the discipline Political science in Germany has strong roots in (continental) philosophy and history, that is, traditional political science emphasises normative as well as institutional and structural aspects of politics. Only the influence of functionalism and quantitative empirical research in the 1960s and 1970s let German political science catch up with modern concepts of political science. But there still exists a considerable discrepancy between political science as an academic endeavour and real world policy-making, especially concerning central elements of policy analysis such as political leadership, decision-making, strategy and implementation of policies. To a large extent this can be explained historically. After the Second World War, German political science carried the main burden of educating and informing students and the greater public about the basic elements and functioning of democracy, and establishing itself as an accepted academic discipline. Since then, a certain belief has existed that political science exercises a kind of academic watchdog function towards the state, government and law-makers on the one side, and political participation and public activity on the other. So, a certain distance between political science and real world politics serves as (positive) means to secure independence.The resulting loss of contact and involvement 3

Policy analysis in Germany

in real world politics seems to these eyes more a kind of cost for academic objectivity and less as a deficit concerning the development or the relevance of the discipline (see Greven, 2009). This short sketch may be enough to retrace the peculiar dualism between theory and praxis that is characteristic of major parts of German political science. Hand in hand with a usually rather narrow methodological definition of ‘science’, this dualism favours abstraction and theoretical arguments against a closer political and administrative, in practice relevant and useable, understanding of politics. Against that background, German policy analysis has contributed significantly to the discipline’s theories and methods, for example, with the steering theory, network analysis or actor-centred institutionalism (see Chapter 3). On the other hand, real and immediate political, social and economic questions have often been blurred (Schubert, 2003). It is only recently that the mainly younger generation of political scientists has become more ready to get involved in real world questions of politics and to narrow somehow the distance between academic approaches and the requirements of the political world. The development of policy analysis may have contributed to this change. On the other hand, it is quite certain that this development has strongly contributed to a broader acceptance of policy analysis inside and outside political science. To better understand the peculiarities summarised in this section, we briefly discuss textbooks as they are typically used in teaching policy analysis at universities, in the US as opposed to Germany. For example, Dunn’s (2010) Public policy analysis7 is structured in five parts: it starts with a general introduction to the methodology of policy analysis, whereas Part II introduces the methods of policy analysis and bears headings such as: ‘Structuring policy problems’, ‘Prescribing preferred policies’ or ‘Evaluating policy performance’. Similar headings can be found in Part III on methods of policy communication: ‘Developing policy arguments’ and ‘Communicating policy analysis’. Structurally, this outline is oriented on the classical model of the policy cycle and does not fundamentally differ from German textbooks, which are often also structured along the stage heuristic. It is more the contents of the chapters and the style of presentation that differ: Dunn’s book aims at providing students with practical skills to conduct policy analyses. Whereas German textbooks usually offer fine overviews to students on what is done in policy research, English textbooks often rather focus on teaching students how to do policy research, frequently with an explicit focus on working ‘in the field’. Of course, this might only be related to different teaching approaches and didactics in general and not be in any way characteristic of this special discipline. However, bearing this in mind, we took a quite strong hypothesis as the starting point for this book, namely, that there is a typically German dualism between policy-making and political science, academic and applied policy analysis – reflecting an attitude that sharply distinguishes between praxis and theory. At the same time, however, we argue that policy analysis in such a broad sense as defined in this book exists in Germany, and that a stronger recognition and dialogue between the academic, explicit and rather applied, implicit fields of policy analysis is quite necessary and would be very fruitful. Before moving to the findings of this book, we wish to point out some conceptual aspects.There are three terms most common in the German language to denote the field, namely, Policy-Analyse, Policy-Forschung (policy research) and Politikfeldanalyse (literally, policy area analysis).They are largely used synonymously and are, more or less, equally common.While – as Wildavsky (1987, p 15) argued so convincingly8 – there 4

Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline

cannot be one definition of ‘policy analysis’, in this book we want to understand it in a broad way. Policy analysis can be focused either on the explanation of policies or on providing advice about policy solutions (Windhoff-Héritier, 1987, p 115), where it may draw on a variety of theories, methods and disciplinary approaches. Speaking of ‘policy advice’, it is important to point out that this is not really part of the self-conception of German policy analysis.What is more and quite strange, even though German political science increasingly pays attention to the role of ‘knowledge’ and ‘advice’ in policy-making, it does not really link or extend this discussion to itself as a discipline – neither empirically, nor critically. Greven (2008) saw himself reminded of the biblical failing to see the beam in one’s own eye here. Of course, not all ‘policy advice’ is ‘policy analysis’. And particularly since the connection to ‘policy analysis’ is rarely established, the increasing number of studies, for example, on ‘policy advice’ by think tanks or on ‘evaluation studies’ by extramural research institutes, are not automatically studies on ‘policy analysis in Germany’. This notwithstanding, policy analyses play an important role within (a certain type of) policy advice and evaluation is a central part of policy analysis, especially when it comes to applied studies – so they are, of course, dealt with in this book, but through a ‘policy analysis’ perspective.

The present: exemplary findings Although the chapters that follow discuss highly diverse topics within a very broad range, they also ‘speak’ to each other, and it has been possible to identify four main points that seem to be highly important for the state of policy analysis in Germany. Each are presented in the following, including a discussion of some of the authors’ arguments and findings.

Core business: policy analysis within universities As Klaus von Beyme’s contribution (Chapter 2) on the historical forerunners of modern policy analysis in Germany shows, the discipline’s origins are linked to the creation and development of universities (starting with Heidelberg in 1386), and to theorists such as Samuel von Pufendorf. On the other hand, these origins also lie in the applied field, with its closeness to the ‘cameralism’ doctrine9 of the 18th and 19th centuries, oriented towards administration and economy. Today, as reiterated earlier, the ‘core business’ of German policy analysis takes place within the universities.This also becomes evident from Werner Jann and Bastian Jantz’s Chapter 3, who analyse the major concepts, developments and changes in the discipline in Germany during the last 50 years: with many theories and concepts, in the fields of the cooperative state, network analysis, actor-centred institutionalism and governance studies, German policy analysis has continuously contributed ‘towards the conceptual and theoretical accumulation’ of research. Furthermore, they point out how closely intertwined the development of policy analysis and public administration as sub-disciplines of German political science have been during all those years. The important status of the discipline is also revealed by the study carried out by Renate Reiter and Annette Elisabeth Töller (Chapter 18), who follow the question as to in which ways policy analysis is integrated into the teaching of political science in Germany.They find that policy analysis today has been established in the majority of Bachelor of Arts programmes and that 18 per cent of Master’s programmes have a 5

Policy analysis in Germany

special focus on public policy/policy analysis. This underlines its importance within political science education. Taking a closer look at the curricula, they state that the focus is predominantly on ‘explaining policy outputs by the help of a variety of theories, and not towards policy advice, as is, for instance, policy analysis as taught in the Anglo-American context, for example, at the Kennedy School at Harvard and elsewhere’. Volker Schneider, Claudius Wagemann and Frank Janning, in Chapter 5, discuss the methods’ landscapes in German policy analysis, its agglomerations and its wastelands. All in all, they see an increasing richness and sophistication of applied methods, corresponding to the higher complexity of investigated objects, and often profiting from methods development in other disciplines, such as comparative politics. The comparative perspective on German-speaking countries taken by Nils Bandelow, Fritz Sager and Peter Biegelbauer in Chapter 6 shows that the research fields, theories and methods differ decisively between Germany, Austria and Switzerland. They find policy analysis in Switzerland follows more the lines of the ‘mainstream’ international scientific debates, while Austria has developed its own perspective of constructivist, interpretative policy analysis: ‘Germany as the largest of the three German-speaking countries combines both perspectives.’ For the purely academic field, German policy analysis has established itself as a highly important player within the international academic discipline: as a view into the acknowledged journals shows, cutting-edge research is conducted in the fields of theory and methods development as well as empirical studies. Even if we state that the ‘ivory tower’ is rather high in international comparison, many contributions to this book show that important research-praxis nexuses do exist. By that we mean research that is – as Renate Mayntz elaborates in Chapter 19 – both politically useful and epistemically robust.Wolfgang Schroeder and Samuel Greef, in Chapter 14, show how this is the case for fundamental research supported by business associations and trade unions, while in Chapter 12, Sven Siefken and Suzanne Schüttemeyer explore the various ways in which parliaments use external resources and employ outside expertise for analysing policy, for instance, through Enquete Commissions or parliamentary hearings. In the next section we turn to the question of the role of policy analysis for informing policy-making in Germany.

Of ivory towers and informing by chance: policy analysis and policy-making There are many different ways in which policy analysis can and does inform policymaking, which may be differentiated by asking questions such as: • • • •

Who is informed (for example, legislative or executive branch)? By whom (for example, commissions, public/private research institutes, academics)? When (for example, before, during or after a policy-making process)? With which main purpose (such as, enlarging the knowledge base or legitimisation)?

With regard to the policy process, Siefken and Schüttemeyer show that external policy expertise – here, in the form of study commissions – is mainly used by the Bundestag in the early stages of communication and agenda-setting, rather than in the policy formulation stage. In Chapter 8 Roland Sturm and Markus Müller state that policy analysis through third parties (for example, think tanks) hardly plays a role for policy-making on the Länder level; rather, they see policy-making as determined 6

Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline

by the ministries and governments (alone). On the other hand, they identify a kind of policy design (where ideas and arguments of ‘third parties’ come in) by chance: It can be an interesting idea put forward by a research institute or some experimental experience elsewhere taken up by a civil servant attending an international conference, which then circulates among ministerial units in search of someone ready to write up a new policy design for the Länder government. Transfer by chance might thus be the most important source for innovation. (taken from Chapter 8)

This should also hold valid for the national level. In Chapter 13 Timo Grunden describes the process by which parties formulate policies and programmes as highly erratic and contingent.Against that background, they argue that parties need to develop think tank capacities in order to enable a ‘systematic connection between policies and election analysis’ as well as long-term learning processes instead of autodidactic strategy development by individual political actors. In Chapter 10 Rolf Heinze discusses temporary, issue-related policy advice for the federal government, such as the Hartz or Rürup Commissions. He argues that politicians ‘are much more dependent on […] orientation knowledge and dialogue-oriented advice’ than in earlier times. He therefore sees ‘dialogic knowledge management’ as a new need and as a new challenge for science, for example, by introducing and communicating evidence-based knowledge. In this context, he sees the declining importance of the disciplinary borders between the social sciences, and the growing importance of taking up societal responsibility: ‘What is needed is a new ethic of responsibility and problem-solving skills with policy advice being a central part of it.’ One major field in the context of scientific policy advice is evaluation research, which has developed in Germany since the 1960s. As Flick (2006, p 13) points out, there is currently rarely any field of public services which is not subject to a more or less systematic evaluation – be it the education or health systems, the social sector or environmental policy. Evaluation studies have developed as an important part of policy analysis – first, as part of the ‘planning euphoria’ of the late 1960s/early 1970s (see Chapter 3), but when this came to a halt, also in the context of implementation studies. At the same time, evaluation research is sometimes disregarded as too applicationoriented.This might have further enhanced the fact that evaluations for public policies are often not carried out by university institutes (a major exception is the Center for Evaluation at the University of Saarbrücken), but by the ‘big players’ of economic research institutes, such as IFO Munich (Institute for Economic Research), DIW Berlin (German Institute for Economic Research), HWWA (Hamburg Institute for International Economics) or RWI Essen (Rhine-Westphalia Institute of Economic Research). Other important players are private institutes such as Prognos, Infas, Allensbach and Sinus. The comparison between the German-speaking countries also gives valuable insights in this respect (see Chapter 6).While in Switzerland the constitution foresees that all federal measures are evaluated with regard to their effectiveness, this is not the case in Germany or Austria. It seems that this has promoted a higher orientation towards applied studies within academic policy analysis in Switzerland. In Austria, when ‘policy research started to offer its service in the 1970s’, it became integrated 7

Policy analysis in Germany

into the still existing, unique form of consociationalism, a power-sharing based on political parties and associations. Interestingly, as Nils Bandelow, Fritz Sager and Peter Biegelbauer point out in Chapter 6, ‘most research-based policy analysis in Austria is interdisciplinary in nature, regardless if it takes place at university or extra university research institutions.’ In Chapter 15 Christoph Strünck looks at public interest groups in this respect, in particular at non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the fields of environmental, social and consumer policy. He argues that these ‘suffer from the deep rift between academic and applied versions of policy analysis’: as academic concepts are not tailored to their needs (that is, mainly designing policy tools and instruments), they cannot just collaborate with universities. During the last few years, Germany has experienced a real boom in political consulting, as the contributions of Sven Jochem (Chapter 16) and Martin Thunert (Chapter 17) show.This is associated with the parliament and government’s relocation from Bonn to Berlin after German reunification. Thunert, studying non-university research institutes (such as the Max Planck Institute), states that there is a growing number of them, and draws an overall positive balance on personnel also ready to take on the role of ‘knowledge-brokers, agenda-setters and policy-shapers’. Jochem discusses how the supplementation of traditional, research-oriented think tanks by newer, public relations (PR)-oriented ‘do tanks’ may result in a trade-off: ‘The more think tanks try to influence public opinion and work as public relations agencies, the weaker appears the academic robustness of the analysis provided.’ From his four case studies, however – with only the INSM10 as a ‘do tank’ – there ‘seems to be no clear evidence that “old strategies” of think tanks’ are less influential in the policy process than the new ones. Mayntz (Chapter 19), discussing the role of academic policy analysts in informing policy-making, concludes that the role attributed to knowledge, and specifically to policy analysis, in public policy-making is still ‘based on an idealistic model of the science–policy relationship.’ As the example of the ongoing financial and economic crises shows, if the political and functional elites and the scientific experts all share a common perception of the situation, ‘both the demand for and the supply of policy analysis that supports a contrasting world view is lacking.’

Double monopolies? Academic and applied policy analysis As Jann and Jantz (Chapter 3) rightfully point out, it ‘is often overlooked that the so-called planning euphoria of the 1960s and 1970s was not so much inspired and advocated by political scientists but by rational economists.’ This kind of positivist policy analysis still exists, for example, in the concept of new public management (NPM) and the evidence-based policy-making literature. They stress, however, that in contrast to the US, this prescriptive policy analysis has never dominated policy or public administration programmes at universities, and policy analysis has never become the domain of economics, ‘even though economists, of course, played and still play a major role in policy advice’. In other words, academic policy analysis in Germany can be called a monopoly of the social sciences, in particular, political science. On the other hand, the situation described by Jann and Jantz for the 1960s and 1970s, that is, policy advice being primarily given by economists (see also Müller-Rommel, 1984), has not so much changed today, as discussed in the last section of this chapter. 8

Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline

Strünck (Chapter 15) complements this view by emphasising Germany’s ‘legalistic culture’. Overall, he also points out how, ‘when talking about policy instruments, expertise is mostly provided by economists, or legal scholars.’ In Chapter 7 Josef Schmid and Daniel Buhr also confirm this with regard to staff in German ministries.11 In other words, applied policy analysis in Germany can be called a monopoly of economics and law. As Mead (2011) argues in his provocative plea to reform political science, policy analysis in the US has almost exclusively settled in economics, while the public policy section existing in political science has focused instead on the politics of policy-making – and is thus a subject of less relevance to decision-makers and researchers from other disciplines, who are at least under the impression of knowing enough about this. And the public policy graduate schools, established in the US in the late 1960s and 1970s, have been dominated by economics, not political or administrative science (Mead, 2011). There therefore seem to be both differences and parallels of German policy analysis to the US. In Germany, on the one hand, explicit policy analysis at least, understanding itself to be part of this discipline and participating in its dialogues, is a monopoly of political science. On the other hand, politics analysis also prevails in this academic discipline, but ‘real world’ policy analyses are still more or less the monopoly of economists and lawyers, as outlined above. Only recently, and increasingly in the wake of the current economic and financial crisis, have politicians and higher political administrators on all government levels in Germany been more open for input and advice from political scientists, that is, from policy analysts (see Chapter 6). It remains to be seen whether this very recent development will lead to fruitful competition between politics, economics and law in real world policy-making.

What’s in a name? Policy analysis in ‘unexpected’ places Coming from German policy analysis – which is almost invariably linked with universities and often with political science – the approach of the International Library of Policy Analysis series, studying the discipline in a very encompassing and application-oriented way, has been charming, but also challenging. Due to this volume being the first such meta study, however, we are often unable to distinguish to what extent staff working in a ministry or think tank, for instance, are actually ‘policy analysts’ or other scientific assistants. Keeping that in mind, what are the main findings of the authors regarding the status quo of policy analysis outside universities, external research institutes and think tanks? The explorative study conducted by Sylvia Pannowitsch in Chapter 4 reveals two main points in this context. She asked, for which labour market positions are students of the discipline qualified, and where are they actually employed? On the one hand, outside academia there is no professionalised discipline of policy analysis in Germany, in the sense that employers demand or hire people due to their policy analytical skills, and ‘there is no formation of a professional understanding as policy analysts’ in the world outside academia. On the other hand,‘policy analysts’ – meaning graduates of the discipline who now apply these theories and methods in their work – indeed work in various fields such as the private sector, NGOs, parties or public administration.These occupational fields of policy analysts, Pannowitsch argues, don’t come ‘unexpectedly’ since they are basically the same as for political scientists in general. But they do come

9

Policy analysis in Germany

‘unexpectedly’ in the sense that these branches and tasks are almost never thought of when talking about ‘policy analysis in Germany’. In Chapter 11 Stefan Marschall investigates the in-house research services of the German Bundestag as a possible means ‘to strengthen the policy competences of parliament vis-à-vis the empowerment of the government.’ Currently, about 2,500 people are working there, who support either the administration of the Bundestag, of party groups or individual parliamentarians – a ‘broad array of in-house research service units whose capacities have been considerably enlarged within the last decades.’ Still, Marschall states, it might appear as a David–Goliath relationship vis-à-vis the government. This argument is encouraged by Schmid and Buhr (Chapter 7), who, studying the government’s permanent in-house capacities, show that 18,000 people are employed in federal ministries, and that their technical advice is less visible, but often more important and also closer to political decision-making than that of the booming political advice branch. They conclude that the structures show tensions between ‘good in-house capacities on the one hand, and yet sometimes narrow policy advocacy coalitions and cognitive maps on the other hand.’ For the level of the 16 federal states, the Länder, Sturm and Müller (Chapter 8) show how policy analysis is, above all, the task of the ministries. They highlight two factors that influence policy analysis on the Länder level: the predominance of legal thought (enhancing a concentration on procedures and form) as well as the ‘party political need to sell politics, especially to the media.’ Schroeder and Greef (Chapter 14) discuss the policy-related activities of business associations and trade unions. They point out how these actors are also engaged in fundamental research, for example, through endowed professorships or funding for research institutions such as the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW, German Institute for Economic Research). In the fields of driven research, business associations and trade unions build policy knowledge through their own analyses, by contract research as well as expertise from third parties. Not all the chapters in this book dealing with non-academic fields detected policy analysts at work, however – for example, public interest groups seem to frame policies in the course of their lobbying strategies rather than conduct empirical policy analysis, as Strünck shows (see Chapter 15). Grunden (Chapter 13) argues that policies of German parties, in programmes as in action, are not the result of policy analysis. And on a communal and regional level, in Chapter 9 Jörg Bogumil and Claudia Ruddat analyse the characteristics of decision-making processes, mostly indirectly discussing the relevance of ‘policy analysis’ in a broad sense, related to the two observable trends of economisation and participation: for economisation, administrative modernisation through NPM plays a major role, while for the latter they identify a ‘renaissance of civic participation and the “discovery” of active citizenship.’

The future: German policy analysis on its way towards further professionalisation At the beginning of this chapter – and also when starting this book project – we presented quite a strong and divisive hypothesis, namely, that policy analysis in Germany can be characterised by a deep gap between academic and applied policy analysis.12 Now, on the basis of a comprehensive meta study of the field provided by the 10

Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline

18 contributions here, can we verify this hypothesis, or must we reject it? While there is a gap between academic and applied policy analysis, this fact alone does not seem to be specific for Germany, but also applies, for example, to the US (see Chapter 16). And as Jann and Jantz show in Chapter 3, the general development of German policy analysis has always been closely linked to practical political developments and concerns of the time (such as administrative reform or implementation). Furthermore, there is policy research that is, at the same time, epistemically and practically acknowledged, for example, in the extramural research institutes (see Chapter 17).Therefore, maybe it is not the depth, but the particular form of the ‘theory-praxis divide’ that is specific for Germany. This applies in particular to the ‘double monopoly’, with academic policy analysis being the ‘exclusive field’ of political scientists and applied policy analysis that of economics and law.

Bridging the gap The ‘policy turn’ of political science, so heavily discussed in the 1980s, can, on the one hand, and in retrospect, be regarded as successful: policy analysis today is a wellestablished, professionalised part of the discipline, where scientifically sound research is conducted. And yet, as Saretzki (2007, p 590) points out, other arguments for this ‘policy turn’ have also been brought up, namely, that a ‘policy-oriented political science’ should and would be ‘practically relevant’, would lead to problem-oriented interdisciplinary cooperation and would therefore be promising for the discipline, and especially for the graduates. As this book shows, however, [it has only been partly successful. Leaving the rather safe level of description, how is this specific German dualism to be assessed? On the one hand, it could be argued that it has its advantages. For example, the development and the common self-conception of the political-scientist academic discipline of Politikfeldanalyse may have been enhanced by defining its borders rather narrowly. And the need for an independent academic policy analysis, focused on basic research, is in itself evident. Taking up Héritier’s (1987) distinction between a neo-pluralistic and a synoptic policy analysis, the latter could be in danger of developing into atheoretical contract research. On the other hand, bringing to mind what Lasswell and Lerner (1951) demanded from the discipline – to be multidisciplinary, contextual, problem-oriented and explicitly normative – bridging (not overcoming) such a dualism would probably mean more benefits than costs for the discipline.Therefore, at the end of this chapter we draw some conclusions as to which steps we regard as useful and desirable to attenuate the gap (or rather, to keep it up, where it marks a strength). From our view, this affects at least three broader questions, which can be denoted by the keywords of ‘qualification’, ‘communication’ and ‘standards’.

Qualification Müller-Rommel (1984) has already argued that political science study programmes need to qualify their students more for these new fields of work, which – at that time – he saw as only realised by introducing Politikberatung (political advice) as a major field of study at the Freie Universität Berlin. In Germany, there is no tradition of policy schools as they exist in the US. It is only in recent years that experiments 11

Policy analysis in Germany

of this kind have started with, for example, the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt (2002), the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin (2003) and the NRW School of Governance at the University of Duisburg-Essen (2006) – all now offering Master’s degrees in Public Policy. In these new courses, there seems to be a stronger focus on labour market skills and providing practical training for future policy analysts. In general, however, study programmes on policy analysis/public policy seem to be characterised by a bias towards the explanation of policies, and not on ‘policy advice’ (see Chapter 18), although this does have its advantages. Through the high theory and research orientation of German study programmes, graduates should be equipped with the abstraction and reflection capacities that are also needed for praxis. Increasingly, they should also be well trained in methodology.The aim of policy analysis education should not be to train political consultants or spin doctors, however; rather, students are educated to be able to do good policy research, and also to transfer this knowledge or to apply it in ‘the real world’.

Communication In Chapter 19 Mayntz points out how all research which is to be used for some practical purpose must be ‘translated’, which requires communication rather than simplification of research results: ‘Although the televised ritual where the chair of an expert council ceremoniously hands a voluminous report to the chancellor seems to suggest otherwise, the provision of scientific knowledge to decision-makers cannot be organised as a simple process of transportation.’ Furthermore, Mayntz emphasises the demands on political usefulness of policy analytical advice (see also Chapters 10 and 17). However, as Mayntz critically discusses, there is an evident tension between political usefulness and epistemic robustness: the one cannot be a substitute for the other, nor can scientific quality make up for deficits in political usefulness. Alongside these questions of ‘how to’ communicate research results, platforms of exchange are also needed between academic and practitioners’ discourses. Besides conferences and workshops, this also includes publication formats. For instance, it is doubtful – and this would be an interesting question to investigate further – whether policy-makers and other practitioners keep up with research results published in the most important German political science journal, the Politische Vierteljahresschrift. A new journal, INDES Zeitschrift für Politik und Gesellschaft, was founded in 2011 with the aim of publishing research results in a comprehensible and interesting way, without falling into the trap of trivialisation.13 As Müller-Rommel (1984) has already emphasised, political decision-makers need to know the discipline in order to commission contract research, for example. Communication between research and praxis may be further enhanced by a higher percentage of ‘border-crossers’ between both fields.At the German technical colleges/ universities of applied sciences, professors must usually have a minimum of three years’ professional experience outside the university. These positions, however, are primarily focused on teaching, and not research. For a typical German university career, at least in the political science field, professional experience outside the university is therefore primarily a negative acquisition, not an asset. At the same time, the benefits of ‘rewinning’ practitioners or policy analysts from ‘the wild’ for an academic career seem obvious, such as their ability to detect new research questions and to be closer to the 12

object of investigation (and therefore, possibly, more realistic).This personnel exchange is much more common in the US, for instance.There, however, it is facilitated by the strength of the think tanks, one of the major recruitment pools for ‘border-crossers’ between academia and praxis.14

Standards If it is the aim to bridge the specific form of German dualism between academic and applied policy analysis, the question of standards becomes central. Such criteria and guidelines exist for the field of evaluation research. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Evaluation (German Association for Evaluation) has developed a list of evaluation standards, and there are wider discussions taking place in the academic field, as, for example, with Cronbach’s 95 theses for assessing the scientific quality of evaluation research (Cronbach et al, 1980). This connects to Mayntz’s warning regarding the evident tension between political usefulness and epistemic robustness: if German policy analysis broadens its self-conception, developing certain (commonly shared) criteria and guidelines would be helpful. This holds true even more so for ‘policy analysts’ working outside academia. Even if they apply policy analysis modes, they are not integrated into the ‘policy analysis’ self-conception of the professionalised academic discipline. An increased dialogue between both could help provide them with standards, to promote skills (for example, through further training at universities) or to share newer developments within the discipline. In Chapter 6, Bandelow, Sager and Biegelbauer also point to this problematic when they state that in Austria, most policy analysis is non-research-based and application-oriented work in the civil service and social partnership associations, and that it ‘is not done under the name of policy analysis and often lacks the respective methodological background.’

Questions for the academic discipline From our view, the approach and findings of this book raise questions for policy analysis as an academic discipline in Germany, regarding both its self-conception and further research needs.With regards to the first, we may become very fundamental and ask: what is policy analysis? Or, to put it less dramatically, it may be a matter of debate how broadly we want to define policy analysis, and whether such a broad conception as followed in this volume is appropriate for the German case. To what extent are scientific officers working in parliament or for associations – or ‘researchers in the wild’, as Callon (2009, p 546) calls them – policy analysts as are academic researchers? We believe that it is necessary on the one hand to broaden our understanding of ‘policy analysts’, and to confine it on the other. Policy expertise is also provided by academic researchers in the individual policy fields, such as medical scientists for health policy or engineers for environmental policy. These researchers, however, do not make use of the styles and methods of policy analysis and are therefore not policy analysts, even if their expertise is employed for problem definition or policy formulation within the policy process (see Table 1.1).

13

Policy analysis in Germany

Table 1.1: Policy expertise and policy analysts Policy expertise provided by … … policy analysts Policy research ‘in the wild’: academically skilled practitioners (social sciences, economics, etc)

… research in general Confined policy research: academic researchers (social sciences, economics, etc)

Researchers from the life sciences, engineering, etc

On the other hand, ‘researchers from the wild’ seem to be included in a broader definition of ‘policy analysts’ if they fulfil two criteria. First, that they are academically skilled in a pertinent discipline, primarily political science, but partly also the social sciences in general or economics. And second, that they observe, describe, analyse and prescribe policies as a central part of their work, thereby using the styles and methods of policy analysis (cf Chapter 4, this volume). As discussed earlier, however, this ‘policy research in the wild’ can be problematic in terms of standards.While we have ever more literature on (academic) policy advice, we know very little on this field from a policy analysis perspective. This book has given a first overview here, but – due to data limitations, for example – it has not always been possible to identify ‘policy analysts’ from among general scientific staff, for example, in parliament or associations, in the sense that they actually employ the styles and methods for their work. This opens an important field for future research on policy analysis in Germany. A second central field of research is to compare the situation of German policy analysis with that of other countries.The different books in the International Library of Policy Analysis series will be a valuable source here. As Bandelow, Sager and Biegelbauer conclude in Chapter 6 of this book:‘Future research on the establishment of policy analysis beyond the German-speaking [and other] countries could be successful by using qualitative comparative analysis assuming figurative causalities.’ There are currently intense discussions and research on how policy-making uses evidence and knowledge under conditions of increasing uncertainty, and these should not remain disconnected from the critical discussion and shaping of policy analysis as a discipline.

Notes We would like to thank the anonymous reviewer, Larissa Bauschen, Peter Biegelbauer, Johanna Kuhlmann and Sylvia Pannowitsch for valuable suggestions, comments and discussions on this chapter. 1

This programme was called ‘Administrative Science’ (Verwaltungswissenschaft), but was clearly inspired by the policy schools popping up in the US during the 1960s (see also Chapter 3).

2

It was founded by the French occupational authorities along the model of the ENA (École nationale d’administration, French graduate school) with the aim of democratising German civil servants. It has been a major education institution for German jurists and government officials ever since.

3

14

Policy analysis in Germany: past, present and future of the discipline In 1970, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Living Conditions in a Scientifictechnical World, directed by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Jürgen Habermas, was established in Starnberg near Munich. It was closed in 1981; this is largely attributed to its pursuit of research questions that were too large-scale and all-encompassing (see Busch, 2009). In 1984, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne was established.

4

As Saretzki (2007, p 591) rightfully points out, the Hanover symposium was not (only) the fight of policy advocates versus ‘grandpa’s political science’ that it is sometimes portrayed as, but (also) the majority of participants argued for complementarity,‘or even integration, e.g., by trying to bring institutionalism to policy analysis.’

5

This excludes, of course, short descriptions of policy analysis in Germany, as they regularly appear in textbooks or other publications on political science in general. 6

To give but another example: Kraft and Furlong (2007), in the first part of Public policy: Politics, analysis and alternatives, introduce public policy (such as actors, institutions) and in the third part introduce different areas (such as economic and health policy). In between, which is arguably the centrepiece, they set ‘Analysing public policy’ with such sub-chapters such as ‘What kind of analysis is needed?’,‘How to find information’ or ‘Evaluative criteria for judging policy proposals’.

7

He refers to experienced cooks who, when asked how much spice a recipe needed, used to answer: ‘As much as it takes.’ Similarly, Wildavsky argues, with this applied discipline, the nature of the problem and the circumstances of the time will define what constitutes ‘policy analysis’ (rather than disciplinary boundaries, for instance). 8

The cameralism of the 17th and 18th century may be portrayed as a specific AustrianGerman version of mercantilism, developed as a doctrine orientated towards administration and economy (see Chapter 3).

9

The Initiative for a New Social Market Economy (INSM) is a think tank founded in 2000 and financed by employers’ associations. It focuses on economics, employment, social and education policy. 10

Compare also the discussions on the Juristenmonopol (monopoly of lawyers) among German civil servants. 11

In this context, this volume, as the first meta study on policy analysis, was confronted with the problem that policy analyses are conducted in many places and all those different fields dealt with by the authors – but they are often not named and recognised as such.

12

See www.indes-online.de; the journal (INDES Zeitschrift für Politik und Gesellschaft) is edited by Franz Walter, Professor of Political Science, Göttingen University.

13

Thanks to Rebecca-Lea Korinek for pointing to this in a discussion at the Congress Party of the German Political Science Association in Tübingen, 27 September 2012. 14

15

Policy analysis in Germany

References Blum, S. and Schubert, K. (2011) Politikfeldanalyse, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Busch,A. (2009) ‘Politikwissenschaft und Politikberatung: Reflektionen anlässlich der aktuellen Krise’, Zeitschrift für Politikberatung, vol 2, no 3, pp 467-84. Callon, M. (2009) ‘Civilizing markets: Carbon trading between in vitro and in vivo experiments’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, no 34, pp 535-48. Cronbach, L.J., Ambron, S.R., Dornbusch, S.M., Hess, R.D., Hornik, R.C., Phillips, D.C., Walker, D.F. and Weiner, S.S. (1980) Toward reform of program evaluation, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Dunn, W.N. (2010) Public policy analysis: An introduction, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice-Hall. Flick, U. (2006) ‘Qualitative Evaluationsforschung zwischen Methodik und Pragmatik – Einleitung und Überblick’, in U. Flick (ed) Qualitative Evaluationsforschung. Konzepte, Methoden, Umsetzung, Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag. Gellner, W. and Hammer, E.-M. (2010) Policyforschung, Munich: Oldenbourg. Greven, M.Th. (2008) ‘“Politik” als Problemlösung – und als vernachlässigte Problemursache. Anmerkungen zur Policy-Forschung’, in F. Janning and K. Toens (eds) Die Zukunft der Policy-Forschung.Theorien, Methoden, Anwendungen, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp 23-33. Greven, M.Th. (2009) ‘Deutsche Policy-Forschung aus kritischer Perspektive’, in K. Schubert and N.C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp 457-73. Hartwich, H.-H. (ed) (1985) Policy-Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Ihr Selbstverständnis und ihr Verhältnis zu den Grundfragen der Politikwissenschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Héritier, A. (1993) Policy-Analyse. Kritik und Neuorientierung, Opladen:Westdeutscher Verlag. Holtmann, E. (2004) Staatsentwicklung und Policyforschung. Politikwissenschaftliche Analysen der Staatstätigkeit, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Janning, F. and Toens, K. (2008) Die Zukunft der Policy-Forschung,Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Kraft, M.E. and Furlong, S.R. (2007) Public policy: Politics, analysis, and alternatives, Washington, DC: CQ Press. Lasswell, H.D. and Lerner, D. (1951) The policy sciences: Recent developments in scope and method, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Mead, L.M. (2011) ‘Reformiert die Politikwissenschaft! Die Misere einer randständigen Forschungsdisziplin’, INDES, vol 1, no 1, pp 126-37. Müller-Rommel, F. (1984) ‘Sozialwissenschaftliche Politik-Beratung. Probleme und Perspektiven’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vol 25, pp 26-39. Obinger, H., Schmitt, C. and Starke, P. (2013) ‘Policy diffusion and policy transfer in comparative welfare state research’, Social Policy & Administration, vol 47, no 1, pp 111-29. Ronge,V. and Schmieg, G. (eds) (1971) Politische Planung in Theorie und Praxis, Munich: Piper. Saretzki, T. (2007) ‘The policy turn in German political science’, in F. Fischer, G.J. Miller and M.S. Sidney (eds) Handbook of public policy analysis: Theory, politics, and methods, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, pp 587-602. Schmidt, M.G. (1987) ‘Vergleichende Policy-Forschung’, in D. Berg-Schlosser and F. Müller-Rommel (eds) Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, Opaden, pp 185-200. 16

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Schneider,V. and Janning, F. (2006) Politikfeldanalyse. Akteure, Diskurse und Netzwerke in der öffentlichen Politik, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Schubert, K. (1991) Politikfeldanalyse. Eine Einführung, Opladen:VS Verlag. Schubert, K. (2003) Innovation und Ordnung, Münster/London/New York: LIT Verlag. Schubert, K. and Bandelow, N.C. (eds) (2003) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse, Munich: Oldenbourg. Stoop, P. (2009) ‘Der kurze Frühling der Empörung. Erst ein Jahr nach der Gründung entbrannte 1970 der öffentliche Streit ums WZB’, WZB-Mitteilungen, no 123, pp 58-9. Wildavsky, A. (1987) Speaking truth to power: The art and craft of policy analysis, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Windhoff-Héritier, A. (1987) Policy-Analyse. Eine Einführung, Frankfurt/New York: Campus.

17

two

Historical forerunners of policy analysis in Germany Klaus von Beyme

This chapter deals with the historical forerunners of modern policy analysis in Germany and their imprints on the discipline today. In the early 17th century, Germany turned into a provincial political conglomerate. In this chaotic situation, only a few German thinkers were widely recognised, while the dominant influences came from Dutch, French and British philosophers. At the same time, starting with Heidelberg in 1386, there were intensive political and legal discussions in the newly created universities, competing between the different German territories. In this situation, Aristotelian thinking as well as the concept of ‘policies’ gained importance, and a typically German doctrine of ‘cameralism’ – directed towards administration and economy – was developed, especially at Protestant universities. But in the 19th century this tradition came to an end. This chapter studies these historical developments in detail, and shows how later political thinkers took up ideas from ‘cameralism’/ Polizeiwissenschaften, thereby influencing today’s German policy analysis.

Introduction In the early 17th century Germany turned into a provincial political conglomerate for several reasons. First, the trade centres moved westward to Holland and Britain. Meanwhile, the old commercial bourgeoisie of important centres such as Nuremberg, Augsburg, Cologne, and the Hanseatic cities near the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, such as Lübeck, Rostock, Danzig, Hamburg or Bremen, declined. Furthermore, the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), with its confessional split, led to a dogmatic narrowing of political thinking in Catholic as well as in Protestant areas. The ‘Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’ – according to an old joke, neither Holy nor Roman – was now also no longer ‘German’ because it became an object of foreign interventions from France or from Sweden.Three powerful German states – namely, Brandenburg, Saxony and Bavaria – concluded secret treaties with France, which contained a clause that these states would no longer vote for an emperor from the House of Habsburg, a clause which, according to The Peace of Westphalia Treaty (1648), was close to ‘imperial treason’ (von Aretin, 1993, p 359). And last, but not least, the German language had greater difficulties than French or English in overcoming Latin as a scientific language, although Martin Luther had contributed much to create a modern German language that preferred expressions close to people’s way of talking (cf von Beyme, 2009). All this contributed to Germany turning into a provincial political conglomerate. With the Empire being in such a chaotic political situation, only a few German thinkers were internationally recognised, such as Johannes Althusius or Samuel von Pufendorf. The dominant influences in Germany came from the Dutch intellectual Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) and from French and British philosophers. Nevertheless, 19

Policy analysis in Germany

there was an intensive political and legal discussion in many of the newly created universities – starting with Heidelberg in 1386 – as each territory tried to instruct its administrators in a modern scientific way in order to survive.

The discovery of policy and the heritage of Aristotle Compared to Anglo-Saxon countries, the German language had the disadvantage of being unable to express the various aspects of political life in a triad such as polity (the constitutional framework), politics (the decision-making system) and policy (the outcome of political decision-making). Germany followed the West European tradition with a predominance of Aristotelian thinking up to early modern times. In spite of this, Germany lagged behind the international development of political theory. Whereas some British philosophers – such as Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) – clearly opposed Aristotelian state philosophy, the Protestant universities in Germany were still dominated by it. Here it was a welcome counter-weight against the universalistic and eschatological concepts of the Empire in the work of Catholic thinkers. The Aristotelian definition of a person as a political animal seemed to support the independence of Protestant citizens from the power of the church above the political territories. At the same time, it was an important instrument against the scholasticism of many Catholic thinkers. The notion of politie in the work of Aristotle aimed for a good just order.The Latin translation politica was mostly perceived as a subject of political ethics. The German adaptation politic was introduced for the first time in the works of Ludwig von Seckendorff in his Teutscher Fürsten Staat (German princely state, 1665). He pretended to avoid the usual descriptions of a general theory of politics, but aimed at analysing the ‘order in most German principalities’.Thus, Seckendorff ’s interest was already in policies in a modern sense of the word. The quality of government and its policies was opposed to the usual general theories on regimes (Regiments), the latter remaining without much empirical evidence on the decisions of the princes. Since Seckendorff had served as chancellor of the German territory Saxony-Gotha, he had a deep insight into the way principalities were ruled in the German Empire. Seckendorff therefore hoped to show a dimension in his Umstände einer Policey (Circumstances of policy), which he did not find in the works of contemporary ‘writers’ (he used the negative term Sribenten). In the 17th century, most analysts described the political order (polity) or the policies. Politics as a decisional system was rarely touched because it seemed to be the privilege of the princes with the consent of the estates. Politics in that sense was rather treated in the rare Machiavellian treaties or in the time of declining absolutism and in the period of the French Revolution when ‘the people’ – organised in their estates – gained some influence. Oddly enough, the princes tried to minimise the influence of the estates by introducing welfare policies in favour of the ordinary people. These policies were not necessarily consented by the estates, which were dominated by representatives of the upper classes.

20

Historical forerunners of policy analysis in Germany

‘Reason of state’ and ‘sovereignty’ as new concepts in political theory The German Empire was no normal state in a modern sense. From the French philosopher Jean Bodin (1530–96) down to the German thinker Samuel von Pufendorf (1632–94) ‘sovereignty’ was used as the main feature of a state. That is why von Pufendorf (1994, p 199) called the Empire an ‘irregular entity, similar to a monster’ (‘irregulare aliquod et monstro simile’). Most treaty writers on state and politics in Germany, however, contradicted Bodin (1583[1962], II.6, p 321 ff; II.1, p 303), and remained conservative enough to think that the Empire was still a monarchy and not just an aristocracy or principate, as in Bodin’s work. The development from a polycentric system of states to a monocentric absolutist monarchical state in political theory was accompanied by an adaptation of Italian theory about the ‘reason of state’ in the tradition of Machiavellism – more often in Catholic territories, but with some delay also in Lutheran states. It first took the shape of a variation of old theories on the arcana imperii, the secrets of imperial power. But it was no accident that the rationalist theory of ‘reason of state’ promoted by the Jesuit Giovanni Botero (Della region di stato, 1589), in the German translation, published in Strasbourg in 1596, was smoothed down to Gründlicher Bericht von Anordnung guter Policeyen und Regiments (Fundamental report on the arrangement of good policies and political regiments). ‘Regiment’ was used for the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of polity. The expression policy already included the outcome of monarchical rule in terms of decisions. Giovanni Botero (1544–1617) dedicated his influential book to the Archbishop of Salzburg, Wolf-Dietrich von Raitenau, who did not, however, govern according to the essence of this book, and was one of the few German princes who finally lost his rule because he utterly exploited his citizens with his enormous expenses on constructing palaces and churches. Botero’s work represented a kind of modern welfare Machiavellism. Due to the devastation of the country in the Thirty Years’ War, Botero did not stick to Machiavelli’s main interest in internal security, defence and foreign policy. He almost invented new policy areas, such as population policy and social welfare policies, in order to win back the population’s trust in their princes – princes who had ruined their state fortune in continuous wars. The early Italian Machiavellians Botero and Boccalini had already differentiated between ‘good and bad reason of state’. Their German followers concentrated predominantly on the good sides of the ‘reason of state’. Botero’s treatise was frequently published in one volume, together with his essay About the causes of the Grandezza and magnificence of the cities (1588), which dealt with demographic policies. Botero was therefore sometimes considered a forerunner of Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), the famous British economist and demographer. The growth of the population was considered state capital, but only under the condition that it would not cause unemployment and poverty. ‘Workforce not capital’ was considered the foundation of wealth in a state. Infrastructure as a requirement for good trade conditions was emphasised. Botero and his German followers avoided the exaggerations of the utopian Italian literature on cities that regulated all the details – even visits to prostitutes. ‘Reason of state’ as a leading policy device was mainly adapted in Catholic German territories, whereas sovereignty was emphasised among those Protestant political thinkers who were in opposition to the Catholic emperor in Vienna (such as Samuel von Pufendorf, Hermann Conring and Bogeslav 21

Policy analysis in Germany

von Chemnitz). Germany was penetrated by the influence of foreign power, and it was not by chance that the intellectual Conring received subsidies from the King of France, and that von Pufendorf and Chemnitz were, for some time, in the service of the Lutheran kings of Sweden, who started a kind of imperialism south of the Baltic Sea on German territory (von Beyme, 2011). It was only in the 18th century that these denominational differences in the perception of the idea of a ‘reason of state’ withered away, when Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) adapted this notion in their work. Fichte’s works on the ‘reason of state’ included a foreign policy dimension, as they were occasionally directed against Napoleon’s rule in the declining Empire, which was abolished by French pressure in 1806.

The special German development of a Polizei-Staat (police state) The term ‘policy’ or Policey also had an evolution of its own. It was only later that some German princes narrowed the term ‘policy’ down to ‘police’ (Polizei). The German term for policy was Policey, which was increasingly absorbed by state activities in the sphere of internal security. The second connotation of policy got lost – one of the reasons why Germany had to adapt the English term ‘policy’ in modern discussions (regarding the terms used for ‘policy analysis’ in Germany today, see Chapter 1, this volume). Policy (Polizei) was reduced to a painful regulation of all social conditions of the citizens (Maier, 1966[1980], p 309). It was only when civil liberties were increasingly demanded that the absolutist theory of the purposes of the state and the normative speculations about happiness were criticised (Stolleis, 1988, p 246). The ‘police state’, or Polizei-Staat, grew into a term of insult in the liberal German tradition. Even the British traditions of Jeremy Bentham in ‘search of happiness’ have been rejected in liberal German political thought since Kant.

Development and traditions of Polizeiwissenschaft Modern absolutist rule increasingly differentiated the activities of the state.This caused the development of an allgemeine Staatslehre (general theory of the state). Later this new discipline was influential in the US via the work of the German immigrant Francis Lieber (1800–72), who is considered to be the founding father of American political science. The barren discussions about natural law were complemented by a positive legal and political science (Willoweit, 1975, p 364). The traditional theory of political wisdom abandoned its normative roots. However, only parts of the new differentiated branches of political thought, such as political economy and PoliceyWissenschaft, could match the achievements of West European political theories (Mohl, 1858[1960], vol I, p 34). The majority of writing on the Empire remained closer to thinking in terms of a Ständestaat (state of estates) than to Machiavelli’s doctrines on the Principe or to theories of sovereignty in the tradition of Bodin. Most writers on politics wrote on policy (Policey), which embraced all domestic affairs. Since the numerous territories in the German Empire were sovereign merely in their own perception, foreign policy played only a minor role, except in the biggest states such as Austria, Brandenburg (Prussia), Bavaria or Saxony. Politics was reduced to good order and Polizey, with increasing regulation of the social life of citizens. The theoretical concern for 22

Historical forerunners of policy analysis in Germany

welfare was the positive side of this activist and interventionist concept of the state. In France the theorists of mercantilism hoped to increase the income of the state budget by state activities in production and commerce. The German doctrine of ‘cameralism’1 – developed as a doctrine orientated towards administration and the economy – envisaged more modest aims. The cameralism of the 17th and 18th centuries may be portrayed as a specific Austrian-German version of mercantilism (von Beyme, 2009, p 27). Some universities started as Verwaltungshochschulen (high schools of administration), for example, Kaiserslautern, which was only later unified with the University of Heidelberg. Since the princes needed qualified administrators, professors of ‘cameralism’ frequently substituted the older teaching jobs on politics, mainly dedicated to political ethics. Policey or policy was a domain of lawyers and economists, taught in a rather philosophical way (for a discussion of the role of these disciplines in today’s German policy analysis, see Chapter 1, this volume). New universities were founded by small Protestant states, such as Marburg (1527), Königsberg (1544), Jena (1558), Helmstedt (1574), Altdorf (1578/1622), Herborn (1584), Gießen (1607), Rinteln (1620), Strasbourg (1538/1621), Duisburg (1655) and Kiel (1665). For a while, these small state universities – for example, Herborn or Helmstedt – produced leading political thinkers, such as the philosophers Johannes Althusius (1563–1638) and Hermann Conring (1606–81), who were both strongly influenced by Dutch thinkers. In the established Catholic universities, politics and policy remained a marginal discipline. All the professors in these mostly small universities wrote enormous quantities of treatises on politics and policy which remained mediocre and repetitive. One leading German historian (Meinecke, 1963, p 78) was shocked about the ‘true catacombs of forgotten literature of mediocraties’, which he discovered in his history on the ‘reason of state’. It was a period when German political philosophy in British and American histories of political thought gave only short treatment to the Lutheran thinkers, von Pufendorf and Althusius (cf Skinner, 1978, vol 2, pp 341-8). This early crisis of German policy sciences was only overcome when a more general philosophy of state and law was rediscovered in the leading Prussian University of Halle (with thinkers such as Christian Wolff and Christian Thomasius). Lutheran thinkers used to emphasise étatism or ‘statism’. These concepts were based on the Letter to the Romans 13, stating that ‘the Emperor should get what is due to the Emperor’.This attitude has promoted ‘a close relationship between throne and altar’. Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), one of the leading thinkers of Lutheran church reform, could still not find a political theory in the Bible. Therefore, those who followed him stuck to the teachings of Aristotle. Only a few thinkers, such as Dietrich Reinkingk (1651), tried to develop a biblische Policey (biblical policy) in order to find a ‘pleasant and fruitful policy (Policey) which pleases God’ and that allows one ‘to find rules to teach a social life which pleases God.’ In the tradition of von Pufendorf, German writers combined the theory of state sovereignty with an idea of welfare for the citizens – ‘Cold Machiavellian reason of state’ was mostly not accepted in petty bourgeois Germany. Even a German liberal, such as Robert von Mohl (1858[1960], vol III), in the 19th century, resented that Machiavelli (supposedly) taught that citizens should be left to their own private existence. He criticised Machiavelli for having no idea about the state’s purposes and the wellbeing of the people. The Catholic Botero, who was a devoted follower of Machiavelli, first used the ragion di stato in the title of the German edition of his seminal book (1596), thereby smoothing down ‘reason of state’ to suit German taste. 23

Policy analysis in Germany

The editor of this book, Lazarus Zetzner, hoped that the princes would fight against social poverty and proclaim general provisions for the citizens, mostly resumed until now in the term Daseinsvorsorge (public service tasks) in conservative thought. Von Pufendorf was not the deepest thinker of his time, but certainly an all-round writer with some influence on Rousseau and the American founding fathers. His books on policy were comparatively easy to read, whereas the older generation of writers on policies contributed unreadable encyclopaedias with thousands of footnotes – for example, Oldendorp, Reinkingk and Seckendorff. From the latter, only Seckendorff (1665) structured the policies into a general concept around the notions of law, peace and welfare. Church policies and educational policy were added later.The liberal jurist Mohl (1858[1962], vol III) criticised the German development towards an odd bureaucracy whereas Britain developed administration in many fields without metaphysical super-evaluations. Britain was lacking the predominant influences of the Junkertum (the landed aristocracy) and the Catholic Ultramontanism, waiting for instructions from Rome. German metaphysics of the state had only a few followers in Britain such as Bernard Bosanquet,Thomas Hill Green and John Austin.

The decline of the tradition of Polizeiwissenschaft In the 19th century the tradition of Polizeiwissenschaft (policy science, in the oldfashioned German sense) came to an end. Mohl was the last to write a book on Polizey-Wissenschaften nach den Grundsätzen des Rechtsstaats (Policy sciences according to the rules of a legal state). This contained the two basic notions that were to follow each other in the German tradition, which went from the absolutist ‘police state’ to the constitutional Rechtsstaat ‘legal state’. The legal state was important because it allowed constitutional government with representation in the estates which shared legislation with the monarch. Until 1918 governments in Germany and Austria were not dependent on the confidence votes of a dominant parliament, but they had to rule in an un-arbitrary way and implement the laws of the legislative bodies. German liberal thought, from Robert von Mohl down to Max Weber, still preserved some elements of a bureaucratic state in the limits of the legal state. Thinkers of German idealism, rather independent from political ideologies of that time, still preserved many ideas of the older ‘cameralism’ and sketched a rather authoritarian policy state. One example is Fichte and his work Der geschlossene Handelsstaat (The closed commercial state). In spite of its conservative image, Hegel’s theory of the police was rather progressive in social terms. In his Legal philosophy (1819/20, § 236), Hegel claimed that the ‘control of the police … should also take care of street lights, construction of bridges and taxation of daily needs and of the health of the people.’ For Hegel, poverty (§ 244) was not yet creating a ‘proletariat’ (he used the German expression Pöbel, a negative modification of the French word ‘people’) as long as the state cared for the poor. Immanuel Kant was the most explicit in refusing an enlightened despotism, even if it was embellished by Bentham’s search of happiness (see above). Kant (1964, vol 6, p 158f) – in polemical dispute with Gottfried Achenwall – was afraid that the empty formula of happiness might lead to situations in which the monarch, who wanted to make his citizens happy, would turn to despotism. The concept could also lead to the people turning to rebellion, because they would insist on their own concept of happiness.

24

Historical forerunners of policy analysis in Germany

Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote the most liberal version of a restriction of the state’s activities (1792, only published in 1851 in Breslau because the author was afraid of possible repressions). His work, which had a big influence on John Stuart Mill, restricted state activities to external and internal security. Even educational policy – for which Humboldt was temporarily responsible in Prussia – was not accepted by him (1960, pp 69ff) because it might cause too little or too much education and finally be rather ineffective, or even detrimental. The liberal Karl von Rotteck (see von Aretin and von Rotteck, 1839) wrote in a polemical way against the concept of a ‘welfare police’, emphasising that the main purpose of a state was to act as a legal state. German liberals were disappointed about the authoritarian development of French radical liberals in their welfare committee, and for a while, this contributed to the discrediting of welfare policies among many German liberals. Political theory began to liberalise in many continental countries via a theory of legislation. Pioneers of this field were the Italian thinker Gaetano Filangieri (1799[1833], p 9), who wrote a kind of encyclopaedia, and the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Bentham (1789[1961], p 323) aimed at a theory ‘most conducive to the happiness of the whole community, by means of motives to be applied by the legislator’. Legislation was frequently mentioned, even in the old policy sciences. It was considered, however, an art and not a science – even Bentham occasionally referred to legislation as an art. Legislation in the period of absolutism was part of the arcana imperii (secrets of rule) of the princes and their bureaucrats (mostly called Amtmänner in German, office men). It was a novelty in the era of the French Revolution that the science of legislation was no longer directed just at princes and bureaucrats, but also at parliamentarians and politicians. It was only in the second half of the 19th century that the law of administration lost its political policy impetus under the influence of legal positivism. Theories of legislation increasingly lost themselves in procedural techniques of parliamentary behaviour. Only certain conservative pioneers of administrative law, such as Ernst Forsthoff (1902–74), combined a fairly undemocratic concept of administrative law with an important impetus towards welfare policy under the slogan Daseinsfürsorge (public service tasks). This doctrine followed the older German tradition and yet it tended to be extremely modern in an un-liberal way. It was only after the Second World War that a reintegration of systematic democratic ideas of a legal order and the analysis of important policies was attempted (Schmidt-Aßmann, 1998; see Chapter 3, this volume).

Conclusion The Protestant ethics in Prussia fused in German history with policy ideas of an enlightened welfare state. Prussian enlightenment in the University of Halle began to subordinate theological thinking to modern rationalism, and there was much loose talk about a Prussian style. In the field of policy sciences, this style of thinking was welfare-oriented instead of liberal and ‘capitalist-minded’ (Lepsius, 1996). Germany was no social unit, and the conservative Hegelian Lorenz von Stein (1852[1961], pp 36f), in his pamphlet on the Question of a Prussian constitution, argued against a constitution. For him, a constitution only made sense when the territories were basically unified in social terms. Liberals could not accept this idea because the legal 25

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state and the constitution in the long run had helped create a certain social unity in many modern states – even in Prussia, which then extended from Aachen at the Belgian border to Tilsit near the Russian border. The Federal Republic of Germany’s Basic Law accepted the formula of a Sozialer Rechtsstaat (social welfare state based on law) that abandoned the authoritarian connotations of welfare policies in the older German tradition. In the second Empire, one of the leading professors of ‘law of the state’, Paul Laband (1838–1918), was still writing polemics against this kind of notion because it would ‘drag the sublime Rechtsstaat into the dirt of petty social quarrels’. In the Federal Republic, the Basic Law contains a last element of the old Prussian ideas as it gives federal legislation the right to create ‘the unity of living conditions’. Oddly enough, this formula, after the reunification of two rather different Germanys, had to be smoothed down to ‘equivalent conditions of life’ (Basic Law, Article 72, 2) in order to sound more realistic. As Greven (2008) has criticised, with its traditions in the obedient PoliceyWissenschaft, the modern policy sciences may also be in danger of applying technocratic perspectives, losing the critical distance towards its objects of investigation and losing sight of concepts such as ‘power’ or ‘interests’.2 Against this background, a nuanced understanding of the still visible historical traditions of German policy analysis is also essential for a discussion of today’s policy analysis, both its advantages and disadvantages. This chapter has contributed to such an understanding by showing how ‘policy’ in a sense (more or less) closely related to the modern concept that developed, from its ascent in the 17th and 18th centuries, to decline in the 19th century.

Notes The term ‘cameralism’ is derived from Kammerkollegium, a higher fiscal authority (cf von Beyme, 2009, p 27). 1

See Chapters 1 and 3 (this volume) on these reservations regarding policy analysis within German political science, which were discussed particularly in the 1980s. 2

References Aretin, J.Ch.A.M. von and Rotteck, C. von (1839) Staatsrecht der constitutionellen Monarchie (vol 2, 2nd edn), Leipzig:Volckmar. Aretin, K.O. von (1993) ‘Das Reich als Staat im Spiegel der Reichspublizistik’, in Das Alte Reich 1648–1806, Föderalistische oder hierarchische Ordnung 1648–1684 (vol 1), Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, pp 346-62. Bentham, J. (1789[1961]) The principles of morals and legislation, New York: Hafner. Beyme, K. von (2009) Geschichte der politischen Theorien in Deutschland 1300–2000, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Beyme, K. von (2011) ‘Schwedisches Imperium im Deutschen Reich. Ein vergessenes Kapitel der Imperien- und Mythenbildung’, in H. Bluhm et al (eds) Ideenpolitik, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, pp 71-88. Bodin, J. (1583[1961]) Les six livres de la République, Paris. [1961 reprint:Aalen: Scientia] Botero, G. (1596) Gründlicher Bericht der Anordnung guter Policeyen und Regiments, Straßburg: Lazarus Zethner. 26

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Filangieri, G. (1799) La scienza della legislazione. [Reprinted, Catania, 1833.] Greven, M.Th. (2008) ‘“Politik” als Problemlösung – und als vernachlässigte Problemursache. Anmerkungen zur Policy-Forschung’, in F. Janning and K. Toens (eds) Die Zukunft der Policy-Forschung.Theorien, Methoden, Anwendungen, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp 23-33. Humboldt, W. von (1960) Werke in fünf Bänden (vol 1), Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Kant, I. (1964) ‘Über den Gemeinspruch …’, in W. Weischedel (ed) Werke in sechs Bänden (vol 6), Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, pp 125-72. Lepsius, M.R. (1996) ‘Die pietistische Ethik und der “Geist” des Wohlfahrstaats oder: Der Hallesche Pietismus und die Entstehung des Preußentums’, in L. Clausen (ed) Gesellschaften im Umbruch, Frankfurt: Campus, pp 110-24. Maier, H. (1966[1980]) Die ältere deutsche Staats- und Verwaltungslehre (3rd edn), Munich: Beck. Meinecke, F. (1963) Die Idee der Staatsräson in der neueren Geschichte (3rd edn), Munich: Oldenbourg. Mohl, R. (1858[1960]) Die Geschichte und Literatur der Staatswissenschaften in Monographien dargestellt, Erlangen: Enke. [1960 reprint: Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, vol 3.] Pufendorf, S. von (1994) Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches (De statu imperii Germanici) (bilingual edn), Frankfurt: Campus. Reinkingk, D. (1651) Biblische Policey, Frankfurt 1653, 5th edn, Frankfurt, Bencard (edited by J.P. Zubrodt), 1701. Schmidt-Aßmann, E. (1998) Das allgemeine Verwaltungsrecht als Ordnungsidee, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Seckendorff, L. von (1665[1976]) Teutscher Fürsten Staat, Frankfurt. [1976 reprint: Glashütten (Auvermann), vol 2.] Skinner, Q. (1978) The foundations of modern political thought (vol 2), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stein, L. von (1852[1961]) Zur preußischen Verfassungsfrage (2nd edn), Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Stolleis, M. (1988) Geschichte des Öffentlichen Rechts in Deutschland, Reichspublizistik und Policeywissenschaft (vol 2), Munich: Beck. Willoweit, D. (1975) Rechtsgrundlagen der Territorialgewalt, Cologne: Böhlau.

27

Three

The development of policy analysis in Germany: practical problems and theoretical concepts Werner Jann and Bastian Jantz1

Introduction Policy analysis is both a rather new and highly successful sub-discipline of German political science. In the most recent reputational study (Falter and Knodt, 2007) among members of the German Political Science Association (DVPW) it ranks second, with 37 per cent of German political scientists naming it as their main area of work (after 58 per cent for comparative politics).The aim of this chapter is to describe and explain this remarkable success, at least in the academic sphere, by defining the major concepts, developments and changes of policy analysis in Germany in the last 50 years. We are interested in the most important topics and paradigms in the German discussion as well as in the relations with the other sub-disciplines of social and political science, with international discussions and last, but not least, with political and administrative practice in Germany. We ask what has been ‘typically German’ in this development and where the main inspirations came from. Our main argument is that developments in Germany have been heavily influenced by the international research agenda, especially from the US, but even more so by practical political and administrative discourses about the proper role and organisation of government and ‘the state’ (Jann, 2009).

Policy: the missing concept As has been observed many times (Heidenheimer, 1986), the German language does not have a specific term for ‘policy’. Politik signifies politics as well as policy, which makes it difficult to distinguish policy analysis from other forms of political science and analysis. Obviously, the concern with the formulation, implementation and effects of government activities also has a long tradition in Germany (see Chapter 2, this volume). Its historic roots can be traced back to the Policey-Wissenschaft of the 17th and 18th centuries which included legal, economic and financial aspects of public activities and covered all policy fields. However, this comprehensive approach disappeared during the 19th century as a result of the differentiation of the social sciences, and thus also the term ‘policy’. But not only did policy or Policey as a comprehensive term for government activities disappear, but also political science as a distinct academic discipline. ‘Government’ and ‘governing’ were interpreted as the execution of laws and thus the domain of law and constitutional lawyers.

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This only changed after the Second World War when German emigrants returned, blaming this state-centred and apolitical ideology for the breakdown of the Weimar Republic and contributing to the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany (Jann, 2003). But interestingly, these founding fathers of German democratic political science, while importing most of the theoretical concepts of American political science, did not import the term ‘policy’, even though some of them had been heavily involved in the development of the field in the US (for example, Carl Joachim Friedrich, one of the founders of the journal Public Policy). The reasons for this are quite understandable. The founders of modern political science in post-Nazi Germany were preoccupied with the comparative analysis of governmental institutions and with political theory in order to lay the foundations of a democratically oriented political science. Thus, they concentrated on the input side of the political system, describing and explaining what interest groups, elections, parties, parliaments, elites and political culture were all about and how they behaved. The focus was on polity and politics, but not on policies. The term and the concepts of policy and policy analysis therefore had to wait until the 1960s when the first generation of German post-war political scientists returned from their studies in the US. Back in Germany, they explained what they had learned about the modern concept of the political system, with its input, output and outcome functions, feedback loops and in particular the idea of Systemsteuerung, the steering function of political systems (Narr and Naschold, 1969). Moreover, they highlighted the importance of systematic policy advice for modern governments (Böhret, 1970). But the academic concern for these ‘missing links’ in German political science was not high enough to make them interesting for mainstream political scientists, and policy analysis did not flourish until the academic debate was pushed forward by distinctive political demands and discourses.

Planning and the organisation of government The discovery and adaptation of policy analysis within German political science is closely linked to the reform discourses of the 1960s, which soon after were known as ‘planning euphoria’. The new social-liberal coalition declared the modernisation of government and the federal bureaucracy to be a necessary step and precondition for developing a far-reaching programme of domestic reforms and active policymaking (Dyson, 1973; Wollmann, 1984, 1989). Assumptions of market failure and the insufficient steering and planning capacities of the state were seen as the common underlying dilemmas of the modern welfare state, better information and problem-solving capacities being the new and overriding challenges and objectives of administrative reforms. Traditional, incremental problem-solving was termed ‘reactive’; instead, aktive Politik (active policy-making) became the order of the day. Even though this discourse had been started by conservative supporters of the strong state, the theoretical foundations no longer came from law and traditional political science, but increasingly from macroeconomic theory and American policy science, with their strong rationalistic underpinnings. Solutions were seen in Keynesian macroeconomic interventions, in a reform of financial planning and in a radical overhaul of the machinery of government. Major instruments included the introduction of comprehensive planning systems

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such as the US-inspired Program Planning Budgeting System (PPBS), both at local and central level. High-level government commissions heavily supported this overall agenda of the active state, organising and structuring the public debate. The most important commission was the Projektgruppe Regierungs- und Verwaltungsreform (Project Group for Governmental and Administrative Reform).This internal commission of the federal government, appointed in 1967, became the nucleus of modern German public administration and policy analysis (as academic sub-disciplines) as a large number of aspiring political and administrative scientists were drawn into these reformist activities by research or consultancy contracts (among others, Renate Mayntz, Frieder Naschold and Fritz Scharpf). The commission carried out a variety of research projects aimed at improving the effectiveness of policy formulation and planning. The main questions revolved around government capacities and policy instruments as well as the institutional and organisational prerequisites for coping with modernisation challenges in different policy fields (Mayntz and Scharpf, 1973).Active policy-making in this understanding required sophisticated capacities for programme and policy formulation within the federal bureaucracy, steering capacities at the centre of government, for example, through strengthening coordination and information capacities, as well as the introduction of integrated planning and decision-making systems (Scharpf, 1970). Even though this was certainly an ambitious project, there was strong consensus between practitioners and scholars about two things: first, about the necessity to improve decision- making and planning capacities; and second, that analysis should play a major role within this concept through providing necessary information about political problems, conflicts and possible solutions, as well as the implications of the proposed policies. This was Lasswell’s classical concept of knowledge about and for the policy process. But the term ‘policy analysis’ was still widely unknown and not well defined; instead, the term Planung (planning) was used. Commissioned by the Projektgruppe Regierungs- und Verwaltungsreform empirical grounded research on decision-making practices was initiated for the first time, leading to the seminal work Policy-making in the German federal bureaucracy (Mayntz and Scharpf, 1975). Political decision-making and programme formulation was not perceived as an apolitical, rational process of selecting the best possible solution, but as a collective negotiating process which involved both bargaining and arguing, and which was influenced by the available resources, the power implications of the decision and the structure of the action system. Political problem-solving was thus perceived as an interaction process among different stakeholders with different interests, power and action orientation, as well as an information-processing exercise. It depended both on the information-processing (analytical) and conflict-resolution (interaction) capabilities of the ‘political-administrative system’ (PAS), a famous concept of those days. Obviously this approach was inspired by Robert Dahl, Charles E. Lindblom and Aaron Wildavsky, who, together with Herbert Simon and others, challenged the apolitical and technocratic approach of classical American public administration, promulgating a strict separation between politics and administration. From the beginning, it was critical of overly rationalistic and basically apolitical concepts such as Planning Programming Budgeting System (PPBS) and systems analysis. Mayntz and Scharpf built exactly on these political science-oriented approaches of policy 31

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analysis, even though criticising the ‘pure’ incremental perspective. The concept of aktive Politik, of active policy-making (Mayntz and Scharpf, 1973), is explicitly an alternative to incremental (‘reactive’) policy-making, emphasising the effectiveness of public policy to solve societal problems as well as the organisational prerequisites for effective policy formulation and implementation. In particular, the contribution and influence of administrative and bureaucratic factors across the various stages of the policy process provided an innovative analytical perspective compared to the traditional analysis of formal structures. The question of which political-administrative structures and processes were adequate to solve the problems and to meet the challenges of an expanding welfare state were seen as the central research topic of policy-oriented political science in Germany.The argument was to develop public administration and policy analysis as a new academic subdiscipline of political science – that is, in German terms, they were seen as identical (Scharpf, 1973). This new policy perspective was criticised, both by traditional political scientists who feared the neglect of conventional political institutions and processes (Hartwich, 1985), and in particular by neo-Marxists who denied the autonomy of the political system and its capacity to formulate and pursue policies not dictated by economic interests (Ronge and Schmieg, 1971). But from now on the term and concept of policy analysis were on the agenda and flourished ever after.

Comparative policy analysis Shortly after the term ‘policy’ and concern with the content, output and outcome of political programmes had been established in German political science, another prominent approach of policy analysis, developed in the US, gained influence in Germany: the problem of measuring and explaining policy outputs and outcomes in different jurisdictions and over time. ‘Comparative policy analysis’ in Germany again closely followed the US inspiration in four stages (Schmidt, 2003). In the first stage, concerned with the existential question of political science,‘Does politics matter?’, the question was also raised in Germany as to whether political decisions and policies, such as budget decisions or social spending, were at all influenced by political preferences and actors, or could be better explained through socioeconomic factors. This school in comparative public policy tried to explain, for example, the variance in the social expenditure ratio by the level of economic development, and argued that political ideologies had very little impact on social security programmes (Zöllner, 1963). The socioeconomic explanation of government activity was soon challenged by a second phase, as it was shown that one major explanatory factor for the variance in policy choices and policy outputs in democracies is the party composition of government.This ‘partisan theory’ conceived politics as a market in which politicians and governments delivered policies in exchange for support by their electorate.This implies that governments are capable of implementing the policies that were chosen by the incumbent parties (Schmidt, 1996). The dependent variables in the research of partisan theory in the last few decades have been enormous, ranging from the general level of government expenditure (Bräuninger, 2005) to the level of social expenditure (Schmidt, 1997, 2001) and more specific policy issues such as the level of privatisation (Zohlnhöfer and Obinger, 2005).The main achievement of this phase 32

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was that political factors were treated equally to socioeconomic factors in explaining policy outputs.The relative explanatory power, however, was restricted and depended on single cases (Schmidt, 2003).This became one of the arguments for more in-depth, case study-oriented research. The major question of the third phase of comparative policy analysis became how polity (in the sense of institutions) and politics (in the sense of political processes) influence policies (in the sense of policy outputs and outcomes). The contributions of the third phase mainly criticised former approaches for relying on a simplistic input–output model of the policy process without taking the intervening variables, such as institutions and the specific role of the PAS, into account. Concepts such as path dependency (Zohlnhöfer, 2008) or veto players (Tsebelis, 2002) became prominent. The third phase often combined different theoretical approaches and different independent variables, such as by Schmidt (2001), who used nine different variables to explain the variance of social expenditure in 21 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Most recently, in a fourth phase, questions about how government activities and policies can be explained through globalisation and Europeanisation have been analysed, although with ambiguous findings (Leibfried, 2000; Starke et al, 2008). All these studies share a focus on policy outputs as the dependent variable, using mainly quantitative data and methods, being internationally comparative and trying to include a large number of countries, mainly from the OECD world where empirical data are available. Over time this field has developed much closer ties to comparative politics than to other forms of policy analysis, German researchers very much following the mainstream.

Implementation and policy instruments More practically oriented policy analysis took another direction, when, following the oil crises, the late 1970s witnessed an economic downturn.When the down-to-earth problems of comprehensive planning and the implementation failures of high-flying public policies became evident, policy discourse changed. Attention turned from more or less prescriptive theories of planning and policy-making to empirical studies of implementation. The policy cycle, with its distinctive phases of policy formation, implementation and evaluation, became the underlying heuristic of most research. Strong parallels to the US can also be observed in the field of implementation research. The question why so many public programmes did not achieve their expected outcomes became a focus of interest in the American context in the wake of the ‘War on Poverty’ and the social action programmes in the mid-1960s. With their seminal study on the implementation of a programme targeting unemployment among members of minority groups in Oakland, Pressman and Wildavsky (1973) challenged the dominant view that implementation would somehow take care of itself. Roughly at the same time, implementation research in Germany developed into the central field of policy analysis, aiming to assess how far and why, or why not, the centrally defined goals and objectives of policy initiatives were achieved. Intra- and interorganisational coordination problems and the interaction of field agencies and street-level bureaucrats with the target group ranked as the most prominent variables accounting for implementation failures. Another explanation focused on the policy itself, acknowledging that unsuccessful policy implementation could not only be the 33

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result of bad implementation, but also bad policy design, based on wrong assumptions about cause–effect relationships. Poor implementation could destroy a well-designed policy, but even perfect implementation did not guarantee the realisation of policy goals if the policy itself was faulty (Mayntz, 1986). In Germany, this turn of policy analysis was heavily influenced by practical concerns. As early as 1974 the Advisory Council on Environmental Questions formulated the hypothesis that there were implementation deficits in the enforcement of the environmental protection law, and commissioned a series of investigations.A network of implementation research was subsequently set up and financed by the German federal government. At the same time, and again strongly supported by the federal government, the first evaluation research studies were commissioned and started the establishment of this particular field of policy analysis in Germany (Derlien, 1976; Hellstern and Wollmann, 1984). During this period the basic paradigm of policy analysis shifted away from the hierarchical top-down assumption of policy development by government and implementation by administrative agencies, towards a bottom-up perspective, emphasising characteristics of target groups and their reactions. Furthermore, the complex processes of policy development and implementation in public–private networks were included, leading to concepts such as the cooperative state and selfregulating societal systems. As in the first phase of policy research in Germany, these practical and empirical problems and results led not only to new and important empirical findings, but also directly to theoretical conceptualisations and reflections (Wollmann, 1979; Mayntz, 1980, 1983). The result was the development of the Steuerungstheorie (steering theory), of which again, Mayntz and Scharpf became the most prominent proponents.

Policy fields and networks Policy analysis focusing on implementation thus challenged the assumption of the state as the centre of gravity within society, and following from that, a research direction in policy analysis evolved, focusing on networks as an alternative to hierarchical political steering and control. When internationally more elaborate theories of policy networks became prominent (Heclo, 1978), for the first time German political scientists were part of these debates right from the start (Hanf and Scharpf, 1978; Marin and Mayntz, 1991). Policy networks were characterised by non-hierarchical, horizontal relationships between actors, sharing a more or less common interest in a policy or a certain policy problem and acknowledging that cooperation was the best way to achieve common goals. Researchers started to ask how networks between public, private and non-profit actors influenced processes of policy-making in order to better understand policy formulation and implementation processes. Moreover, scholars not only described these horizontal forms of steering, but also argued for the superiority of networks as they enabled the processing of more information, to take a greater variety of values into account, and to provide higher flexibility and adaptability. German Steuerungstheorie thus took up many aspects early on, which became internationally prominent under the label of governance some years later (Kennis and Schneider, 1996). As a consequence of the network focus, policy analysis moved even further away from a governmental to a societal steering theory because ‘where public policy is 34

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developed in policy networks, government is no longer the steering center of society’ (Mayntz, 2003, p 2).The internal structures, interaction modes and characteristics of the policy networks became more important than the organisation of the PAS. At the centre of this new line of discussion were different kinds of negotiating systems, including systems of self-regulation in the shadow of hierarchy, and since the beginning of the 1990s, network theory has also been increasingly used to analyse policy-making on a global level, especially in the European Union (Kohler-Koch, 1994; Börzel, 1997). Despite its popularity, the network concept also encountered criticisms. From an empirical point of view, Renate Mayntz observed that the problem-solving capacity of networks could be rather limited because it ‘poses the problem of how to agree on an effective problem-solution without shifting the costs this implies to outsiders’ (Mayntz, 1998). From a theoretical perspective, it has been argued that the network perspective has not been able to demonstrate that differences in the network characteristics have a significant impact on the policy output, and thus generalisations cannot be drawn (Raab and Schneider, 2007).

Arguments and ideas In Germany, policy analysis has always been closely linked to international trends. This is particularly true for the ‘argumentative turn’ in policy analysis that interprets policy-making as a system of competing discourse coalitions and their struggles to control shared meanings (Fischer and Forrester, 1993). In contrast to positivist policy analysis, especially its prescriptive, ex-ante variant, the argumentative turn portrays policy analysts as the producers of arguments and not as the holders of the best solution (Durning, 1995).Thus the influence of interpretations, discourses, metaphors, arguments, belief systems, knowledge and learning in the policy-making process became ever more important (Nullmeier, 1993; Saretzki, 2007). A strong inspiration for these developments was the fierce critique of the stage heuristic of the policy process (Sabatier, 1991, 1999). It argued that the stages model was suffering from descriptive inaccuracy because empirical reality did not fit the classification of the policy process into discrete and sequential stages, and nor did it offer causal explanations for the transition between different stages. Finally, the policy cycle framework ignored the role of knowledge, ideas and learning in the policy process as influential independent variables affecting all stages of the policy process (Jann and Wegrich, 2007). This fundamental critique triggered the development of alternative approaches, highlighting that ideas, norms and values, cognitive schemes and action orientation cannot be taken for granted but play a crucial role as explanatory factor in the policy process. Besides the ‘advocacy coalition framework’, the ‘multiple stream’ and ‘policy diffusion’ models had strong influence as particularly promising alternative frameworks within German political science (Bandelow, 1999; Rüb, 2009). All three approaches have in common that they emphasise the explanatory role played by ideational factors (interpretations, ideas and beliefs about public policies) as well as the importance of policy learning (Maier et al, 2003). The most influential of these concepts for German policy analysis have been policy diffusion and policy transfer. German research has given strong impulses for the debate about the Europeanisation of policy areas (Holzinger et al, 2007; Panke and Börzel, 2008), and also the role of policy brokers as agents of diffusion (Pautz, 2008; 35

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Fleckenstein, 2011) or the influence of transnational communication on policy change (Voegtle et al, 2011) have been investigated. German comparative policy analysis has also focused on processes of policy diffusion and convergence, especially in the field of environmental (Busch and Jörgens, 2005) and welfare (Starke et al, 2008) policy. Concerning original German contributions to the argumentative turn in policy analysis, the concept of a ‘political science of knowledge’ (Wissenspolitologie; Nullmeier, 1993; Nullmeier and Rüb, 1993) can be highlighted. In this approach, knowledge is – even when understood as technical expertise – not neutral or value-free, but used for strategic purposes to support and defend certain policy positions. Knowledge, the interpretation of knowledge and power relations are strongly connected. One of the major concepts in this approach is ‘knowledge markets’. They develop when different interpretations are competing for acceptance. Policy actors will try to monopolise knowledge markets in order to maximise their influence and autonomy over policy-making and to avoid alternative interpretations from the outset. To sum up, policy-making becomes the conflict over the interpretation of socially constructed knowledge and political science as the study of political power becomes the ‘political science of knowledge’. A more or less blind spot of these approaches was their neglect of structural and institutional factors. The last section therefore deals with institutional approaches in German policy analysis. While in the field of arguments and ideas German research has mostly followed and emulated international research trends, documenting the growing integration of German political science into the international mainstream, institutional theory has again been one of the areas where Germans have inspired the international debate.

Institutions and governance The institutional turn in the social sciences was taken up in German policy analysis in the mid-1990s when ‘actor-centred institutionalism’ (ACI) was proposed by Renate Mayntz and Fritz Scharpf as an overarching analytical framework for empirical policy analysis (Mayntz and Scharpf, 1995; Scharpf, 1997). ACI is not a distinct theory but is rather the summary of a large number of empirical policy analyses in different sectors undertaken at the Max Planck Institute in Cologne (see Chapters 16 and 17, this volume). ACI aims to develop common concepts and assumptions that make it possible to aggregate case studies and to develop and test theoretical propositions. ACI proceeds from the assumption that social phenomena, especially public policies and their outputs and outcomes, should be explained as the outcome of interactions among intentional actors. But these interactions are structured and their outcomes are shaped by the characteristics of the institutional settings in which they take place (Scharpf, 1997, p 1). Thus, actor behaviour is influenced, but not determined, by the institutional structure. The concept of institutions is rather narrow, defining institutions as ‘systems of rules that structure the courses of actions that a set of actors may choose’ (Scharpf, 1997, p 38). But this definition not only includes formal legal rules that are sanctioned by the court system or by governments, but also social norms that actors will generally respect and whose violation will be sanctioned by loss of reputation, social disapproval or withdrawal of cooperation and rewards. Institutions do not influence choices in a deterministic sense but rather facilitate and constrain the behaviour of actors. In explaining public policies and their results, ACI sees 36

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observable behaviour and interests by individual or collective actors as a ‘proximate’ cause, while the institutional context functions as a ‘remote’ cause. Another remote cause that influences actors and their preferences is the wider policy environment, including economic, cultural, technological and other factors. So, ACI combines an institutional with an actor-related perspective (Werle, 1998). In the words of Scharpf: At the most general level, we need a framework that conceptualises policy processes driven by the interaction of individual and corporate actors endowed with certain capabilities and specific cognitive and normative orientations, within a given institutional setting and within a given external situation. (Scharpf, 1997, p 37)

While ACI has been the key concept of German policy analysis and has been widely used in a large number of studies in different policy sectors (Mayntz and Scharpf, 1995; Egle, 2009; Petring, 2010), it has recently been overshadowed by a somewhat excessive governance discourse, also in German political science. Even though the governance concept has been criticised as ‘notoriously slippery’ (Pierre and Peters, 2000, p 7) or as an ‘empty signifier’ (Offe, 2009), in general the term ‘governance’ is associated with a change in the role of the state. Hierarchical mechanisms of steering and control are amended or even superseded by coarrangements and hybrid structures where public, non-state and private corporate actors participate and interact in the formulation and implementation of public policies. At the same time, the boundaries between public, private and voluntary sectors are shifting and blurring. While these observations were hailed as rather revolutionary by some Anglo-Saxon authors (Rhodes, 2007), they were, of course, recurrent fundamentals of German policy analysis ever since the turn towards implementation studies and network analysis. But, in contrast to traditional German policy analysis and ‘steering theory’, and even ACI, the governance concept has a much more explicit institutional perspective as it ‘refers to all institutions designed for the deliberate solving of collective problems, irrespective of the private or public character of the actors involved and the hierarchical or horizontal mode of their purposive actions’ (Mayntz, 2007, p 6). Obviously, the governance perspective takes up very traditional concepts and concerns of policy analysis but shifts the research focus from an actor-centred topdown perspective concentrating on the perspective of legislators and administrative actors and on domestic policy and the nation state, towards a perspective that highlights questions of coordination, guidance, control and policy-making in multilevel networks and institutional settings, including all kinds of private actors (Benz, 2005). Empirically, governance is thus an analytical perspective that allows for analysing hybrid structures and processes of collective action. However, governance also focuses on the effectiveness or efficiency of policies as well as the legitimacy and accountability of different governance arrangements.

Conclusion This chapter has argued that the development of policy analysis in Germany has been a major success, especially for academic political science. Since the beginning of the 1970s research in policy-making processes and structures has flourished, resulting 37

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in an impressive variety of approaches and empirical studies in all kinds of policy fields and about all phases of the policy process. However, German policy analysts have not only collected knowledge about specific policy fields, instruments, phases and outcomes; they have also contributed towards the conceptual and theoretical accumulation of these findings, developing the German version of Steuerungstheorie, of the cooperative state, network analysis, ACI and finally, governance theory. At the same time, policy analysis in Germany has utilised a great number of current theoretical approaches, from rational choice methodologies and the different new institutionalisms to more recent constructivist theories. In this, policy analysis no longer differs from other areas of political science such as international relations or comparative politics; it has become part of mainstream political science and is easily linked to other areas of the discipline. For most observers, this use of a plurality of concepts is not a weakness but rather constitutes its strength (Bogumil et al, 2006). Policy analysis not only participates in political science discourses but has actively influenced them, not least with its explicit inclusion of contributions from other disciplines, in particular economics and sociology. In this, German policy analysis is more genuinely interdisciplinary than most areas of political science. Finally, the explicit reference to practical problems and concerns has clearly been an asset. Policy analysis has advanced political science because it has been continuously inspired and challenged by current problems and practical issues, and has not relied on the dusty smell of academic self-reference. Despite the diversity of all these studies and approaches, there is a rather clear development of the main concerns and concepts of policy analysis in Germany. The keywords are planning, implementation, networks, ideas, institutions, and ultimately, governance. The main findings can be characterised by catchphrases such as: • declining confidence in hierarchical top-down control and steering and increasing importance of networks, network management and the co-production of public goods; • combination of various forms of policy instruments; • change of perspective from the steering capabilities of PAS to the characteristics and self-regulation of policy fields; • importance of bargaining, negotiation systems and knowledge; • new divisions of labour between government, business and civil society; • changing images of the state from active, slim, activating, to recently, the regulatory state; • and finally, the importance of internationalisation and the Europeanisation of policies and policy-making. During all these years the development of policy analysis and public administration as sub-disciplines of political science in Germany were closely intertwined (for more details, see Jann, 2009). Both became prominent in the early 1970s, and both are concerned with the relevance and effects of, in German terminology, ‘the state’ or, in international lingo, public, politically constituted actors in various policy fields, in different phases of the political process and in their interactions with other actors and institutions. For both, the organisational and institutional set-up of the public sector and the resulting enhanced or suppressed values, norms and interests are of central importance. 38

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Policy analysis and public administration as sub-disciplines in German political science have different priorities, but they are mutually supportive (Jann, 2009). If one tries to understand, explain and improve public policies, policy-making and policy content, one needs a realistic understanding of the organisational and institutional underpinnings of the public sector and the political system. Effective governance requires not only adequate knowledge about the object of policy-making, the policy field, but also about the subject, that is, internal structures and PAS processes. Furthermore, if one wants to understand the prerequisites of democratic and good governance and government, it is not enough to focus on internal structures and processes as the essentials for efficiency and effectiveness. To sum up, policy analysis has established itself as a major sub-discipline of political science in Germany, concentrating mainly on the ex-post analysis, explanation and evaluation of public policies. However, it has traditionally also been strongly interconnected with political and administrative debates about the modernisation of government, governance and the state. The success of policy analysis in German political science is thus the combined result of its truly interdisciplinary nature, its broad empirical base and its openness to new theoretical approaches or, as the title of this chapter indicates, of its innovative combination of practical problems with theoretical concepts. Recent developments support the expectation that policy analysis will not only prosper as an established and successful research field, but will also be integrated more strongly into political science teaching.Whether this will ultimately change the recruitment patterns of public administration in Germany and strengthen policy analysis within government is still unclear.

Note We would like to thank Jonathan Boston, Thurid Husted, Rebecca Korinek, Johannes Reichersdorfer and Markus Seyfried for their helpful comments.

1

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Derlien, H.-U. (1976) Die Erfolgskontrolle staatlicher Planung. Eine empirische Untersuchung über Organisation, Methode und Politik der Programmevaluation, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Durning, D. (1995) ‘The argumentative turn in policy analysis and planning by Frank Fischer and John Forester (Book review)’, Policy Sciences, vol 28, no 1, pp 102-8. Dyson, K. (1973) ‘Planning and the Federal Chancellor’s Office in the West German Federal Government’, Political Studies, vol 31, no 3, pp 348-62. Egle, C. (2009) Reformpolitik in Deutschland und Frankreich: Wirtschafts- und Sozialpolitik bürgerlicher und sozialdemokratischer Regierungen, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Falter, J.W. and Knodt, M. (2007) ‘Die Bedeutung von Themenfeldern, theoretischen Ansätzen und die Reputation von Fachvertretern’, Politikwissenschaft. Rundbrief der Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft, vol 137, pp 147-60. Fischer, F. and Forester, J. (eds) (1993) The argumentative turn in policy analysis and planning, Durham, NC/London: Duke University Press. Fleckenstein,T. (2011) Institutions, ideas and learning in welfare state change: Labour market reforms in Germany, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hanf, K. and Scharpf, F.W. (1978) Interorganizational policy making – Limits to coordination and central control, London: Sage Publications. Hartwich, H.-H. (ed) (1985) Policy-Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Ihr Selbstverständnis und ihr Verhältnis zu den Grundfragen der Politikwissenschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Heclo, H. (1978) ‘Issue networks and the executive establishment’, in A. King (ed) The new American political system, Washington, DC: AEI Press. Heidenheimer, A. (1986) ‘Politics, policy and policey as concepts in English and continental languages: An attempt to explain divergences’, The Review of Politics, vol 48, pp 3-30. Hellstern, G.-M. and Wollmann, H. (eds) (1984) Handbuch zur Evaluationsforschung, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Holzinger, K., Jörgens, H. and Knill, C. (eds) (2007) Transfer, Diffusion und Konvergenz von Politiken, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Jann, W. (2003) ‘State, administration and governance in Germany: competing traditions and dominant narratives’, Public Administration, vol 81, no 1, pp 95-118. Jann, W. (2009) ‘Praktische Fragen und theoretische Antworten: 50 Jahre PolicyAnalyse und Verwaltungsforschung’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, vol 50, no 3, pp 476-505. Jann,W. and Wegrich, K. (2007) ‘Theories of the policy cycle’, in F. Fischer, G. Miller and M. Sidney (eds) Handbook of public policy analysis: Theory, politics, and methods, London: Taylor & Francis, pp 43-62. Kennis, P. and Schneider, V. (eds) (1996) Organisation und Netzwerk, Frankfurt am Main: Campus. Kohler‐Koch, B. (1994) ‘Changing patterns of interest intermediation in the European Union’, Government and Opposition, vol 29, no 2, pp 166-80. Leibfried, S, (2000) ‘National welfare states, European integration and globalization:A perspective for the next century’, Social Policy & Administration, vol 34, no 1, pp 44-63. Maier, L.M., Nullmeier, F., Pritzlaff, T. and Wiesner, A. (eds) (2003) Politik als Lernprozess? Wissenszentrierte Ansätze in der Politikanalyse, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

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Zohlnhöfer, R. (2008) ‘Stand und Per spektiven der vergleichenden Staatstätigkeitsforschung’, in F. Janning and K. Toens (eds) Die Zukunft der Policy-Forschung. Theorien, Methoden, Anwendungen, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp 138-56. Zohlnhöfer, R. and Obinger, H. (2005) ‘Ausverkauf des “Tafelsilbers”. Bestimmungsfaktoren der Privatisierungserlöse in EU- und OECD-Staaten 19902000’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, vol 46, no 4, pp 602-28. Zöllner, D. (1963) Öffentliche Sozialleistungen und wirtschaftliche Entwicklung. Ein zeitlicher und internationaler Vergleich, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.

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Four

Professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany: on the way or faraway? Sylvia Pannowitsch

Introduction Since the 1960s policy analysis has developed as a sub-discipline of political science in Germany. In this development, a specific dualism between academic and applied policy analysis can be observed (see Chapter 1, this volume), although next to the explanation of policies, political advice forms the second general field of policy analysis. And while we have basic knowledge of policy analysis in academia, less is known about its development and characteristics in practice. In particular, the occupational areas for applied policy analysts have not yet been clearly identified. It is therefore important to ask what the status quo of policy analysis – in terms of its professionalisation – is, and whether the assumption of dualism between academic and applied policy analysis can be confirmed in this respect. The explorative results of this chapter also support the assumption of a German dualism between academic and applied policy analysis in terms of professionalisation: while it is on the way in academia, it is faraway in practice (yet). The chapter is structured as follows. In the next section, a short synopsis on the development of policy analysis in Germany and on the reasons for the specific dualism between academic and applied policy analysis is given.Two different aspects of ‘professionalisation’ are subsequently studied. After examining how universities prepare future policy analysts, occupational areas and working modes of academic and applied policy analysts are analysed. The chapter ends with a conclusion and an outlook for additional research needs.

Academic and applied policy analysis There are two general fields of policy analysis. On the one hand, analysis focuses on explaining the development and change of policies, and on the other, it aims at providing political advice about policy solutions and the policy process (WindhoffHéritier, 1987, p 115). In general, policy research deals with the question of ‘what governments do, why they do it, and what difference it makes’ (Dye, 1976, p 2).This rather narrow definition, however, with its governmental focus, should be extended to policy-making in the administrative sector and civil society. Policy analysis is thereby understood as research on policy-making, which takes ‘policy’ as its dependent variable, while ‘polity’ and ‘politics’ may be drawn on as independent variables. Policy analysts try to explain (political) outputs, to examine the conditions of decision-making and, finally, to improve policy outcomes. 45

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The sub-discipline of policy analysis in Germany developed comparatively late in the mid-1980s (Blum and Schubert, 2011, p 17), but has been very successful and well established since then (see Chapter 3, this volume). By the 1960s, however, policy analyses with a structural view (Schmidt, 1987) were being conducted, while ‘political actors’ largely remained outside the analyses. In a second phase, more actorcentred approaches came into the focus.The third phase observed mainly institutional aspects that limited the scope of actors’ opportunities, while current German policy research follows a broader perspective in facing both the issue of regulation and the control of companies. In the 1960s, the assumption that socioeconomic and structural factors determined political results limited the scope for political action, and the demand for an applied policy analysis answering non-academic questions was rather low. With the consideration of intervening variables, above all institutional and actor-centred variables, as important for policy output (polity and politics matter!), the existence of alternatives and opportunities for political action became apparent. In this context, the demand for policy advice increased, since political actors became more interested in the knowledge of the modes and mechanics of political processes. German policy analysis has produced to a comparatively large extent profound knowledge of the use and effects of these mechanisms on policies, and could therefore have strengthened the fit with the requirements of political actors for good, social scientific advice. A problem, however, was that the (mainly academic) analysis of policy outputs did not necessarily generate information about effects and policy outcomes. This led to the inclusion of implementation and evaluation within policy analysis. At the latest, from the mid-1980s, policy analysis has established itself besides the traditional fields of political science in Germany (Böhret, 1985, pp 240/270–5; see Chapter 3, this volume).The discipline is currently characterised by a practical and problem-solving orientation, among others (Saretzki, 2003, p 391), which also focuses on evaluation and political advice. Windhoff-Héritier (1987, p 116) has argued that policy analysis fits political advice quite well on four levels: first, it is prone to give advice during problem definition and targeting; second, in the development of (alternative) objectives and decisions; third, in the evaluation of the feasibility of solutions; and fourth, in the evaluation of implementation. Mayntz identified quite similar (2009, p 9) categories, with an additional focus on data provision, a permanent critical observation of political action, as well as the formulation of standards. Furthermore, political advice can be differentiated into political consulting, policy advice and polity advice. While political consulting is mainly about strategic and communicative advice, and polity advice is about regulatory and institutional configurations, it is policy advice that is about scientific advice and problem-solving (Mayntz, 2009, p 11; Färber et al, 2011, p 5). Considering this, within the discipline of political science, policy analysis seems to best meet the expectations of political decision-makers about advice (Müller-Rommel, 1984, p 26) because it analyses the process of policy-making and the effects and consequences of policies. It can thus contribute to the clarification and improvement of problem-solving, and it can give concrete instructions on how to act. Therefore policy analysts emphasise that their discipline has the strongest practical orientation within political science, and that policy analysts should also be particularly qualified to give political advice. For a long time economists heavily influenced political advice, but since the 1980s social scientists have 46

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also established themselves in this branch (Müller-Rommel, 1984, p 34).The problem is the linkage between policy-making and politics. In other words, good policy advice is hardly separable from considering the utility for political reality (Mayntz, 2009, p 14). Despite, in principle, the practical orientation, this requirement for successful political advice often conflicts with the self-conception of academic policy analysts. Academic research focuses on fundamental research, theoretical and methodological foundations as well as consistency. It tries to find the ‘truth’ and to generate (normative) secured knowledge (Hustedt et al, 2010, p 17), whereby it focuses on analysis, while leaving the ‘decision-making part’ to political actors (Windhoff-Héritier, 1987, p 118). Because of the complexity of the ‘real world’, academic policy analysts try to avoid pinpointing concrete instructions, and they care less about including details that are important in practice and for implementation (Mayntz, 2009, p 6). In contrast to this academic self-conception, political actors require fast, targeted, interdisciplinary, complexity-reducing analysis without specialised terminology, but with concrete instructions. Knowledge is needed that regards the context of power, which means that often advice about the political implementation is also required.1 Policy analysis is therefore confronted with two conflicting challenges: fulfilling academic standards and being politically applicable (cf Chapter 19, this volume). This may result in a conflict between scientific integrity and practical efficiency (Saretzki, 2003, pp 407f).Therefore, quite often, strictly academic policy analysis has, if any, only an indirect influence on political decision-making as both enlightener and critic (Saretzki, 2003, p 392). On the other hand, there has been an increasing demand for applied political advice (Sundmacher, 2005, p 162; Mayntz, 2009, p 5) and thus for applied policy analysis. To satisfy this demand, some researchers have called for an argumentative turn from ‘analysis as science’ to ‘analysis as argument’ (Fischer and Forester, 1993) to face the application problems of academic policy analysis.After this turnabout, policy analysis focuses not only on ‘truth’, but also on the practical applicability of arguments. It tries to pay more attention to the interests and norms of the political recipients of policy analysis and even to conceal facts and findings in consideration of the political context (Saretzki, 2003, pp 394-8). Hence policy analysis would not be non-political and neutral, but part of the practical argumentation process and a producer or even advocate of arguments. Mead (2011), however, still criticises a much too high scholasticism and a neglect of real world issues with regard to American political science. Most political scientists follow one-dimensional academic careers that disallow non-academic research. Although policy analysis is the sub-discipline in political science that is less affected by that, even in this sub-discipline, and especially in Germany, disconnecting processes of academic and applied policy analysis can be observed that end up in a dual distinction between academic and applied policy analysis. Kash and Ballard (1987) showed this distinction for policy analysis in the US.There, however, apart from aspiring to some kind of relevance, hardly any similarities existed between academic and applied policy analysis regarding the foci of work, the initiators, the goals, the attention paid to the application of their findings, the specifics of work and the addressee and communication schemes – which reflects the difference between academic self-conception and practical needs. Moreover, Kash and Ballard outline differences between the researchers themselves (1987, p 605).While applied policy analysts are part of interdisciplinary research teams, academic policy analyses are normally conducted by one or two researchers from the same or related disciplines. In applied policy analysis 47

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the research and explanation of complex problems seems to be more a means to an end than a goal in itself – as it is in academic policy analysis. Therefore, different motivations of academic and applied policy analysis can be identified – although academic as well as applied policy analysis focuses on (governmental) actors’ actions to resolve public issues and problems.The main purpose of applied policy analysis is to assist political decision-makers in the comparison and evaluation of policy alternatives and in the short-term improvement of policy-making processes. In contrast, academic policy analysis tries to understand the policy process and implementation to improve policy-making in the long term.Against this background, two different kinds of policy analysis – an academic and an applied one – seem to exist. The first concentrates on research following scientific demands and the second concentrates on following the demands of the (increasing) branch of political advice. Furthermore, according to Kash and Ballard, most academic researchers were professional social scientists and only a few were in non-academic positions (less than 10 per cent), and even these mostly held at least social science PhD degrees (1987, p 605). In contrast, in the research teams of applied policy analysis, social scientists were only one group beside natural scientists, engineers or lawyers. There therefore seem to be differences between academic and applied policy analysts in terms of their careers as well. Policy analysts worked less often simultaneously in academia and in consulting and personnel exchange between the areas seemed to be unusual, also in the long run.

Professionalisation of academic and applied policy analysis Also in Germany, there are apparently many points that indicate a dualism between academic and applied policy analysis – not only concerning research itself, but also research personnel. It is therefore of great interest whether and where applied policy analyses take place, and whether professionalisation can be observed.To answer these questions, we need to know how university programmes on public policy analysis qualify students, and in which positions the graduates end up.This chapter therefore tries to analyse two different aspects of the ‘professionalisation question’. First, the self-descriptions of university programmes on policy analysis were examined to find out how universities prepare future policy analysts. Second, the status quo of academic and applied policy analysis were analysed on the basis of (rare) graduate surveys (Absolventenstudien) of political science. And an explorative survey was conducted with students whose course specialisation was on policy analysis. Due to data limitations, however, this chapter is only an explorative look into the field. Nevertheless, with a look at practitioners’ positions, initial assessment can be made as to what extent policy analysts also work outside academia, and where. The assumption is that they do work outside academia (using modes and methods of policy analysis and a stronger focus on political actors’ demands), but without denoting their work as ‘policy analysis’. This may promote a dualism between academic and applied policy analysis along with the focus of academic policy analysts on working inside academia only. Questioning whether there has been a professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany, the terms ‘policy analysis’ as well as ‘professionalisation’ need first to be clarified. A broader and more differentiated definition of current German policy analysis better fits the focus on modes of policy analysis. Therefore the term ‘policy analysis’ is understood here to include all kinds of public policy, public management 48

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and public governance.2 Policy analysts are operationalised as employees who apply the methods and modes of policy analysis in their occupation. Professionalisation of policy analysis is understood as a ‘process of acquiring authority based on recognised expert credentials that may include formal training, degrees, certification, and particular types of experience’ (Brooks, 2007, p 23). It is characterised by a formation of special methods and modes, special skills, special training and education (credentialism), a professional identity with special occupational areas and finally, by the formation of professional associations (Heidenreich, 1999, pp 37-43). Looking at the aspect of special training and education raises the question as to whether there are special university programmes on policy analysis. In Germany there are a number of Bachelor’s degree programmes in political science (and a few in public administration) and Master’s degree programmes in public governance, political science, public policy or public management with a focus on policy analysis (see Chapter 18, this volume). A specific training and education of policy analysts has at least therefore been established.With regard to the descriptions of the Master’s programmes with a denomination of ‘public policy’ or ‘public management’ in their programme titles3 and their outlined learning objectives, the following methods and modes of policy analysis could be identified: • • • • • • • •

observing and explaining policies (political output) and politics analysing problem-processing in the political-administrative system (PAS) analysing actors or networks analysing institutions analysing policy instruments or governance estimating the practicability of political measures evaluating political measures (outcome) developing solutions (political advice).

General graduate surveys as well as specific graduate surveys of political science show that the qualifications students acquired during their university studies were indeed used in practice.The Kooperationsprojekt Absolventenstudien (KOAB, cooperative project on graduate surveys) surveyed more than 40,000 graduates from different disciplines in 2011, and concluded that the study subject or programme and subjectspecific knowledge was an important recruiting criterion for employers (Kooij and Löwenstein, 2011, p 69). A more detailed analysis of a previous survey version from the Institute of Political Science at the University of Münster from 2008 (Magister graduates) shows that more than half of the political science graduates used the skills they acquired at university to a (very) large extent in their later jobs (Tusch, 2008, p 6). However, only 15 per cent of graduates believed that studying political science was mandatory for working in their occupational area. A survey from the University of Cologne, conducted in 2003 among all Magister graduates who studied political science as their major between 1995 and 2001, shows that the topic of the thesis played a role in finding a job. Here as well, 43 per cent of the respondents used their learned methods and modes in their jobs – but an almost equally large group (41 per cent) only seldom did (Thull, 2004). Nevertheless, for 23 per cent the university qualification was even a prerequisite for landing the job in the first place.The Faculty of Social Sciences at the Ruhr-University Bochum (Habenicht et al, 2002) determined 49

Policy analysis in Germany

in a survey of graduates between 1990 and 2001 that for 43 per cent of the graduates, technical expertise and for 30 per cent, the thesis topic (Diplomarbeit), was important for their later job; 37.9 per cent of respondents also stated that they used the skills they acquired at university in their jobs. Unfortunately, there are no similar graduate surveys just for policy analytic university programmes, and there are no studies regarding the differences between academic and applied policy analysis for Germany. But it is almost certain that the results from the studies that concentrated on graduates in general and on social/political science graduates specifically are also valid for graduates of policy analytic university programmes. An exploratory survey among 46 graduates who had a formal focus on policy analysis in their university programmes further proves this impression. For this survey, we contacted graduates who did policy analysis in their Bachelor’s thesis at the University of Münster (2007–11) or at the FernUniversität Hagen (2008–11) as well as alumni from the Technische Universität (TU) Braunschweig (via Absolventenverein, ALSOWI) and at the University of Konstanz (via KonNet) in the summer of 2011 to complete an online questionnaire. Among those, the ones who confirmed a formal focus on policy analysis were taken into the survey.4 The survey was designed to compensate for the absence of graduate surveys for university programmes specialising in policy analysis.This was mainly due to the limited time for which these programmes had been installed and the therefore (yet) missing graduates. Political science diploma and Magister degree programmes, however, were less specialised – even if students could make a specialisation by the choice of their courses. Due to its small size (n = 46) and the way of identifying the participants (by a formal study focus on policy analysis), this survey was only explorative. Nevertheless, it allowed us to get an idea of whether the graduates with a focus on policy analysis did policy analysis primarily when they worked in academia, or to what extent there was an applied policy analysis in Germany as well. All respondents within the survey had learned at least one typical mode of policy analysis during their studies. Almost half of them learned more than six out of eight surveyed modes. In university studies most respondents observed and explained policies (output) and analysed actors and networks or institutions. Fewer respondents (60–70 per cent) analysed problem-processing in the PAS and political instruments. Half estimated the practicability of political measures and evaluated political measures (outcome), but only about one third developed political solutions (political consulting). Altogether, most graduates used at least one major mode of policy analysis: (1) explaining policies (output); or (2) making recommendations for solutions; or (3) evaluating the outcomes of existing policies. Looking at the actually practised modes of policy analysis in the job, it is obvious that most of the graduates operated effectively as applied policy analysts. Approximately one fifth of respondents did not use any of their skills in policy analysis in their jobs although they acquired them during their studies.About another fifth worked in the area of academic research, what means that about 60 per cent were some kind of application-oriented policy analysts. All modes of policy analysis were less used in practice than in university studies, but all of them were used relatively equally by about 30–50 per cent of the respondents. Hence, in relation to the other modes, the development of solutions and the evaluation of political measures were more important in practice. In 17 per cent of the cases, the knowledge of policy analysis was even important to get the job in the first place. At the same time, for about one quarter of the respondents, their knowledge of 50

Professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany

policy analysis was important for their career choice – but mainly for those who did academic research (35 per cent). It can therefore be assumed that there was a fairly high proportion of applied policy analysis, without necessarily using that term, and that skills in policy analysis were noticed by graduates as well as employers as required qualifications. In most cases, however, both sides did not regard these skills as key qualifications. Besides the existence of special skills and education, another criterion for the emergence of a profession is the existence of specific occupational areas.An evaluation of the occupational areas outlined in the programme descriptions of the Master’s programmes focused on policy analysis5 shows that all of them named the fields of public administration and government (at local, national and international levels) as an occupational area for their students. Almost all programmes further mentioned non-governmental organisations (NGOs), (national and international) organisations and civil society as well as the private sector, including business and political consulting as occupational fields. Less often addressed occupational areas were direct political actors such as political parties, factions and members of parliament as well as an academic career. Only a few programmes mentioned jobs in education and in the areas of media and public relations (PR). These occupational areas differed little from those for political scientists in general. According to the Bundesarbeitsagentur (German Federal Employment Agency), political scientists work most frequently in the areas of academic research, public administration, media, political institutions, parties or party-affiliated foundations, unions and associations or in political education, public agencies or the private sector. Catón et al (2005, pp 21-9) and Wagner and Sehring (2012, p 476) identify very similar career paths: university and research, private services, media, public administration, public and social services, (international) organisations, unions, associations and foundations as well as political parties or parliaments. Different graduate surveys of social science and political science university programmes confirm these occupational areas, although they differ in the detail. On the one hand, this results from different categorisations of occupational areas, and on the other, it follows from the different points of collection (for example, first job versus current job). Nevertheless the results are roughly consistent with those of graduates with a focus on policy analysis. The generally observed trend in social sciences that the majority of graduates (usually about one third) end up in the private sector is also striking for policy analysts, but approximately more than half of them (17 per cent of all graduates) work in the area of (political) consulting and only 10 per cent in other private businesses. Furthermore, policy analysts work significantly more often as general political scientists in organisations/associations and in public administration. However, although public administration is one of the central occupational areas for policy analysts, it does not seem to have the exposed position usually mentioned in the programme descriptions, because just 12 per cent of the graduates worked in public administrative jobs. This is more than the average political scientist does, but less than expected. About 14 per cent of the respondents with skills in policy analysis worked or have worked for different kinds of associations or organisations. Nineteen per cent worked in academia (10 per cent at universities and 9 per cent in other scientific research institutions) (see Figure 4.1).

51

Policy analysis in Germany Figure 4.1: Overview of occupational areas of policy analysts and political scientists

Note: *Political scientists at the University of Duisburg-Essen, 2006-07 (Bender et al, 2008); political scientists at the University of Mannheim 2009/10 (Magister) – first job (Holzleiter et al, 2011); political scientists at the University of Cologne 1995-2001 (Magister) (Thull, 2004); social scientists at Ruhr-University Bochum 1990-2001 (Diplom) (Habenicht et al, 2002); political scientists at the University of Marburg 1993-2000 (Diplom and Magister) (Jahr et al, 2003, p 433).

But which modes of policy analysis were graduates in the various occupational areas actually using? Observing political decisions and policy outputs was part of the work in almost all occupational areas, especially in PR, marketing and media, academic research, the public sector and in (political) consulting. Three quarter of graduates working in (political) consulting or education and NGOs or organisations analysed and explained problem-processing, instruments, actors and institutions and about half in academic research, the public sector and in PR and marketing did so. Fewer respondents evaluated political measures. Most did in academic research, and just a few less (about 40-50 per cent) in education, NGOs and organisations, PR and marketing or the public sector. Unsurprisingly the provision of expertise was quite important in (political) consulting. It was less often used in the area of academic research (only by about 50 per cent), that is, even behind NGOs and organisations and education. Furthermore those working in the private sector outside the consulting branch only seldom used their skills in policy analysis, but those inside the consulting branch worked above-average with methods and modes of policy analysis. All graduates who claimed that they did not conduct policy analysis in their jobs did not set value on that in their career choice, and nor was it demanded by the employer in those cases. In those few cases graduates worked in all central occupational areas of policy analysis (public administration, the private sector and organisations). But at the same time, graduates who used the most and varied modes of policy analysis were also represented in these occupational areas. The graduates who wanted to use their skills in policy analysis and made a respective career choice were mostly doing academic research, (political) consulting or work in public administration. The academic research and the (political) consulting were,

52

Professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany

moreover, the occupational areas where skills in policy analysis were mostly required by employers (by about one third). A survey of PhD graduates in political science at Freie Universität Berlin further shows that the rate of graduates choosing an academic career increased with that level of degree as compared to lower degrees – 40 per cent of those with a PhD worked at universities or in other academic institutions after their degree (Strobel, 2009).There are no comparable surveys for policy analysis PhD graduates, but similar results can be expected. The exploratory survey identified no new occupational area – which had not been expected, given the large range of occupational areas for political scientists. What was unexpected, however, was the relatively small proportion of graduates working in the public sector. However, this could possibly be attributed to the fact that in (public) administrative sciences (not analysed here), skills and modes of policy analysis have also become part of the curricula, or due to a distortion of results because of the small sample size. Anyway, a specific central occupational area for policy analysts could not be determined.

Conclusion Regarding the question as to whether there is a professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany, and if a dualism between academic and applied policy analysis can be observed, the findings confirm the latter by differentiating the first assumption. Policy analysis has been taught within special university programmes since the mid-1980s and has been more focused since the Bologna process (see Chapter 18, this volume). These university programmes convey a special knowledge of policy analysis, with special methods and modes. On the one hand such developments support the assumption of a professionalisation of policy analysis. On the other hand some requirements have not been fulfilled – at least not by ‘applied’ policy analysis. Employers’ low demand for skills in policy analysis and the low importance of skills in policy analysis for getting the job show that those skills are neither perceived as unique nor as essential or irreplaceable. This result corresponds with the findings for political scientists in general: although graduates used the skills they acquired at university in their jobs, studying political science was not the only possible university course in order to get/do the job. This was especially true for graduates working outside academia. Although modes of policy analysis were used outside the academic field, there was no formation of a professional understanding as policy analysts. Unlike those in the English-speaking world, German employment offers (almost) never require policy analysts in particular, or demand a qualification in policy analysis in the job description. Only in German academia do policy analysts partly gain a professional identity in the denomination of research foci, the denomination of professorships or the establishment of working groups in professional associations such as the Deutsche Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft (German Political Science Association). Therefore, a dualism between academic and applied policy analysis regarding professionalisation can be confirmed. While professionalisation is on the way in academia, it is (as yet) faraway in practice.This does not mean that there is no applied policy analysis in Germany; it seems, however, that methods and modes of policy

53

Policy analysis in Germany

analysis have not been noticed and named as such, which is a crucial criterion for professionalisation. The absence of a professionalisation of applied policy analysis in Germany may, on the one hand, be due to its relatively short history as a discipline in Germany. On the other hand, it may result from the lack of personnel overlap and exchange between academic and applied policy analysts in Germany (as this exchange is much higher and more normal and accepted in other countries).There is only a little interdisciplinary work between academia and applied work resulting in a distinction between different types of political advisers. Against the background of Weiss’s work (1976) and Archibald’s (1970), in 1987 Windhoff-Héritier had already come up with a division between the ‘academic’ policy analyst, the ‘clinical’ policy analyst and the strategist.6 Similarly, Färber et al (2011) distinguish between commercial political advisers (oriented towards the market, applicability and profit) and scientific political advisers (oriented towards scientificity, concepts and knowledge) – and some institutions in between (see Table 4.1). Furthermore, another distinction names ‘administration’ as a provider of political advice. Table 4.1: Typology of political advisers providing policy advice Typology by provider

Form of advice: policy

Market-shaped

Scientificity

Orientation

High

Low

Applied

Mainly commercial consulting Public affairs agencies Communication agencies Consultants

X

High

Unclear

Both

Market research institutes

X

High

Unclear

Applied

Academic institutes

X

limited

high

Conceptual

Expert/government-appointed commissions

X

No

High

Conceptual

Academic advisory councils

X

No

High

Conceptual

Think tanks

X

Low

Medium

Both

Single consulter

X

High

Unclear

Unclear

Independent foundations

X

Low

Medium

Conceptual

Mainly scientific consulting

Scientific and commercial consulting

Source: According to Färber et al (2011, p 6)

Although modes and methods of policy analysis are also used in practice, they are not named as policy analysis because in Germany the term is strongly related to the kind of pure policy analysis with an academic background. The stronger foci on developing recommendations/solutions, on working in interdisciplinary teams with a manifold set of modes and methods, makes it hard for applied studies to fit into this pure model, while it is much easier for academic ones. Nevertheless, there is an applied policy analysis in Germany providing political advice, and it is not surprising that if certain occupational areas for policy analysts outside academia should be named, a highly frequented use of modes of policy analysis in (political) consulting 54

Professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany

is to be noted. This fits with Mintrom’s findings, who identifies consulting – besides employment in government agencies – as the main occupational area for policy analysts as practitioners (2011, pp 19-20). But likewise, the mentioned differences also make it difficult for academic research to reach political attention. However, a growing integration of academic personnel and a higher usage of methods of policy analysis in commercial consulting can be observed (Färber et al, 2011, p 6), which may lead to a convergence between academic and applied policy analysis, although this convergence must be limited as long as the self-conception of academia does not accomplish the demands of practice.Thus, until now, the German dualism seems to be preserved because there is only limited transfer of professionalisation from the academic to the applied policy analysis, or the chance to create a collective identity. Although this explorative survey gives a first indication of the status quo of the professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany, it is far from being representative. The question as to how far applied policy analysis coincides with the academic one therefore deserves further more representative research that should at least answer: who are the policy analysts (and in which occupational areas outside academia do they work)? Do they perceive themselves as policy analysts and do their employers? What are their unique skills? In what ways do applied policy analysts distinguish themselves from the academic ones (self-conception, used methods and modes, aims, attended university programmes)? Graduate surveys of all policy analytic university programmes (see Chapter 18, this volume) should therefore be carried out to identify the occupational areas in which graduates of these programmes work, the modes of policy analysis used and the labelling as policy analysis. Moreover, surveys among non-academic political consultants should be conducted to examine if modes of policy analysis are used despite an educational background in policy analysis, and to what extent there is an applied policy analysis completely detached from the academic one. Last but not least, studies on the exchange rate of policy analysts between the academic field and the applied one would be valuable.

Notes Mayntz distinguishes here between policy advice and political consulting, but realises that in the ‘real world’ the distinction is difficult, and that pure policy advice is often not implemented (Mayntz, 2009, pp 11-12).

1

In German political science the terms ‘policy analysis’, ‘policy studies’, ‘policy science’, ‘public policy’,‘comparative public policy’ and the common German term Politikfeldanalyse are largely used synonymously (Blum and Schubert, 2011, p 10). 2

This is in contrast to Reiter and Töller in this volume (Chapter 18), who also considered programmes with a specialisation on policy analysis in the curricula. 3

A focus on policy analysis was determined if one of the following criteria was met: (1) students having a policy-oriented focus in their major courses (Hauptstudium), the modules of their Bachelor’s programme, or the modules of their Master’s programme; (2) students having a policy-oriented focus in their thesis topic; and (3) students who stated having a focus on policy analysis. 4

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Policy analysis in Germany In contrast to Reiter and Töller in this volume (Chapter 18), only 13 Master’s programmes that had the terms ‘policy analysis’,‘public policy’ or ‘public management’ in the title were considered, and not those with specialisation only in the curriculum.

5

‘Academic’ policy analysts concentrate on the scientificity of their research and care less about applicability. ‘Clinical’ policy analysts consider the organisational and political context in their research, and strategists try to bridge the gap between scientific research and practical constraints (Windhoff-Héritier, 1987, p 133).

6

References Archibald, K.A. (1970) ‘Three views of the expert’s role in policy making systems analysis, incrementalism, and the clinical approach’, Policy Science, vol 1, no 1, pp 73-86. Bender, M., Hanf, A., Hoppe, M. and Winkler, L. (2008) Politikwissenschaftler der Universität Duisburg-Essen in Studium & Beruf – Ergebnisse der Absolventenbefragung 2006–2007, Duisburg: Politikwissenschaftliches Studenten-Netzwerk. Blum, S. and Schubert, K. (2011) Politikfeldanalyse (2nd edn), Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Böhret, C. (1985) ‘Ein Bericht für das 1.Wissenschaftliche Symposium der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft (November 1984) in Hannover’, in H. Hartwich (ed) Policy-Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Ihr Selbstverständnis und ihr Verhältnis zu den Grundfragen der Politikwissenschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 216-320. Brooks, S. (2007) ‘The policy analysis profession in Canada’, in L. Dobuzinskis, M. Howlett and D. Laycock (eds) Policy analysis in Canada: The state of the art, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp 21-47. Catón, M., Leininger, J., Stöver, P. and Zilla, C. (2005) ‘Politikwissenschaft in Studium und Beruf ’, in M. Catón, J. Leininger, P, Stöver and C. Zilla, (eds) Politikwissenschaft im Berufs. Perspektiven für Politologinnen und Politologen, Münster: LITVerlag, pp 13-30. Dye, T. (1976) Policy analysis: What governments do, why they do it, and what difference it makes, Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Färber, G., Salm, M. and Zeitz, D. (2011) ‘Renaissance wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung? Eine Neubewertung wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung aufgrund veränderter Rahmenbedingungen und ihre Konsequenzen für die Akteure’, Zeitschrift für Politikberatung, vol 4, no 1, pp 1-13. Fischer, F. and Forester, J. (eds) (1993) The argumentative turn in policy analysis and planning, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Habenicht, K., Ortenburger, A. and Tegethoff, H. G. (2002) Absolventenbefragung an der Fakultät für Sozialwissenschaften (www.sowi.rub.de/mam/content/fakultaet/ qualitaet/biss2.pdf). Heidenreich, M. (1999) ‘Berufskonstruktion und Professionalisierung. Erträge der soziologischen Forschung’, in H. Apel, K.-P. Horn, P. Lundgreen and U. Sandfuchs (eds) Professionalisierung pädagogischer Berufe im historischen Prozess, Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt, pp 35-58. Holzleiter, T., Pöhlmann, L. and Brüderl, J. (2011) Absolventenstudie 2009/2010 der Fakultät für Sozialwissenschaften, Mannheim: Fakultät für Sozialwissenschaften. Hustedt, T., Veit, S. and Fleischer, J. (2010) ‘Wissen ist Macht? Wissenschaftliche Politikberatung der Bundesregierung’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vol 19, pp 15-21. 56

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Jahr,V., Frechenhäuser, D., Büchner, T. and Galgon, T. (2003) ‘Zweite Verbleibstudie Marburger Politologinnen und Politologen 1993-2000. Marburger PolitologInnen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt revisited: Die Jahrgänge 1993-2000’, in W. Hecker, J. Klein and H.-K. Rupp (eds) Politik und Wissenschaft. 50 Jahre Politikwissenschaft in Marburg. Bd. 2: Perspektiven, Münster: LIT Verlag, pp 401-43. Kash, D. and Ballard, S. (1987) ‘Academic and applied policy studies: A comparison’, American Behavioral Scientist, vol 30, pp 597-611. Kooij, R. and Löwenstein, F. (2011) Kooperationsprojekt Absolventenstudien (KOAB): KOAB Absolventenbefragung 2011 (Prüfungsjahrgang 2009; Befragung im Wintersemester 2010/2011), Kassel: Internationales Zentrum für Hochschulforschung. Mayntz, R. (2009) ‘Speaking truth to power: Leitlinien für die Regelung wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung’, dms – der moderne staat – Zeitschrift für Public Policy, Recht und Management, vol 1, pp 5-16. Mead, L. (2011) ‘Reformiert die Politikwissenschaft! Die Misere einer randständigen Forschungsdisziplin’, INDES, vol 1, pp 126-37. Mintrom, M. (2011) Contemporary policy analysis, New York: Oxford University Press. Müller-Rommel, F. (1984) ‘Sozialwissenschaftliche Politik-Beratung. Probleme und Perspektiven’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vol 25, pp 26-39. Saretzki, T. (2003) ‘Aufklärung, Beteiligung und Kritik: die “argumentative Wende” in der Policy-Analyse’, in K. Schubert and N. C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse, Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, pp 393-418. Schmidt, M. (1987) ‘Vergleichende Policy-Forschung’, in D. Berg-Schlosser and F. Müller-Rommel (eds) Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft: ein einführendes Handbuch, Opladen: Leske & Budrich, pp 185-200. Strobel, B. (2009) Was sie wurden, wohin sie gingen. Ergebnisse einer Verbleibstudie über PromovendInnen und HabilitandInnen des Fachbereichs Politik- und Sozialwissenschaften der Freien Universität Berlin (http://web.fu-berlin.de/f-polsoz/wohersiekamen.html). Sundmacher, T. (2005) ‘Von der Unternehmens- zur Politikberatung – die Rolle der Beratungsunternehmen’, in M. Leschke and I. Pies (eds) Wissenschaftliche Politikberatung – Theorien, Konzepte, Institutionen. Schriften zu Ordnungsfragen der Wirtschaft, Band 75, Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius. Thull, E. (2004) ‘Kölner Politikwissenschaftlerinnen und Politikwissenschaftler in Studium und Beruf: Ergebnisse einer Absolventenbefragung’, ZA-Information/ Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung, vol 55, pp 60-84. Tusch, C. (2008) Kurzzusammenfassung erster Ergebnisse der Absolventenbefragung 2008 für das Fach Politikwissenschaft. Münster (www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/ wwu/rektorat/absolventen/bericht_politikwissenschaft_2007.pdf). Windhoff-Héritier, A. (1987) Policy-Analyse. Eine Einführung, Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag. Wagner, C. and Sehring, J. (2012) ‘Politikwissenschaft und Arbeitsmarkt’, in H. Lauth and C. Wagner (eds) Politikwissenschaft: eine Einführung (6th edn), München: Schöningh, pp 471-94. Weiss, J.A. (1976) ‘Using social science for social policy’, Policy Studies Journal, pp 234-8.

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Five

Methods and study types in German policy analysis Volker Schneider, Claudius Wagemann and Frank Janning

Introduction Despite its increasing popularity in German political science, systematic reflection on the various methods that are used in policy analysis is still scarce. It is revealing that none of the current German textbooks on policy analysis includes a special chapter on methodology, yet the variety of methods that are applied in this sub-discipline is enormous. Many of the methods that are used in the social sciences in general and political science in particular are also used in policy analysis. Similar to other areas of empirical research, in policy analysis the various methods are also closely related to objects of research and its various dimensions (aggregate level, scope and numbers of entities that are under scrutiny) in the same way as methods are linked to particular theoretical frameworks that are guiding the research process (for instance, frameworks focusing on rational decisions, institutional arrangements or policy discourse) (Schneider and Janning, 2006). Policy research can be done at various levels. In its early phase it concentrated mostly on the national and regional governmental level; however, since the 1990s policy analysis on the international level has also become increasingly popular. At the most aggregate level policy analysis can deal with the level of governmental intervention into society (usually measured by governmental expenditure related to total economic activity [gross domestic product, GDP] in a given country) or governmental activity in a societal sector such as the educational system or the labour market. Most studies at this level compare many cases and apply statistical methods to explain, for instance, governmental activity by political variables such as party orientation of governments or the restricting effects of political institutions (large-N studies) (see Figure 5.1). A different type of analysis is provided by Politikfeldanalyse (policy domain research) that is strongly influenced by political sociology where policy domains are conceived as sociopolitical sub-systems that are constituted by a variety of organisations involved in sectoral policy-making. Policy domain studies may focus on the emergence of a given policy area, and also on the various coordination mechanisms and regulatory pattern by which a given policy sub-system is governed. Policy domains can be studied with qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative studies can provide descriptions of singular policy domains based on case study method, comparisons of the same policy domain in two or more countries, or comparisons of multiple policy domains in a single country. A particular type of policy study follows the total policy process (or cycle) from problem definition to agenda-setting, policy formulation 59

Policy analysis in Germany

and implementation up to a given policy output or outcome.This type of study, too, often uses qualitative methods to trace policy processes. Studies are either restricted to specific stages of the policy cycle (for example, agenda-setting, policy impact and so on) or to particular policy decisions (for example, choice of a specific policy instrument or political measure). Figure 5.1: The scope of policy analysis, research orientations and methods Governmental activity research

Governmentalactivity (Staatstätigkeit) Policy domain

Scope

Policy cycle

Section of policy cycle

Singular policy decision

Regression analysis

Policy domain research Network analysis Single and comparative case studies

Policy analysis (narrow sense) Network analysis Single and comparative case studies

Agenda-setting, Formulation, Implementation, Impact, Termination, etc. Discourse analysis Single case studies

Network analysis Regression analysis Comparative case studies QCA

Choice of Policy Instruments, LawMaking, regulatory decisions , etc. Network analysis Regression analysis Comparative case studies QCA Single case studies

One

Few

Many

Numberof research objects

The following sections give an overview of the main methods used by policy analysts in German-speaking countries since the 1990s. There is an outline of the basic characteristics of the various approaches and their operational logic is illustrated with representative studies applying these different methods. In the next two sections we concentrate on qualitative methods such as the analysis of single cases and comparative case studies.This is followed by sections on various forms of network analysis, statistical analysis of large-N comparisons and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). Each of the methodological sections first outlines the basic principles and variants of a method, then presents some representative applications and lists additional studies with a similar methodological orientation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of prospects and potentials and of the necessity of using multimethod designs.

Analysis of single cases The application of qualitative methods in policy research corresponds with an interest in detailed accounts of interactions and mechanisms. Case study approaches thus strive for the ‘whole picture’ in policy research. They can focus on a single case or on a limited number of cases; single case studies aim to reconstruct complex patterns of 60

Methods and study types in German policy analysis

interaction. But concrete case study designs may vary according to their explanatory intentions.A more atheoretical orientation of case study research is satisfied by giving a detailed descriptive and narrative account of events, actors and contexts concerning a policy decision or a policy development in a given policy area. In an explorative situation where descriptive knowledge of policies is still scarce, mere descriptions and narratives are not only legitimate but are the only way of generating knowledge for further interpretative or deductive approaches to the understanding of policy processes. An important analytical tool to point to causal mechanisms in detailed narratives of policy events is process-tracing (Mahoney and Goertz, 2004; George and Bennett, 2005). Yet, this more standardised approach to dissect causal forces in the complex web of policy discourses and political processes has only been used reluctantly (Trampusch, 2009; Selbmann, 2011). Single case studies are popular among scholars seeking to give a detailed account of the historical developments inside of a given policy area.These studies aim to explore reform processes in a longer time frame, or they assume historical path-dependency for political decision-making processes. To a certain extent since the mid-1990s the actor-centred institutionalism (ACI) school of policy research has extensively contributed to the proliferation of single cases studies with a historical orientation (Mayntz and Scharpf, 1995). In this particular neo-institutionalist perspective policy processes analysis is focusing on political structures and rule systems that constrain and enable interactions and policy decisions in a broad spectrum of policy areas (Mayntz and Scharpf, 1995; Scharpf, 1997). In the best tradition of the institutionalist approach a recent study on the transformations of the German welfare state serves as a good example of the potentials of a historically well-informed and theoretically sound case study (Trampusch, 2009). It was based on the records and documents of hearings and debates in the German parliament, on collected quantitative data of social expenditure and on a number of expert interviews with key decision-makers. Presented as an ‘extreme case’ of shifts in the established paths of social policy-making in Germany, this case demonstrates that long phases of stability can be abruptly altered by radical reform. Based on the claim that the study of extreme and influential cases can produce great explanatory power even though the analysis rests on a single case (Gerring, 2007), the study concentrates on radical shifts in German welfare policy: the partial privatisation of the German pensions system in 2001, the reforms of social welfare and unemployment aid in 2003 and the extension of the retirement age to 67 in 2007. All these reforms were pushed through by governments led by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and indicate a significant case of path departure from ‘social partnership’ in Germany. Trampusch’s study gives a detailed account of the establishment of the ‘old’ German welfare regime in the 1970s and 1980s.This regime is characterised by a growing ‘autonomisation’ of policy networks since trade unions, employer associations, bureaucrats of state agencies and party representatives were successful in establishing a stable order which was only loosely coupled with party competition in German ‘high politics’. This autonomisation of the German welfare regime was only self-sustaining as long as fiscal expenditure of the existing bargaining systems was moderate and could be contained, and political parties and party leaders held strong ties to interest groups of ‘social partnership’. These preconditions have been eroded in the 1990s and the policy area was affected by a new phase of ‘high politics’ that put established regime structures into question.

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The use of single case studies in German policy research is not limited to historical and institutional approaches. Since the late 1980s new attention has been given to the role of norms, ideas and language in politics and political science (Nullmeier, 1997; Fischer, 2003; Blatter et al, 2007). This new focus has also affected policy research in Germany. In this respect various frameworks have been developed which treat cognitive and argumentative factors as important explanatory variables. For instance, Nullmeier and Rüb’s concept of Wissenspolitologie (political science of knowledge) stresses the importance of knowledge formation in policy-making (1993). Political interaction is not merely an exchange of resources between strategic actors, but also has to be analysed as an element of ‘knowledge markets’ in specific policy areas.This concept has been translated in the research design of a historically oriented case study about transformations within the German welfare regime. Nullmeier further refined his qualitative approach of policy analysis analysing ‘micro strategies’ of political persuasion with rhetorical tools in a study on political decision-making in higher education (Nullmeier et al, 2003). An even more theoretically driven approach for the design of single case studies in policy research is associated with the advocacy coalition framework from Paul Sabatier and his colleagues which applied this approach mainly to environmental policy-making (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1999; Weible et al, 2009). The study of advocacy coalitions points to the relevance of underlying values and normative preconceptions which motivate actors to engage in politics and to build coalitions with like-minded activists. These core values and policy-related beliefs have to be seen as the long-lasting patterns of an actor’s identity. Although the application of the advocacy coalition framework is not limited to single case studies, in Germany this framework has mostly influenced research on single policy areas, for example, on migration policy, genetic engineering, health politics and even on financial markets regulation (Bandelow, 1999; Simon, 2000; Hegelich, 2010; Wassenhoven, 2010). Nils Bandelow’s case study on policy debates in Germany about regulations for genetic engineering was probably most instrumental in popularising the advocacy coalitions approach in German policy research (Bandelow, 1999).The study looked at advocacy coalitions during three phases of the policy debate.The first phase (1973–83) was characterised by a low level of public attention, and the debate that took place was among scientists arguing about the potential risks of genetic engineering and about genetically manipulated (GM) food. During the second phase (1984–91) the political debate generated a more politically viable stance as GM food was made available in the US and the ecological movement gained more power in Germany. The more politicised debate at this point involved representatives of political parties, interest groups and citizen groups, and paved the way for a restrictive law on genetic engineering in 1990. The third phase (1992–97) was marked by a new relevance of economic arguments in the political debate. Political actors reacted to the pressing problems of unemployment and lower economic growth rates and focused on the potentials of genetic engineering for developing new food products and pharmaceutical drugs. The restrictions of the 1990s law have now been partly withdrawn in order to generate more leeway for scientists and companies to develop innovative technologies based on genetic engineering.

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Comparative case studies A widely used research strategy in policy analysis is the ‘comparative approach’ (Lijphart, 1971) in which countries, regions, policy domains and also policy phases are systematically compared. Although there is a broad spectrum of research designs in a comparative perspective (Gschwend and Schimmelfennig, 2008), there are two major logics of explanations. On the one hand, there is an inductive strategy in which research as a first step describes communalities and differences between cases and as a second step tries to find regularities that are explained with the help of existing or new theoretical propositions. On the other hand, there is a deductive approach that starts from theory, delineates hypotheses and uses multiple case studies to check if the various propositions match the conjectured empirical reality. In German policy research there are two highly cited works that have used these comparative strategies.An example for the inductive approach is Fritz Scharpf ’s Crisis and choice in European social democracy (1991), whereas Reimut Zohlnhöfer’s Economic policy in the Kohl era illustrates deductively oriented case study research (2001). Both studies analyse economic policy. Scharpf ’s analysis deals with the crisis response of social democratic governments in Austria, Sweden,West Germany and the UK during the 1970s until the early 1980s. The cases were selected on the basis of the most similar systems design in which the four countries were alike with respect to initial conditions, macroeconomic goals and policy paradigms (this means Keynesian deficit spending). Although Scharpf mentions some hypotheses that might have explained the variations in crisis response (for instance, left/right party difference hypothesis, corporatism hypothesis and so on), he explicitly avoids simple hypothesis testing and chose a different approach. His research strategy was to outline various choice constellations within macroeconomic conditions based on game theoretical models: all countries are faced with similar problems (inflation and unemployment) and can choose among different economic strategies, and each strategy combination produces different outcomes. Economic policy is represented as strategic interaction of governments, trade unions and the reaction of voters to government choices and outcomes. Governments can choose among Keynesian or monetarist strategies, and unions can be moderate or aggressive in their wage claims. Scharpf shows that each country has a unique sequence of strategy combinations and that some combinations led to superior economic outcomes. For instance, the policy trajectory of Austria – the best performing country – started in 1974 in a situation of a Keynesian policy strategy and an aggressive wage demand from Austrian unions. However, country-specific institutional arrangements in Austria, such as corporatist concertation between centralised associations of capital and labour, induced unions to support wage restraints. In the UK, the least well-performing country, fragmented unions and the institutional context of decentralised collective bargaining inhibited corporatist concertation. In Germany, the independent Bundesbank (German Central Bank) also played a major role in economic policy-making. Scharpf ’s approach thus avoids applying ‘general laws’ to social processes, but tries to generalise from a combination of choice situations and institutional contexts. Zohlnhöfer used a different research strategy, comparing key decisions in three policy areas. His main research strategy was to test propositions that were derived from major policy theories. He examined whether the policy outputs could be explained 63

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by party politics, veto players or competition for voter support. His analysis covered 15 legislative processes in various policy areas (budget laws, tax reform, active labour market programmes, denationalisation, deregulation and liberalisation measures and so on). Each of these case studies was based on documentary analysis and expert interviews. In most areas Zohlnhöfer found evidence that party positions played a major role in policy-shaping.

Qualitative comparative analysis The most systematic methodological tool for comparative case studies is probably offered by ‘qualitative comparative analysis’ (QCA), going back to Ragin’s work (Ragin, 1987, 2000, 2008; for a textbook on this, see Schneider and Wagemann, 2012). A main strength of QCA is its ability to model complex set-theoretic relationships to which most comparative case studies at least implicitly refer, mainly expressed in the notions of sufficiency and necessity of single conditions for a given outcome. QCA renders these relations explicit; it allows for the analysis of logical and/or logical or combinations of conditions; and it enables the researcher to refer to INUS (Mackie, 1974, p 62; Wagemann and Schneider, 2010, p 381)1 and SUIN conditions (Mahoney et al, 2009).2 It especially allows for elaborate forms of causal patterns.The results can be assessed with the help of parameters, such as consistency and coverage, and the fuzzy set option (Ragin, 2000) allows for concepts where the underlying dichotomy can also be ‘graded’ (for example, a policy cannot only be successful or a failure, but there are grades of how successful and how much of a failure a policy is). Fuzzy values range between 0 and 1 and are defined in the so-called calibration process (Ragin, 2000, p 71ff; Schneider and Wagemann, 2012). A positive side-effect of QCA is that it can be used for a mid-sized number of cases. Technically speaking, there is no upper limit for the number of cases to which QCA can be applied. However, it remains doubtful whether it is substantially possible for, say, 50 or more cases to arrive at a case-based calibration of fuzzy values, to interpret the results in a meaningful manner and to connect them back to the cases. By contrast, applying QCA to less than 10 cases becomes technically difficult, if not impossible, due to the problem of limited diversity (Ragin, 1987, 2008; Schneider and Wagemann, 2012); this means that not all theoretically possible combinations of conditions are covered by empirically observable cases. Such situations of mid-sized case numbers are easily imaginable in policy analysis. Just think of a comparison of the economic policy in 27 European Union (EU) countries, the education policy in 16 German Länder, a dozen social policy measures in a country, the activities of 20 agencies, and so on. There are three assets that are useful for policy analyses and which have their roots in QCA being based on set theory: first, results are equifinal, that is, it is possible to account for one and the same outcome with different explanations. Conditions are not in competition with one another, as in quantitative approaches where independent variables ‘compete’ for significance, but can be considered as (partially overlapping) alternatives to one another. This is useful for policy analysis, as Scharpf (1997, p 27) assesses:‘Ragin’s method has no difficulty with equifinality or functional equivalence that is, of course, ubiquitous in policy research: the same policy outcome is often produced in quite different (but not in all) institutional settings, and qualitative comparative analysis is able to analyse such conditions in a straightforward fashion.’ The ‘two-step approach’ (Schneider and Wagemann, 2006) renders it even possible 64

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to create remote contexts in which different causal mechanisms operate, and thus takes into account the context-sensitivity of policy analysis. Second, QCA explicitly welcomes conjunctural causation, that is, the fact that conditions do not usually work in isolation from one another, but together.While this is very often seen as an obstacle in quantitative research (because too many interactions consume degrees of freedom and, furthermore, lead to results which are difficult to interpret), and while case study designs even risk building in too many of these conjunctions, it is a central goal of QCA to see to what extent various conjunctions contribute or not to the explanation. ‘[B]y focusing on combinations of variables, it not only accommodates multicausality but also has no need to assume that variables are independent from one another’ (Scharpf, 1997, p 27).This even goes so far that one and the same condition can have different effects on the outcome, depending on the other condition it is combined with. It goes without saying that this pattern is also useful for policy analysis, since researchers are not only interested in the isolated effect of single policy instruments, but also in the effect of combinations thereof. Third, results are asymmetric. The set relations typical for QCA can be traced back to ‘if-then’ statements. For example, when we say that, if the labour market of a country is flexible, then there is economic growth, this means nothing else than that the set of all countries with a flexible labour market is a subset of all countries with economic growth. Saying this, however, means that there might also be countries that show economic growth without having a flexible labour market. The if-then hypothesis just tells us something about what happens if there is a flexible labour market, but does not make any statement about what happens if there is no flexible labour market.This is different from standard quantitative approaches where a statement about the effects of the occurrence of a cause also includes a statement about the effects of the non-occurrence of a cause. By contrast, QCA as an asymmetric method just zooms in to one aspect of the causal connection. Several decades after its first launch, QCA can be considered a consolidated part of the methodological repertoire of social sciences, and comparative politics can be considered a fertile ground for QCA (for a few recent good examples, see Ackrén, 2009; Schneider, 2009; Vis, 2009; Blatter et al, 2010). But there are also numerous applications in sociology (see, for example, Cress and Snow, 2000; Ragin et al, 2003; Hollstein and Wagemann, 2012), and even in international relations (see, for example, Koenig-Archibugi, 2004).As far as comparative policy studies are concerned, however, the application of QCA has taken some time. Emmenegger (2011, p 43) deals with job security regulations in 19 Western democracies. He defines the following conditions: relations between state and society; state coordination of the economy; strength of the trade union movement; religious denomination of a country; strength of religious parties; and the number of veto points in the institutional system. In his analysis of necessity, he finds strong relations between state and society and a strong coordination of the economy as functionally equivalent (and thus alternative) necessary conditions. He establishes three combinations of sufficient conditions: first, the simultaneous occurrence of strong relations between state and society, (Catholic) religious denomination and the absence of veto points; second, the simultaneous occurrence of strong relations between state and society, a strong state coordination of the economy, (Catholic) religious denomination and strong religious parties; and finally, a strong state coordination of the economy, strong unions, strong religious parties and the absence of veto points. In his analysis, Denmark and Sweden represent a peculiar pair of cases: while they can both be described by 65

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the same combination of conditions (this means they are very similar cases), they are different with regard to the outcome – while job security regulations are highly advanced in Sweden, this is not the case in Denmark, which relies on the ‘flexicurity’ system. Through his choice of parameters, Emmenegger opts for not explaining the Swedish high value; the alternative would have been to arrive at an explanation that would have explained Sweden, but that would have foreseen a positive case (a case with highly developed job security regulations) in Denmark, as well. As such, Emmenegger’s analysis is a good example for the case-basedness of QCA where deviant cases are explicitly named and discussed. In fact, both Denmark and Sweden can be considered deviant: Emmenegger’s analysis does not offer an explanation of the Swedish case, that is, Sweden can be defined as an outlier for the so-called coverage parameter. If Emmenegger had chosen the described alternative way, then Denmark would have become an outlier for the so-called consistency parameter (see Schneider and Wagemann, 2012). A different perspective is taken by Mayer, Schneider and Wagemann (2011) who have published a policy impact analysis. More specifically, they have analysed how different effects in private energy savings can be accounted for. Their analysis has also been methodologically innovative, since they apply a two-step model of QCA (Schneider and Wagemann, 2006). The analysis includes 28 countries which, taken together, account for 80 per cent of the world’s electricity consumption. As context conditions in the first step of the analysis of sufficient conditions, economic growth, climate and the degree of urbanisation were analysed. The proximate factors for the second step of the analysis were defined as four different policy measures: economic incentives, informative instruments, the setting of norms and standards and the establishment of institutions and agencies. Three combinations result that count as sufficient conditions for a reduction of private energy consumption.All three contain the remote factor of economic growth and the proximate factor of the establishment of institutions and agencies. However, only this combination is not yet sufficient: any of the other three policy measures has to be included. Only when one more policy measure is added (whichever), then the combination from economic growth and the presence of institutions and agencies counts as a sufficient condition for private energy savings. To conclude, we hold that QCA is, indeed, a fruitful methodological tool for comparative policy analysis. The research questions and the hypotheses often follow the if-then logic and are thus implicitly set-theoretic. Policy analysis works with complex causal patterns, above all with regard to equifinality; and many comparative policy studies are based on a mid-sized number of cases. Many concepts which are used in policy analysis are ‘fuzzy’, that is, they are dichotomous in nature, but can be best grasped in different gradings. And in comparative policy analysis we are often interested in specifics – so, applying a method that keeps a case-oriented perspective is useful.

Macro-quantitative comparisons The last two sections dealt with qualitative comparisons of a small or medium number of cases in which traditional statistical methods are difficult to apply. Difficulties may be that concepts are hard to quantify, or that there are only a few cases that can be systematically compared. However, in some areas where policy studies deal with a 66

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sufficiently large number of cases and rather easily measureable objects, a wide range of statistical methods can be applied. In Germany Manfred Schmidt has made this research strategy popular in his award-winning study on Welfare state policy by bourgeois and social democratic governments (Schmidt, 1982). In the 1980s it was one of the first studies in German political science in which outcomes and determinants of government policy were quantified and analysed with statistical methods. His study covered 21 countries in the period from 1974 to 1978, and tested a number of different policy models. One of his major goals was to test the hypothesis that unemployment and inflation differed in advanced industrial countries because of varying economic and social policies and their structural and institutional conditions (party politics, the balance of power between major social groups, strength of corporatist arrangements). One of the study’s most important results was that corporatist systems of interest intermediation were associated with low unemployment rates, whereas the association between unemployment and partisan politics variables was not that clear, but also pointed in the conjectured direction. While Schmidt’s 1982 study is an instructive example of the modest beginnings of this approach in Germany, during the following decades a number of sophisticated studies were conducted in this macro-quantitative orientation (for an overview, see Obinger, 2009). In this respect policy studies not only tried to explain general levels of state involvement (Cusack, 1997) or state retreat (Schneider et al, 2005; Schneider and Haege, 2008), but also policy outcomes in specific policy sectors such as social policy (Kittel and Obinger, 2003), tax policy (Wagschal, 2005), education policy (Busemeyer, 2007) and environmental policy (Jahn, 1998; Holzinger et al, 2008; Knill et al, 2010). An illuminating example for one of the most refined and advanced German studies in this macro-quantitative orientation is Bernhard Kittel and Herbert Obinger’s analysis of social welfare growth and its various determinants (Kittel and Obinger, 2003).The study covered 21 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries between 1982 and 1997, and measured welfare state growth in terms of social expenditure as a share of GDP. A number of competing hypotheses were tested relating to partisan politics, political institutions and the development of social expenditure. This version of macro-quantitative analysis was an analytical advancement in various respects. In a methodological perspective the study not only checked causal effects by bivariate correlations, but also introduced multiple explanatory variables in a simultaneous way (multiple regression), and in addition, integrated the time dimension into regression analysis (panel regression). A major finding was the ambivalent role of institutional rigidity (federalism and bicameralism) in welfare policy. Under certain conditions strong federalism and bicameralism could restrain the growth of expenditure (Kittel and Obinger, 2003, p 34).

Policy network analysis Another type of quantitative analysis is based on ‘social network analysis’ (Knoke and Yang, 2008). Since the 1980s, this type of study has also become quite popular in Germany (Jansen, 2006; Weyer, 2011). While conventional statistical analysis is primarily working with categorical data, network analysis concentrates on ‘relations’ between policy actors. One of the first analyses of political networks was a study of local elite systems in Germany (Laumann and Pappi, 1976), which later also influenced a large study on networks in US health and energy policy (Laumann and Knoke, 67

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1987). The first specific application to policy analysis in Germany was a case study on a transnational policy process in chemical control (Schneider, 1988). The analytical programme in quantitative policy network analysis is threefold: (1) identification of policy actors; (2) identification and description of relational structures such as information exchange, cooperation, attributed influence reputation and so on; and (3) relational analysis and construction of models in which relations are important explanatory variables for policy outputs or outcomes. An important goal in relational analysis is to identify central actor positions. In the most basic version of centrality analysis an actor’s centrality is a function of the number or relations he or she is involved in. However, to explain policy outputs by relational configurations is not the only way of policy network analysis. Another research strategy is pattern-matching in the sense of identifying theory-based patterns (ideal types) such as pluralism, corporatism or étatism within relational structures. For instance, a corporatist system implies a rather centralised configuration compared to a pluralist structure. And last but not least, formal modelling can also be a research strategy in policy network analysis. The last two strategies were applied in a study comparing German labour policy with US and Japanese labour policy sectors (Pappi et al, 1995; Knoke et al, 1996). Major findings were the ‘matching’ of theory-based power structures in policymaking (for example, corporatism or pluralism) with empirical patterns in the three countries: ‘Japan presents the most unified configuration, with a single centre jointly occupied by the peak governmental, political, labour, and business organisations. All other positions revolve around this single centre of political gravity. In contrast, the informal power structures of both Germany and the US consist of multiple centres of power’ (Knoke et al, 1996, p 219). By formal modelling the authors tested a refined version of James Coleman’s exchange model in which interest groups try to gain institutional access by seeking political exchange. The influence of societal actors on policy outputs is then a function of access to policy agents. Applying the model to the various labour policy domains, Pappi and his colleagues discovered that information networking for influence matched the US system more closely, while the allocation and implementation of policy resources provided a better explanation of policy decisions in Germany (Knoke et al, 1996). A sophisticated version of the Coleman model has also been applied to agricultural policy in the EU context (Pappi and Henning, 1999). There is a further approach in policy network modelling in which the explanatory focus is not so much on policy output, but on network patterns and networking behaviour. In such a perspective exponential random graph models (ERGMs) have been used to explain information exchange strategies in the above-mentioned chemical control network (Leifeld and Schneider, 2012), or networking behaviour in transnational policy networks within the EU (Thurner and Binder, 2009). Another innovative use of network research is its application to policy discourse (Janning et al, 2009; Leifeld and Haunss, 2012).

Conclusion and outlook In the previous sections of this chapter we illustrated the broad menu of options for the application of methods in policy research. Our wide-ranging presentation should not suggest any false ambiguity in the choice of methods, but refers to the fact that, in 68

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policy research as in other social science sub-disciplines, the choice of methodological approach largely depends on the fit between methods and the research question. Certainly, when choosing a method, there is always a trade-off: the researcher may prefer deep inquiry over broad analysis; may aim for more generalisation instead of descriptive precision; or may be interested in explaining causes of effects rather than effects of causes. These trade-offs are typical for the application of methods in any social science (sub-)discipline. It has also become evident in this chapter, however, that research questions in policy analysis often refer to very complex processes and phenomena so that the methodological approaches also have to be necessarily sophisticated. For example, with research questions becoming more complex, multivariate statistical models have substituted the earlier, rather simple bivariate regressions; two-step approaches render QCA methods more appropriate; and, not least, network analysis has arrived at a very high level of sophistication in the account of relational patterns. Above all, the example of network analysis draws our attention to a further observation that can also be made in the case of the other methodological approaches: the fit between methods and the complexity of the research object largely depends on the development of the method itself. Many of the discussed methodological variants have only recently gained their current advancement. Some years ago it was difficult to compare simultaneously cross-time and cross-section in a statistically meaningful way; or QCA scholars were limited to the use of dichotomies before the advent of fuzzy sets; or results of network analysis were difficult to visualise, and so on. Hence, the application of methods is also strongly linked with the further development of the methods themselves. This richness of methodological offers for policy research should also motivate researchers to invest more time and energy in attempts to combine methodological approaches. Sometimes there seems to be a preference for a methodologically uniform approach, but a mixed approach could contribute to a solution of the problem of complex causality as an omnipresent phenomenon in policy analysis.

Notes INUS conditions are defined as ‘Insufficient but Necessary parts of a condition which is itself Unnecessary but Sufficient for the result’ (Mackie, 1974, p 42). If, for example, the simultaneous occurrence of the policy instruments A and B is sufficient (but not necessary) for the success of a policy measure (S), and, alternatively, the simultaneous occurrence of the policy instruments C and D is sufficient (but not necessary) for S (expressed by the Boolean notation AB + CD → S), then A, B, C and D are all INUS conditions. They are not sufficient on their own, but are a necessary part of a sufficient (but not necessary) combination of conditions.

1

SUIN conditions are the mirror image of INUS conditions. They are defined as ‘Sufficient but Unnecessary parts of a factor that is Insufficient but Necessary for the result’ (Mahoney et al, 2009, p 126). If the conditions A and C are necessary (but not sufficient) for S, and if condition B is an alternative to A (if A is not present, then B can make up for its absence; the Boolean notation would be (A + B)*C ← S), then A and B are SUIN conditions. They can replace one another reciprocally as a necessary condition.

2

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Pappi, F.U. and Henning, C.H.C.A. (1999) ‘The organization of influence on the EC’s common agriculturalpolicy: A network approach’, European Journal of Political Research, vol 36, no 2, pp 257-81. Pappi, F.U., Knoke, D. and König, T. (1995) Entscheidungsprozesse in der Arbeits- und Sozialpolitik, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. Ragin, C.C. (1987) The comparative method, Berkeley, CA: University of Berkeley Press. Ragin, C.C. (2000) Fuzzy set social science, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ragin, C.C. (2008) Redesigning social inquiry: Fuzzy sets and beyond, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ragin, C.C., Shulman, D. and Weinberg, A. (2003) ‘Complexity, generality, and qualitative comparative analysis’, Field Methods, vol 15, no 4, pp 323-40. Sabatier, P.A. and Jenkins-Smith, H.C. (1999) ‘The advocacy coalition framework, an assessment’, in P.A. Sabatier (ed) Theories of the policy process, Boulder, CO:Westview Press, pp 117-66. Scharpf, F.W. (1991) Crisis and choice in European social democracy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Scharpf, F.W. (1997) Games real actors play:Actor-centered institutionalism in policy research, Boulder, CO: Westview. Schmidt, M.G. (1982) Wohlfahrtsstaatliche Politik unter bürgerlichen und sozialdemokratischen Regierungen: Ein internationaler Vergleich, Frankfurt/Main: Campus. Schneider, C.Q. (2009) The consolidation of democracy: Comparing Europe and Latin America, London: Taylor & Francis. Schneider, C.Q. and Wagemann, C. (2006) ‘Reducing complexity in qualitative comparative analysis (QCA): Remote and proximate factors and the consolidation of democracy’, European Journal of Political Research, vol 45, no 5, pp 751-86. Schneider, C.Q. and Wagemann, C. (2012) Set-theoretic methods for the social sciences: A guide to qualitative comparative analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schneider, V. (1988) Politiknetzwerke in der Chemikalienkontrolle. Eine Analyse einer transnationalen Politikentwicklung, Berlin: de Gruyter. Schneider,V. and Haege, F. (2008) ‘Europeanization and the retreat of the state’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol 15, no 1, pp 1-19. Schneider,V. and Janning, F. (2006) Politikfeldanalyse. Akteure, Diskurse und Netzwerke in der öffentlichen Politik, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Schneider,V., Fink, S. and Tenbücken, M. (2005) ‘Buying out the state: a comparative perspective on the privatization of infrastructures’, Comparative Political Studies, vol 38, pp 704-27. Selbmann, K. (2011) Kontinuität und Wandel von Politik. Regulierung grüner Gentechnik in Mexiko und Chile, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag. Simon, M. (2000) Krankenhauspolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Historische Entwicklung und Probleme der politischen Steuerung stationärer Krankenversorgung, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Thurner, P.W. and Binder, M. (2009) ‘European Union transgovernmental networks: The emergence of a new political space beyond the nation‐state?’, European Journal of Political Research, vol 48, no 1, pp 80-106. Trampusch, C. (2009) Der erschöpfte Sozialstaat: Transformation eines Politikfeldes, Frankfurt am Main: Campus. Vis, B. (2009) ‘Governments and unpopular social policy reform: Biting the bullet or steering clear?’, European Journal of Political Research, vol 48, no 1, pp 31-57. 72

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Wagemann, C. and Schneider, C.Q. (2010) ‘Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and fuzzy sets: Agenda for a research approach and a data analysis technique’, Comparative Sociology, vol 9, no 3, pp 376-96. Wagschal, U. (2005) Steuerpolitik und Steuerreformen im internationalen Vergleich: Eine Analyse der Ursachen und Blockaden, Münster: LIT Verlag. Wassenhoven, J. (2010) Europäisierung deutscher Migrationspolitik: Policy-Wandel durch Advocacy-Koalitionen, Hamburg: Kovač. Weible, C.M., Sabatier, P.A. and McQueen, K. (2009) ‘Themes and variations:Taking stock of the advocacy coalition framework’, Policy Studies Journal, vol 37, no 1, pp 121-40. Weyer, J. (2011) Soziale Netzwerke: Konzepte und Methoden der sozialwissenschaftlichen Netzwerkforschung, Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. Zohlnhöfer, R. (2001) Die Wirtschaftspolitik der Ära Kohl: Eine Analyse der Schlüsselentscheidungen in den Politikfeldern Finanzen, Arbeit und Entstaatlichung, 19821998, Opladen: Leske + Budrich.

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Policy analysis in the German-speaking countries: common traditions, different cultures, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland Nils C. Bandelow, Fritz Sager and Peter Biegelbauer

Introduction Policy research has developed several perspectives, with scholars influenced by international developments in the discipline as well as their own respective political environment. To cover the global view, it is common practice to trace back recent research to the founding fathers of the discipline, with their competing ontological, epistemological, normative and political views (Bandelow and Schubert, 2009; Schubert, 2002, 2009). National traditions can be classified within different types of global perspective, and they depend on national constellations that are often discussed at the beginning of national textbooks (see, for example, von Beyme, 2009). However, the notion of intellectual traditions does not mean that they are not hybrid and interacting, and consequently open to and often influenced by external ideas (Sager et al, 2012). There are also regional schools of the discipline beyond these global and national traditions. For example, a ‘European perspective’ on policy analysis has been developed in periodicals such as the Journal of European Public Policy, West European Politics and the Journal of Common Market Studies. In addition to national and European traditions, however, there are also clusters of regional traditions that have so far gained less attention from state-of-the-art reviews.This chapter aims to fill this gap by focusing on the peculiarities of policy analysis in the three German-speaking countries, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Policy analysis in these countries shares scientific and political traditions, and has established common journals such as German Policy Studies as well as regular joint conferences.There has been an extensive exchange of researchers between Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and the common language has contributed to the use of similar analytical frameworks and methods. Nonetheless, each of these countries has established a substantial uniqueness relating to their respective political and higher education environment, which leads to the question, in what way does policy analysis in these countries differ from the Anglo-Saxon models and, moreover, what are the similarities and differences of the three cases and how they can be explained? This chapter starts by highlighting the shared traditions and peculiarities of policy analysis in the German-speaking countries of Germany,Austria and Switzerland.This is followed by a separate analysis of the institutional environment and specialties of policy

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analysis in each of the countries, in order to contribute to a general understanding of influences on national styles of policy analysis.

Shared traditions The German-speaking countries have adopted the terms and models of Anglo-Saxon policy analysis since the 1970s. The new discipline, however, was confronted with an environment that was very different from the situation in the US, and several peculiarities of the German-speaking countries have contributed to the development of a particular German-speaking tradition, which includes the scientific traditions, the political environment and the language itself. First of all, the higher education system in German-speaking countries differs from that in the US.The German-speaking countries developed highly specialised faculties oriented towards the Humboldt Legacy (The Humboldtian Principle is based on the union of research and teaching striving for critical and original investigation). Publicly founded universities characterised these systems, neither using extensive tuition fees nor having large private third party funds. Research and higher education were bound together and concentrated on basic research, and only a small number of young people were given the chance to study at universities. The universities themselves were not part of the economic system in a comparable way to the Anglo-Saxon world. The higher education system therefore made it difficult to establish a discipline that was explicitly application-oriented, so policy research in the German-speaking countries started with a broad interest in basic theoretical questions that were not necessarily taken directly from political applications.Within the system of specialised faculties, policy analysis has been interpreted as part of political science. Contrary to other countries such as France, political science is not usually combined with law, but is seen as a social science – political science in the German-speaking countries has its own normative and theoretical roots. After the Second World War the goal to transfer theories of democracy has been of great importance. The political systems of all three countries also differ from the US, although this applies more to Germany and Austria than to Switzerland, which shares various institutional idiosyncrasies with the US, such as an extensive federalism and a limited central government.While the parliaments lack professional service at a level typical for the US Congress, the executive branch of government, political parties and corporatist associations dominate the political process. Therefore the system of policy advice is embedded in formal, institutionalised pillars that do not always lend themselves to external academic advice. This environment has made it difficult to establish new forms of policy advice as postulated by the ideas of self-reflective application and democracy-oriented policy sciences (Lasswell, 1970; Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003). Germany, Austria and Switzerland all have multi-party systems based on variants of election systems with proportional representation. In the 1980s green parties in all the German-speaking countries gained large shares of parliamentary seats and environmental policies became quite important. Environmental policy therefore became one of the most prominent fields of policy analysis at that time (see, for example, Knill, 2008). Common political beliefs in all three countries contributed to other similarities of research interests. Some normative questions concerning biotechnology, gender, higher education policies and others reached high levels of conflict in all the countries, with many scholars testing and discussing the theoretical 76

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models of policy analysis against the background of these areas. Most of this research, however, was only on a theoretical level and did not gain political influence. Methodologically, there is a European tradition to apply ‘small-N’ comparative designs, using countries, regions or states as cases, and due to the prevalence of federalism in the three German-speaking countries, this tradition is quite prominent. The German language not only links Germany, Austria and Switzerland; it also influences their perspective on policy analysis. German not only lacks proper terms for ‘policy’, ‘polity’ and ‘politics’, but also transports its own meaning with its own terms. For example, Regierung (government) refers exclusively to the executive branch of government from an institutional definition. Macht (power) or Herrschaft (control) transport explicit definitions produced by German-speaking classics such as those by Max Weber or Karl Marx, and are used extensively by political scientists. There are, however, national peculiarities related to the respective traditions and institutional environments. The following sections analyse these country perspectives, starting with Germany.

Policy analysis in Germany Germany, as the largest of the three cases and the largest country within the European Union (EU), fulfils the prerequisites of establishing internal scientific and political discourses not necessarily oriented towards the Anglo-Saxon world – and it has been quite successful in developing a unique scientific culture. Technical sciences in particular have established their own degrees (‘Dipl-Ing’), which have benefited from the success of German mechanical and automotive engineering. Within German universities there is a tradition of national orientation convinced of its own strengths. Political science has, however, never reached a leading role in the German scientific and political systems. Within the scientific system, political and ontological conflicts have made it difficult to establish large faculties of political science. And the political system does not provide major access for policy research to engage in political advice. Like Austria and Switzerland, Germany is a federal state. Contrary to other federal states, such as Austria, the Länder have gained the most responsibilities for education and research, although political decision-making is rather centralised. In 1948, even before the Federal Republic was founded, the Länder established the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (Kultusministerkonferenz) producing centralised decisions by Länder governments in many fields that were formally the legislative competencies of the Länder. The transfer of most bodies of the federal government from the provincial town Bonn to the largest city Berlin in 1994 has led to a further centralisation, even though some government bodies remain in Bonn and others, including most courts, are in cities scattered around the country. The centralised political system uses a broad range of sources for policy advice. Traditionally, the federal and regional civil services, the parties and associations are much more influential than academic advisers – jurists and economists dominate these traditional pillars while policy analysis started as a field of academic political science in Germany. The interdisciplinary tradition of policy research is only mirrored by a small number of researchers (Schmidt, 1993; 2002). German politics always involves a vast number of different actors bound together in joint institutions (Katzenstein, 1987; Green and Paterson, 2005). Against this 77

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background, institutionalist perspectives have dominated policy analysis in Germany. The high number of veto players in the political system contributed to a special interest in politische Steuerung (Luhmann, 1989; Scharpf, 1989; Mayntz and Scharpf, 1995).This term has been translated in different ways, such as ‘governability’ (Mayntz, 1993), ‘political guidance or steering’ (Mayntz, 2003, p 27), ‘public governance’ (Klenk and Nullmeier, 2003), ‘government’ (Benz and Dose, 2010, pp 26-7) or ‘control’ (Willke, 2005). These give an impression of both the original top-down understanding of German-speaking policy analysis (following prescriptive and empirical views on planning) and the modern understanding of cooperation within policy networks (Mayntz, 2008, p 45). Early German policy research started in the late 1970s by applying the stage heuristics to the question of politische Steuerung, and research programmes first concentrated on implementation research, highlighting the influence of non-governmental actors on policy outcomes (Mayntz, 1977, 1980; Windhoff-Héritier, 1987). In the following decades, a few networks of scientists have adopted policy analysis to develop their own understanding of this discipline (for a more detailed analysis of the historical development, see Chapter 3, this volume). The University of Constance took a leading role, integrating policy analysis in its research and teaching programmes on public administration. Based on several personal links, the Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin) and in particular the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne (MPIfG, Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung) have contributed to a German view on policy analysis. The directors of MPIfG developed the analytical framework of actor-centred institutionalism combining different theoretical perspectives (Mayntz and Scharpf, 1995; Scharpf, 1997). Scharpf himself had earlier presented a seminal study on labour market policy that contributed to the framework and belongs to the most influential German contributions to policy analysis (Scharpf, 1987). Contrary to most other German policy researchers, the leading scientists of MPIfG and WZB have gained some impact, not only on policy-making, but also on the polity questions regarding the ministerial organisation and features of German federalism. Manfred G. Schmidt founded another influential school of policy research. Based on his own research on welfare state policy (Schmidt, 1982), he presented the Staatstätigkeitsforschung (research on governmental action) as an ordered combination of several theoretical perspectives (Schmidt, 1993; 2002). His research is primarily theoretically oriented and aims at developing models to assess the respective contribution of different variables for variations of policy outcomes in different cases (Schmidt, 1988). Several scholars use this perspective, not only from Schmidt’s current university in Heidelberg, but also from Bremen and other universities (for example, Obinger, 2009). Most of the work within this school looks at international comparisons of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, with a focus on social, research and education policies. The large schools of policy research in Germany adopt both a scientist’s ontology and epistemology. Contrary to the qualitative orientation of most of Mayntz and Scharpf ’s work, the Schmidt school prefers quantitative methods based on macro data. There are, however, many single policy researchers or smaller networks of scholars that differ from the large schools. Some critical perspectives were presented in a special issue of Politische Vierteljahresschrift (Héritier, 1993). A major argument presented in this issue was the relevance of norms, ideas and perceptions for the 78

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policy process. Although German research refers to Anglo-Saxon lenses such as the ‘advocacy coalition framework’ or ‘multiple streams’ (see, for example, Bandelow, 2006; Augustin-Dittmann, 2011; Rüb, 2011), German scholars have not necessarily shared the scientific ontology and epistemology of their founding fathers. In the 1990s in particular, some younger German policy researchers discussed theoretical lenses on the policy process that combined the critical perspectives of discourse analysis (Fischer, 1993) with micro-political methods. In the meantime, many of these scholars have reached senior positions in German universities, and so these views are still present in the academic discussions. Policy research from smaller institutes has only influenced regional policy or single issues at the federal level, however.The political influence of policy analysis in Germany has not only been hampered for institutional reasons, but also by competition with other disciplines. Economists have dominated advice on economic policy, at least under right-wing governments, although Social Democrats have tended to include social scientists in their programmatic and political work. However, the latest generation of ‘third way’ Social Democrats has been closer to sociologists subsequent to Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and others than to policy analysis. Scientists from traditional disciplines in the German-speaking countries have also dominated other areas, like transport policy (technics, economics) and urban development (geography, law). Even though health policy is a major area for policy analysis in German-speaking countries – and some researchers have managed to become influential policy advisers – the area is still dominated by physicians, pharmaceutics and traditional economics. The range of policies covered by German researchers remains limited. Although there has been much research on environmental and welfare issues, other areas, such as health, the police, culture and even employment, have only been studied in-depth by a small number of policy analysts.While education and research is about to become a major field of study for German policy research, having been neglected for a long time, other areas, such as transport, consumer protection or banking policy, have so far only led to a small number of German publications (see Schubert, 1989; von Beyme, 2007; Strünck, 2008; Hegelich, 2010; Bandelow and Kundolf, 2011). External policies are still somehow within the competence of international relations, usually ignoring theories and methods of policy research. After German unification, the ‘Berlin Republic’ widened its lobbying sources to large firms, professional agencies and think tanks. At the same time, policy analysis became more pluralistic. So the traditional separation of academic research and applied policy analysis decreased. The participation of the Social Democratic Party within the federal government (1998–2009) also contributed to a change of political advice, and gave access to policy analysts as political advisers, at least in some fields. At the same time, the relevance of policy research within the scientific community in Germany slowly increased.While traditional fields of political science such as political theory lost posts in the universities, private universities such as the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and the Zeppelin University in Friedrichshafen provided new posts for policy analysts. Within the largest association of German political scientists (DVPW) this increased importance led to a new section for policy analysis that also focused on public administration (‘Policy Analyse und Verwaltungswissenschaft’, see www.dvpw.de/gliederung/sektionen/spv.html, 26 July 2012). By combining the policy perspective with the juridical lens of administration research, the institutional perspective might even gain more importance in Germany in the future. At the same 79

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time, policy analysis might profit from the dominance of jurists in German politics by integrating their views, although the relationship between the two disciplines in Germany remains delicate (Jann, 2009, p 478).

Policy analysis in Austria With around 8.5 million inhabitants, Austria accounts for no more than 10 per cent of the German-speaking population and is only slightly larger than Switzerland. The Austrian political system differs even more from the US federal presidential democracy than Germany – Austrian federalism, in comparison to the other two German-speaking states, is relatively weaker. Its political system rests on a unique form of consociationalism based on both political parties and associations (Pelinka, 2009). Austrian politics and policy advice is related to the macro-corporatist tradition of the country. The two pillars of the system – Social Democrats with employee representatives on the one hand, and Christian Democrats with employer representatives on the other – enable different perspectives to gain access to the policy process. However, this system was established before policy analysis evolved. When policy research started to offer its services in the 1970s, both pillars already had close networks of advisers within the parties, the administration and the large associations (Tálos and Kittel, 2001). In the 1990s the consociationalist system became more pluralistic by changes within the party system (Karlhofer and Tálos, 2005). Even though political input besides the traditional pillars had been enabled , this did not directly lead to more openness for policy research in politics. The most important actors besides the old system are populist right-wing parties that have only little contact with academic policy research. Similarly to Germany and Switzerland, policy analysis, informed by international academic debates on issues and methods in Austria, began to play a role in the 1960s. Of paramount importance was the founding of the Institut für Höhere Studien (IHS, Institute for Advanced Studies) in Vienna in 1963, which was based on contemporary US models of empirically oriented social sciences on the initiative of Paul Lazarsfeld, a Jewish pre-Second World War émigré from Austria. In the 1970s and 1980s policy problem-oriented studies became an important product of the IHS in a number of fields, from gender, science and technology, public administration and environment, to the economy.The IHS – with substantial involvement from international scholars from the beginning – also educated young social scientists in two-year postgraduate courses, thus laying the groundwork for the establishment of political science in Austria (Fleck, 2000; Kramer; 2002; König, 2010). The IHS is also, up to the present day, one of the few institutions in which university and non-university scholarship intersects in the area of policy analysis: IHS staff members regularly teach at Austrian universities, IHS students are enrolled in the programmes of Austrian universities and scholars from IHS and universities cooperate in research projects. Similar cooperations exist in the Department for Foresight and Policy Development of the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT, formerly the Austrian Research Centre Seibersdorf), which offers stipends for students mostly working on policy analysis and who are advised jointly by university and AIT staff. Policy analysis-related research projects are carried out in cooperation with both extra-university research institutions and university institutes.

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There are further research institutions such as the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI), the Institute for Social Research and Consulting (SORA), the Austrian Institute for International Politics (OIIP, since 2011 part of the University of Vienna) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences (ICCR), which all specialise in policy analysis. An important factor for the choice of issues and methods of all of these extra-university social science research institutions is the fact that they have to finance themselves through numerous sources, including – to varying degrees – contract research from public and private organisations. The EU Framework Programmes have played an important role in this respect. The full availability of external project funding with the EU accession of Austria in 1995 led to a clear rise in policy analysis-oriented research, first in the extra-university sector and later also in the universities. This is also the case for the most important research group for policy analysis in the Austrian university system, the interdisciplinary research platform ‘life science governance’, founded and led by Herbert Gottweis, Professor in the Institute of Political Science at the University of Vienna.The platform is highly internationalised, cooperates with natural and social sciences institutions alike and finances its personnel primarily through external funding. Most research-based policy analysis in Austria is interdisciplinary in nature, regardless of whether it takes place at university or extra-university research institutions. Economists perform an important area of research work that is not part of political science, for example, at the Institute for Economic Research (Wifo). All of this is dwarfed, however, by the non-research-based and highly application-oriented policy analysis work in the civil service and in the associations that are part of the social partnership structure. Similar to the situation in Germany and Switzerland, most of this work is not done under the name of policy analysis, and often lacks the respective methodological background. Fittingly, public management curricula in Austria do not usually feature policy analysis units. In general, there exists only a rudimentary disciplinary understanding of policy analysis in Austria, much less so than in Germany and Switzerland.This is an effect of several factors, mainly a small political science community that is barely able to cover the traditional main fields of the discipline (König, 2010) and could not (even if it wanted to do so) fulfil the needs of politics and the civil service regarding external expertise. In addition, the demand for purely political science-oriented studies is rather limited in Austria due to policy-makers’ ongoing ‘trust in numbers’ (Porter, 1995; Felt and Fochler, 2010). As a consequence, external expertise in policy-making is provided by extra-university research institutions, which are mostly interdisciplinary in nature with respect to their fields of expertise, and also the qualifications of their staff and methodologies utilised. The international debates on new public management (NPM), good governance, better regulation, regulatory impact assessment and evidence-based policy-making are mirrored in Austria, if often with some time delays. They have led to some innovations in public administration regarding policy-making processes, but have not systematically strengthened the role of research-based policy analysis, until now (Hammerschmid and Meyer, 2005; Biegelbauer, 2009). An important reason for the meagre effects of these international discussions is that related policy innovations such as regulatory impact assessment are often in conflict with the neo-corporatist

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social partnership system, which rests on the early processing of organised interests (Biegelbauer and Mayer, 2008). Austrian policy analysis has nevertheless contributed to some newer theoretical debates of policy analysis. First, it has contributed significantly to the argumentative turn in policy analysis (starting with Gottweis, 1998; Prainsack et al, 2008; Durnová, 2011; cf also Pülzl and Wydra, 2011). Herbert Gottweis (University of Vienna) belongs to the group of leading scholars within a transnational network arguing for ‘critical policy analysis’ (as they named their journal), using, among others, Jürgen Habermas’ critical theory as the basis for a unique perspective of policy analysis (Gottweis and Fischer, 2012). Second, Austrian policy analysts joined the networks of critical German scholars interested in policy perception and learning as a means to empirically understand different policy beliefs, without starting with assumptions of narrow rationality (Biegelbauer, 2007; Grießler, 2007; Pregernig, 2007).

Policy analysis in Switzerland The system context for policy analysis in Switzerland differs from the one in Germany and Austria. First, although it is a small state, it is also a multi-ethnic state, with four official languages, three of which connect to large linguistic cultures; it was therefore not possible for a unique scientific culture to develop. Second, and also due to its rather small size, Swiss academia is rather international – it is simply not large enough to produce enough young academics to meet the demand of a land without natural resources and hence living off service and knowledge-based industries. Consequently its academic research is more internationally oriented than in the larger countries. Third, the political system differs – the main characteristics of the Swiss polity are the semi-direct democracy, strong federalism and the system of concordance, and this polity has strongly influenced the policy process. The main characteristic of the Swiss consensus democracy is the involvement of all relevant political actors in both the pre-parliamentary and the parliamentary decision-making processes. This, in turn, has led to a system of power-sharing, with decisions based on cooperation and consensus between the political elites. This system acknowledges the strong position of the cantons and allows their preferences to be taken into account, which is a precondition for the effective and efficient implementation of federal policies by the latter. However, the strong federalism and direct democracy have led to the limited policy capacity of central government, which in turn had implications for the content of economic and social policies in Switzerland. Furthermore, the system of consociationalism reinforced the low capacity for rapid change of Swiss policies, as well as the Swiss political system, and has led to a strong status quo bias. Policy-making requires negotiations between all players with veto powers, which takes some considerable time (Sager and Zollinger, 2011). As Linder (1994, p 128) puts it: … the pattern of consociationalism, despite its shortcomings, seems to have provided important advantages. In the absence of electoral change, there are no abrupt discontinuities in federal policy.The sobering effect of negotiation cools down ideological exaggeration and promotes pragmatic solutions. Cooperation in commissions, in government and in parliament leads to mutual adjustments where learning processes occur over the substantive issues 82

Policy analysis in the German-speaking countries of legislation. Reaching a satisfactory compromise may take several years, but once the agreement becomes law most actors are prepared for it.This context increases the chances of new laws and policy programmes being implemented.

In a nutshell, Swiss policy may not be the best designed, but it is pretty well accepted. This institutional environment has consequences for policy research. Widmer and Neuenschwander (2004, p 391) correctly state that ‘policy making in Switzerland is oriented toward gathering support more than toward gathering evidence’. However, the notion of policy analysis in Switzerland also stems from the need of modern society for knowledge and expertise in order to develop and legitimate new policy programmes. Such expertise was first supplied by academic institutions such as the IUHEI (Institut univérsitaire des hautes études intérnationales) at the University of Geneva for foreign policy and diplomacy, various research institutes of the two federal polytechnicums in Zurich and Lausanne and the IDHEAP (Institut des hautes études en administration publique) in Lausanne.While these institutions provided policy advice, social scientific policy analysis in a modern understanding started in Switzerland, as in Germany, in the late 1960s, with the opening of political science to process views of decision-making that differed from classic institutionalism. A crucial role in this development was the discovery of public administration as a political actor, which significantly modified policies during implementation. This reconsideration of the political role of the bureaucracy can be found in Urio’s (1972) seminal study on the procurement of new fighter jets in the 1960s, one of the major political scandals in post-war Switzerland (the so-called ‘Mirage-scandal’). Subsequently, Swiss political science witnessed an actual heyday of analyses of the policy process, culminating in a national research programme on policy formulation and implementation initiated by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Linder, 1987). At the same time the 1980s marked a shift in Swiss policy analysis, increasingly abandoning the institutionalist perspective on policy-making (government), and focusing on the processes of political steering and coordination, including societal self-regulation (governance). This change of perspectives was influenced by international debates as well as changing political realities (Sager and Hurni, 2013). It was accompanied, however, by a certain loss of interest in administrative structures. Academic policy analysis shifted its focus to more quantitative comparative and methodologically sophisticated approaches, not least due the international orientation of Swiss political science in general. The resulting void regarding fieldwork close to the political praxis was filled by a growing public management community gaining epistemological dominance in the course of neoliberal ideas and NPM reforms (Schedler, 1995). However, policy analysis also found its role in this development, with the establishment of a strong evaluation research (Widmer and de Rocchi, 2012). The NPM claim for outcome-oriented steering fostered a need for corresponding information. Answering a need from the federal administration, the national research programme ‘Effectiveness of Public Policies’ was launched that eventually led to strong institutionalisation and the professionalisation of policy evaluation research in Switzerland. In 1996, the Swiss Evaluation Society (SEVAL) was founded, which quickly became a major pillar of the evaluation community. Mainly with the so-called SEVAL standards for good evaluation practice, it fostered the professionalisation of the discipline. In the revised federal Constitution of 1999, a provision for evaluation was included in Article 170 stating: ‘The Federal Parliament shall ensure that the 83

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efficacy of measures taken by the Confederation is evaluated.’ This provision led to an institutionalised demand for policy evaluation that also further expanded the evaluation activities and in particular by private providers of such expertise. SEVAL currently counts about 400 members, private and public, which is comparable to international societies and societies in much larger countries. As for use, Bussmann (2008) states that evidence finds its way into decision-making by way of ex-post evaluations of policy programmes. Stakeholders are very flexible in handling and using this knowledge in a way that serves their interests for the reformulation of a policy. In this political system, so heavily influenced by various political actors, evaluation cannot play a decisive role. It must serve as a resource for all partners (or rather opponents). Evaluation, at its best, can help to illuminate the stakes at hand and to improve the quality of argumentation within the legislative process. Often, it is used as ammunition in the political process by different interests involved. At its worst, it is distorted or completely ignored. (Bussmann, 2008, p 502)

A more recent development in Switzerland is the establishment of so-called advocacy tanks, that is, private research institutes affiliated to specific ideological ideas.The most prominent example in Switzerland is Avenir Suisse, founded in 1999 by 14 Swiss enterprises with a budget of 7 million francs per year (about €5 million). As pointed out by Steffen and Linder (2006, p 340; see also Sager and Stadelmann-Steffen, 2008), these advocacy tanks established political agenda-setting as a new function of policy analysis, which means ‘last but not least the production of studies that are detached from the feasible’. After a short heyday in the early 2000s, their political influence has decreased in recent times. At university level, policy analysis profited from the establishment of the Swiss Public Administration Network (SPAN) in 2007, mandated by the federal administration. SPAN connects four university institutes in order to foster a professional public service education and training.

Conclusion This chapter started by assuming a common perspective of policy analysis in Germanspeaking countries that could be proven partly by focusing on similarities. Germany, Austria and Switzerland all refer to a tradition of qualitative studies with a comparative focus. Since the 1970s policy analysis has developed as a new field of political science in all German-speaking countries, where it has a tradition of applying and developing theoretical approaches and methods that originated in the Anglo-Saxon community. There are several reasons for this common tradition. Not only the language but also researchers have contributed to this tradition. Leading universities have developed strong ties with partners in other German-speaking countries, and this is not only true for universities in neighbouring cities such as Constance (Germany), Innsbruck (Austria) and Zurich (Switzerland). Leading policy researchers have been part of the scientific community in all German-speaking countries (see, for example, Pelinka, 2003).The different size of the three countries has also contributed to this common perspective. Germany, as the largest of the three countries, has received much attention 84

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for its politics and policies from its smaller neighbours in the media and scientific discussion. This chapter has also pointed out the peculiarities of policy analysis in the three countries. While policy analysis in Switzerland focuses mostly on the mainstream of international scientific debates, Austria has developed its own constructivist perspectives; Germany combines both perspectives. The comparison of the three cases can be used to conduct some hypotheses about variables that influence the national varieties of policy analysis. First, size matters – some of the national peculiarities can be traced back to the respective country size. Second, political systems influence policy research in several ways – as policy analysis is often intended to produce political advice, the national rules of decision-making do matter for both the success and the national variety of policy analysis. Third, the systems of higher education are important for the interpretation of policy analysis – as policy research aims at developing interdisciplinary perspectives, it is influenced by the relationship, status and institutional integration of different sciences and the arts. The three cases provide some evidence that there are many independent variables, and that their influence on policy research is seldom linear. For example, the two smaller countries, Switzerland and Austria, contrast each other, while Germany seems to be somewhere in between. Future research on the establishment of policy analysis beyond the German-speaking countries could be successful by using qualitative comparative analysis assuming figurative causalities (Ragin, 1987, 2000). Contrary to the national and regional peculiarities highlighted in this chapter, in general the adaptation of Anglo-American perspectives on policy analysis has increased since the 2000s. International journals have forced German-speaking scholars to use elaborated methods; most of the leading international journals are either within a clear scientist tradition or are primarily interested in political problems and applications within the Anglo-American world. These journals therefore produce incentives for German-speaking scholars to supplement or even replace their traditional German perspective with a scientist’s view. While universities have been forced to focus on the scientist’s view on the one hand, there has been a contrary demand by political actors on the other. Economics and other competitors of policy analysis have failed to avoid, predict or at least explain the recent economic, financial, ecological, social and political crises. Against this background, public and political actors have been looking for more realistic explanations and more promising advice that might be produced by policy analysts (Sager and Andereggen, 2012). One might therefore expect some further pluralisation of policy analysis in the German-speaking countries. Leading universities and basic research institutes are likely to focus on international issues using new methods and empirical results. Other research might strengthen the interdisciplinary of its perspectives. German-speaking policy analysts might thereby gain more national political influence and have more international scientific impact.

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Bandelow, N.C. (2006) ‘Advocacy coalitions, policy-oriented learning and long-term change in genetic engineering policy’, German Policy Studies, vol 3, no 4, pp 743-95. Bandelow, N.C. and Kundolf, S. (eds) (2011) ‘Governance of transport policy’, Special Issue of German Policy Studies, vol 7, no 2. Bandelow, N.C. and Schubert, K. (2009) ‘Perspektiven der Politikfeldanalyse zwischen Grundlagen und Anwendungen, Szientismus und Kritik’, in K. Schubert and N.C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp 475-86. Benz, A. and Dose, N. (2010) ‘Governance – Modebegriff oder nützliches sozialwissenschaftliches Konzept?’, in A. Benz and N. Dose (eds) Governance – Regieren in komplexen Regelsystemen,Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp 13-36. Beyme, K. von (2007) ‘Verkehrspolitik als Feld der Staatstätigkeit – Ein Aufriss’, in O. Schöller, W. Canzler and A. Knie (eds) Handbuch Verkehrspolitik, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp 125-37. Beyme, K. von (2009) ‘Vorläufer der Politikfeldanalyse auf dem europäischen Kontinent’, in K. Schubert and N.C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp 25-37. Biegelbauer, P. (2007) ‘Ein neuer Blick auf politisches Handeln: Politik-Lernansätze im Vergleich’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, vol 36, no 3, pp 231-47. Biegelbauer, P. (2009) ‘Erfahrungsorientiertes Lernen in der österreichischen Forschungs-, Technologie- und Innovationspolitik. Innovationsforschung und Technologiepolitik in Österreich’, in J. Fröhlich, K.H. Leitner and M. Weber (eds) Neue Perspektiven und Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten, Innsbruck: Studienverlag: pp 197-214. Biegelbauer, P. and Mayer, S. (2008) ‘Regulatory impact assessment in Austria: Promising regulations, disappointing practices’, Critical Policy Analysis, vol 2, no 2, pp 118-42. Bussmann, W. (2008) ‘The emergence of evaluation in Switzerland’, Evaluation, vol 14, no 4, pp 499-506. Durnová, A. (2011) ‘Feldforschung “intim”: Von Erlebnissen, Bedeutungen und Interpretationspraxis in der Politikfeldanalyse’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, vol 40, no 4, pp 417-32. Felt, U. and Fochler M. (2010) ‘Riskante Verwicklungen des Epistemischen, Strukturellen und Biographischen: Gover nance-Strukturen und deren mikropolitische Implikationen für das akademische Leben’, in P. Biegelbauer (ed) Steuerung von Wissenschaft? Die Governance des österreichischen Innovationssystems, Innsbruck/Bozen/Vienna: Studienverlag, pp 297-328. Fleck, C. (2000) ‘Wie Neues nicht entsteht. Die Gründung des Instituts für Höhere Studien in Wien durch Ex-Österreicher und die Ford Foundation’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, vol 11, no 1, pp 129-78. Fischer, F. (1993) ‘Bürger, Experten und Politik nach dem “Nimby-Prinzip”: Ein Plädoyer für die partizipatorische Policy-Analyse’, in A. Héritier (ed) Policy-Analyse. Kritik und Neuorientierung, Politische Vierteljahresschrift-Sonderheft 24, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 451-70. Gottweis, H. (1998) Governing molecules: The discursive politics of genetic engineering in Europe and the United States, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Gottweis, H. and Fischer, F. (2012) The argumentative turn revisited: Public policy as communicative practice, Duke, NC: Duke University Press. Green, S. and Paterson, W.E. (eds) (2005) Governance in contemporary Germany: The semi-sovereign state revisited, New York: Cambridge University Press. 86

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Grießler, E. (2007) ‘“Policy learning“ in der SPÖ: Innerparteiliche Dynamiken bei der Entscheidungsfindung zur Fristenregelung’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, vol 36, no 3, pp 267-84. Hajer, M. and Wagenaar, H. (eds) (2003) Introduction. Deliberative policy analysis: Understanding governance in the network society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 1-32. Hammerschmid, G. and Meyer, R. (2005) ‘New public management in Austria: Local variation on a global theme?’, Public Administration, vol 83, no 3, pp 709-33. Hegelich, S. (2010) ‘Diskurskoalitionen in der Finanzmarktrettung – Das Finanzmarktstabilisierungsgesetz’, der moderne staat – Zeitschrift für Public Policy, Recht und Management, vol 3, no 2, pp 339-59. Héritier, A. (ed) (1993) Policy-Analyse. Kritik und Neuorientierung, Politische Vierteljahresschrift-Sonderheft 24, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Jann, W. (2009) ‘Praktische Fragen und theoretische Antworten: 50 Jahre PolicyAnalyse und Verwaltungsforschung’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, vol 50, no 3, pp 476-505. Karlhofer, F. and Tálos, E. (eds) (2005) Sozialpartnerschaft. Österreichische und Europäische Perspektiven,Vienna: Lit Verlag. Katzenstein, P.J. (1987) Policy and politics in West Germany:The growth of a semi-sovereign state, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Klenk, T. and Nullmeier, F. (2003) Public Governance als Reformstrategie, Düsseldorf: Edition Hans Böckler. Knill, C. (2008) Europäische Umweltpolitik. Steuerungsprobleme und Regulierungsmuster im Mehrebenensystem, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. König, T. (2010) ‘Die Geschichte der Disziplin Politikwissenschaft im Verhältnis zu österreichischer Forschungspolitik und gesellschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen. Steuerung von Wissenschaft?’, in P. Biegelbauer (ed) Die Governance des österreichischen Innovationssystems, Innsbruck/Bozen/Vienna: Studienverlag, pp 223-57. Kramer, H. (2002) ‘Wie Neues doch entstanden ist. Zur Gründung und zu den ersten Jahren des Instituts für Höhere Studien in Wien’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, vol 13, no 3, pp 110-32. Lasswell, H.D. (1970) ‘The emerging conception of the policy sciences’, Policy Sciences, vol 1, no 1, pp 3-14. Linder, W. (1987) Politische Entscheidung und Gesetzesvollzug, Bern: Haupt. Linder, W. (1994) Swiss democracy: Possible solutions to conflict in multicultural societies, London/New York: Macmillan Press Ltd/St Martin’s Press Inc. Luhmann, N. (1989) ‘Politische Steuerung. Ein Diskussionsbeitrag’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, vol 30, no 1, pp 4-9. Mayntz, R. (1977) ‘Die Implementation politischer Programme – Theoretische Überlegungen zu einem neuen Forschungsgebiet’, Die Verwaltung, vol 10, pp 51-66. Mayntz, R. (ed) (1980) Implementation politischer Programme. Empirische Forschungsberichte, Königstein/Ts: Athenäum. Mayntz, R. (1993) ‘Governing failures and the problem of governability: Some comments on a theoretical paradigm’, in J. Kooiman (ed) Modern governance, London: Sage Publications, pp 9-20. Mayntz, R. (2003) ‘New challenges to governance theory’, in H.P. Bang (ed) Governance as social and political communication, Manchester and NewYork: Manchester University Press, pp 27-40. 87

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Mayntz, R. (2008) ‘Von der Steuerungstheorie zu Global Governance’, in G.F. Schuppert and M. Zürn (eds) Governance in einer sich wandelnden Welt, Politische Vierteljahresschrift-Sonderheft 41,Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp 43-60. Mayntz, R. and Scharpf, F.W. (2005) ‘Politische Steuerung – Heute?’, Zeitschrift für Soziologie, vol 34, no 3, pp 236-43. Obinger, H. (2009) ‘Vergleichende Policyanalyse: Eine Einführung in makroquantitative und makro-qualitative Methoden’, in K. Schubert and N.C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp 221-44. Pelinka, A. (2003) ‘Gerhard Lehmbruch und die österreichische Politikwissenschaft’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, vol 32, no 2, pp 213-16. Pelinka,A. (2009) ‘Das politische System Österreichs’, in W. Ismayr (ed) Die politischen Systeme Westeuropas, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 607-41. Porter, T. M. (1995) Trust in numbers: The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Prainsack, B., Geesink, I. et al (2008) ‘Stem cell science 1998–2008: controversies and silences’, Science as Culture, vol 17, no 4, pp 351-62. Pregernig, M. (2007) ‘Zwischen Alibi und Aushandlung: Ein empirischer Blick auf die Interaktion zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik am Beispiel der österreichischen Umwelt- und Ressourcenpolitik’, in M. Krott and M. Suda (eds) Macht Wissenschaft Politik? Erfahrungen aus der wissenschaftlichen Beratung im Politikfeld Wald und Umwelt, Wiesbaden,VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp 43-79. Pülzl, H. and Wydra, D. (2011) ‘Editorial – Public Policy Analysis und die interpretative Wende: “Zur Erklärung von Politikwandel”’, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, vol 40, no 4, pp 395-9. Ragin, C.C. (1987) The comparative method, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ragin, C.C. (2000) Fuzzy set social science, Chicago, IL/London: University of Chicago Press. Rüb, F. (2011) ‘Politisches Entscheiden. Ein prozess-analytischer Versuch’, in N.C. Bandelow and S. Hegelich (eds) Pluralismus – Strategien – Entscheidungen,Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp 17-45. Sager, F. and Andereggen, C. (2012) ‘Dealing with complex causality in realist synthesis:The promise of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)’, American Journal of Evaluation, vol 33, no 1, pp 60-78. Sager, F. and Hurni, P.Y. (2013) ‘Die Geschichte der Verwaltungswissenschaften in der Schweiz’, in A. Ladner, J.-L. Chappelet,Y. Emery, P. Knoepfel, L. Mader, N. Soguel and F.Varone (eds) Handbuch der öffentlichen Verwaltung in der Schweiz, Zürich: NZZ. Sager, F. and Stadelmann-Steffen, I. (2008) ‘Politikberatung in der Schweiz’, in S. Bröchler and R. Schützeichel (eds) Politikberatung, Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius/ UTB, pp 465-79. Sager, F. and Zollinger, C. (2011) ‘The Swiss political system in a comparative perspective’, in C.Trampusch and A. Mach (eds) Switzerland in Europe, London and New York: Routledge, pp 27-42. Sager, F., Rosser, C., Hurni, P.Y. and Mavrot, C. (2012) ‘How traditional are the American, the French, and the German traditions of public administration? A research agenda’, Public Administration, vol 90, no 1, pp 129-43. Scharpf, F.W. (1987) Sozialdemokratische Krisenpolitik in Europa, Frankfurt am Main/ New York: Campus Verlag. 88

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Scharpf, F.W. (1989) ‘Politische Steuerung und politische Institutionen’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, vol 30, no 1, pp 10-21. Scharpf, F.W. (1997) Games real actors play:Actor-centered institutionalism in policy research, Boulder, CO/Oxford: Westview Press. Schedler, K. (1995) Ansätze einer wirkungsorientierten Verwaltungsführung.Von der Idee des New Public Management (NPM) zum konkreten Gestaltungsmodell. Fallbeispiel Schweiz, Bern/Stuttgart/Vienna: Haupt. Schmidt, M.G. (1982) Wohlfahrtsstaatliche Politik unter bürgerlichen und sozialdemokratischen Regierungen. Ein internationaler Vergleich, Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus Verlag. Schmidt, M.G. (ed) (1988) Staatstätigkeit. International und historisch vergleichende Analyse, Politische Vierteljahresschrift-Sonderheft 19, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Schmidt, M.G. (1993) ‘Theor ien in der inter national vergleichenden Staatstätigkeitsforschung’, in A. Héritier (ed) Policy-Analyse. Kritik und Neuorientierung, Politische Vierteljahresschrift-Sonderheft 24, Opladen:WestdeutscherVerlag, pp 371-93. Schmidt, M.G. (2002) ‘The impact of political parties, constitutional structures and veto players on public policy’, in H. Keman (ed) Comparative democratic politics.A guide to contemporary theory and research, London: Sage Publications, pp 166-84. Schubert, K. (1989) Interessenvermittlung und staatliche Regulation, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Schubert, K. (2002) Innovation und Ordnung – Grundlagen einer pragmatistischen Theorie der Politik, gleichzeitig ein Beitrag über die ideengeschichtliche Basis einer erweiterten Theorie der Politikfeldanalyse, Münster: LIT. Schubert, K. (2009) ‘Pragmatismus, Pluralismus und Politikfeldanalyse: Ursprünge und theoretische Verankerung’, in K. Schubert and N.C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp 39-71. Steffen, I. and Linder,W. (2006) ‘Switzerland:Think tanks and vested interests in Swiss policy making’, German Policy Studies, vol 3, no 2, pp 310-46. Strünck, C. (ed) (2008) ‘Re-shaping consumer policy in Europe’, Special issue of German Policy Studies, vol 4, no 1. Tálos, E. and Kittel B. (2001) Gesetzgebung in Österreich. Netzwerke, Akteure und Interaktionen in politischen Entscheidungsprozesse,Vienna: WUV. Urio, P. (1972) L’affaire de Mirage: décision administrative et contrôle parlementaire, Geneva: Edition Médecine et Hygiène. Widmer,T. and de Rocchi,T. (2012) Evaluation. Grundlagen,Ansätze und Anwendungen, Zürich/Chur: Rüegger. Widmer, T. and Neuenschwander, P. (2004) ‘Embedding evaluation in the Swiss federal administration: Purpose, institutional design, and utilization’, Evaluation, vol 10, no 4, pp 388-409. Willke, H. (2005) ‘Atopia, the plus ultra of the nation-states self-encirclement’, in S. Bidner and T. Feuerstein (eds) Plus ultra. Beyond modernity?, Frankfurt am Main: Revolver, pp 219-36. Windhoff-Héritier, A. (1987) Policy-Analyse. Eine Einführung, Frankfurt am Main/ New York: Campus Verlag.

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Federal government: permanent in-house capacities – life within the ‘apparatus’ Josef Schmid and Daniel Buhr1

Introduction Ministerial bureaucracy fulfils a key function within the German political system. Compared to parliament(s) and party central offices, federal ministries traditionally have access to a much more differentiated and sophisticated as well as professional and competent political ‘apparatus’ to provide information and appropriate solutions for society. Thus, over the years, ministerial bureaucracy has set up strong in-house capacities. More than 18,000 people are employed at federal ministries, about one half in Berlin and the other half in Bonn – a difficult situation that goes back to the times of unification. But in an increasingly complex world these capacities seem to be reaching their limits – and have been more and more supplemented by scientific advisory boards (for instance, the German Council of Economic Experts) and influential commissions of experts (see Chapter 10, this volume). Prominent examples of this are the Hartz Commission (2002: labour market reforms), the Rürup Commission (2002/03: pensions, health and care insurance reforms) and the Süssmuth Commission (2000/01: immigration policies) or the latest Ethikkommission für eine sichere Energieversorgung (2011: Expert Commission on [Renewable] Energy Supply). Is this evolution of external commissions accompanied by a downgrade of the permanent in-house capacities of the federal government? Or is it more for the ‘frontstage’ of public debates?

Reform policy, planning and political administrative capacities: a short history since the mid-1960s The process of public policy-making includes the manner in which problems get conceptualised and brought to government for solution; governmental institutions formulate alternatives and select policy solutions; and those solutions get implemented, evaluated, and revised. (Sabatier, 1999, p 3)

According to this, policy-making and policy analysis are core functions of the modern state.2 They are situated institutionally in governments, administration, parliament and the public. Time-wise policy-making moves along the policy cycle, from agendasetting, formulation and decision-making about policies to their evaluation. Lastly, there is a functional dimension, a differentiation along policy areas or sub-systems,

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and that means mostly according to the respective ministries (Grunow, 2003; Howlett and Ramesh, 2003). We are dealing with a complex set of issues that are difficult to be reflected analytically and where a considerable amount of variance occurs. This makes it particularly difficult to establish ‘large’ theories or to develop recommendations for action that can be generalised. So we chose to concentrate on policy-making with in-house capacities in: • the areas of labour and social policy • political leadership together with administration at the federal level • the phases of policy formulation and decision-making.3 We concentrate on these aspects because labour and social policy are the core of the German welfare state,4 and dealing with the federal level has a natural bias towards ‘high’ politics and the beginning of the policy cycle. Since the mid-1950s there have been considerable changes in policy-making and policy analysis inside the government apparatus, which can be shown for Germany in general, but also within our chosen focal points. A short history of policy-making and policy analysis concentrates on the following critical junctures: • economic crisis management and social reforms in the 1970s • debate on reform gridlock in the 1990s • reform in the 20th century.5 The post-war or Adenauer era stands for the famous ‘economic miracle’ and the ‘social market economy’, where the government mainly had a coordinating role. This can be seen, for instance, in competition law or the social security system, which is – in the German case – primarily designed as a collective insurance with elements of self-administration that puts the role of the state into perspective. But against this view Andrew Shonfield (1965) offered a contrary interpretation – the ‘organised free market economy’. In his opinion, the German variety of capitalism was organised and coordinated to a high degree, although for the most part not in the sense of state-run and direct intervention, because the German model was highly cooperative and corporatist. These conditions and restraints of policy-making changed with the end of the ‘prosperity period’; Keynesian crisis management strategies required far-reaching reforms, more planning and more active politics, implicating a certain degree of centralisation of competences and resources, which simultaneously affected the relationship between federal and state governments (see, for example, Scharpf, 1973).6 For a short period during the grand coalition (1966–69), and increasingly during Social Democratic–Liberal coalitions (1969–82), pertinent administrative capacities were built and activities developed. The Office of the Federal Chancellor adopted a greater coordinating and initiating role, for instance, via the extension of a policy and planning department (cf Müller-Rommel and Pieper, 1991; Peters et al, 2000) and the establishment of a number of political consulting institutions.7 For instance, in 1963, a resolution was passed to establish the German Council of Economic Experts, and in 1970 the Advisory Council for Family Issues was founded (cf Schröder, 2010).

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This strategy, however, failed to a large extent, mainly because of the following three points (which are still important today): • distinctive ‘particularism of resorts’ (Mayntz, 1985, p 195); • bureaucratic mode of operation in the ministries; • lack of political consensus regarding essential reform plans. The established special policy and planning departments have persisted, although they are no longer as strategically relevant (at least measured against the ambitions of the reform period). Until today they have mainly had to organise and structure legislative and administrative procedures. In the course of the ‘neoliberal turn’ of the 1980s, the role of the state was put into perspective – not only in Germany – and primacy was placed on the free play of forces in the market and in society. From an institutional perspective, these changes were hardly recognisable, since ministerial advisory boards and counselling centres were not generally abolished. Nevertheless, their political influence decreased. Within the context of the discussion concerning the so-called ‘reform gridlock’ at the end of the Kohl era (mid-1990s), the climate shifted again and gave rise to a policy-making and policy analysis that was more active. Under the heading ‘Progressive governance for the XXI century’ the Chancellor’s Office organised correspondent events after the change of government to red-green in 1998; these events had a clear international and comparative tendency, compared to earlier ones. In June 2000 many leading Social Democratic politicians, such as Bill Clinton, Goran Persson and Desmond Tutu, participated in the Berlin Conference and had discussions with various social scientists (cf Schröder, 2002; the Blair–Schröder paper is also influenced by this context). Some observers already spoke of a Neue Berliner Räterepublik (New Berlin Council Republic) (Heinze, 2002; see also Chapter 10, this volume). However, this ‘revival’ was not sustainable and did not shape the core of policy and decisionmaking, although political consulting continued to grow. Admittedly, this serves the purpose of political planning and policy analysis to a lesser extent these days and is more concerned with political communication, legitimation strategies and ‘blame avoidance’ (cf Schmid, 2011a). Nevertheless policy advocacy taking place ‘backstage’ within the administrative apparatus and for more technical issues is more important and often closer to political decision-making, yet not perceivable in public. Even the recent pull-out from nuclear energy after the catastrophe in Japan, surprisingly enacted under Angela Merkel’s Conservative federal government, is accompanied by a blue ribbon commission (Ethikkommission für eine sichere Energieversorgung) – not least to absorb the political shocks of this decision. This ambivalent or even precarious utilisation of political counselling is a remarkable empirical facet that is rightly reflected in policy research as relativisation of the ‘problem-solving bias’, leading to a stronger link between the dimensions of policy and politics (Mayntz, 2001; see also Bogumil and Schmid, 2001).

Institutional basis of federal policy-making In Germany policy-making and analysis take place in a stable institutional framework (polity) that operates in a more structuring way than, for instance, the US governmental

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system. On a general level the policy-making process is shaped by the pressure to enter negotiations. This is created by (unitarian) federalism, the corporate involvement of big interest groups – especially in labour and social policies – as well as the fact that the federal government usually consists of coalitions.

Political level: problems of consensus German federalism often takes the form of a Verflechtungsfalle (joint decision trap) – identified by the German political scientist Fritz Scharpf. It is understood as a situation in which interdependent government decisions must be taken at the lowest common denominator because other governments may otherwise veto them. In sum, this shows a decision-making structure encompassing various levels, … which generates – by its institutional logic – systematically inefficient and inadequate decisions and which is at the same time incapable of changing the institutional conditions of its decision-making logic. (Scharpf, 1985, p 350)

In the course of the ‘federalism reform’ there were efforts to reduce this syndrome. This, however, has caused a ‘separating decision trap’ (Benz, 2008) because many problems are complex in nature and can hardly be attributed clearly to levels or to sub-systems. At the same time, an extensive assignment of tasks to the federal states and municipalities would overtax them financially.This is even the case in policy areas such as education, which is the basic area of competency at the state level. Considering labour policy, the abolishment of job creation measures ended many joint federal and state government activities because the states could not continue the programme on their own. The dispute in the Federal Council about the Hartz Laws8 shows that not only money, but also political consensus, is scarce. As well as the conflicts that are happening because of interdependent policies, we can also observe a tendency towards ‘Balkanisation’ (Schmid, 2011b; see also Pappi et al, 1995), that is, that the activities are isolated and there are substantial deficits in transparency and information about the states’ labour market activities. This has also been the case, for many years, in the area of education policy, which only changed with PISA (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] Programme for International Student Assessment) and similar studies that made results comparable. The Hartz Laws also prove – from this point of view – the lack of inclusion of relevant societal interests that gave rise to resistance against reforms, in addition to the ambivalent role of policy counselling commissions.9 Meanwhile, the influence of employers’ associations and unions in governing the Federal Employment Agency has been reduced without significantly improving the efficiency of the huge organisation which employs about 110,000 people. The problem of consensus, cooperation and conflict is also apparent inside the federal government in the case of coalitions.The chancellor’s famous ‘policy-making power’, as mentioned in all textbooks, only takes real effect if he/she controls further resources of power, such as the chairpersonship of the party. And this is also true for the Chancellor’s Office as a whole (cf Müller-Rommel and Pieper, 1991; Florack and Grunden, 2011):

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Federal government Concerning important political or public questions the chancellor and the ministers do not act as sole decision-makers, but as negotiators in their own parliamentary groups and parties and between coalition parties. It is always about compromise management. (According to Schütt-Wetschky, 2008)

These limits are even stronger where the coalition partner leads the departments and ministries. During the grand coalition under Angela Merkel (2005-09), ViceChancellor and Foreign Minister Franz-Walter Steinmeier therefore tried to expand his bureau to an (informal) Accessory Office of the National Chancellor in order to coordinate those ministries led by Social Democratic Party (SPD) members more efficiently. This group was led by a state secretary and well staffed (at least compared to the next bourgeois coalition government). Efforts to generate more transparency by including more parliamentary state secretaries did not prove successful, however. Admittedly, the overall effect that an institutional setting built towards cooperation and negotiation has on policy-making is ambivalent: on the one side lies the power of the notorious ‘veto players’ (Tsebelis, 1995) and the threat of political blockade or ‘rather unfavourable starting conditions for strategic governmental planning’ (Schwickert, 2011, p 233). On the other lies the great range and sustainability of consensual reforms. Much of the economic and labour market crisis management (for example, the increase of short-time unemployment benefits) of the last decade – or going further back in history, the economic and social policies in the phase of unification – were highly consensual and enduring.

Administrative level: problems of coordination Coordination is a big challenge for consistent policy-making.We refer to ‘coordination’ as the attempt to produce coherent government policies and to achieve a state that minimises conflicts that arise between different government organisations (mainly ministries) over programmes, proposals or legislative bills (Hustedt and Tiessen, 2006).The federal cabinet, for instance, emerges mostly as an institution for political leadership and not as a focal point for the government’s decision-making; here decisions are approved rather than made. Upcoming decisions are not only coordinated with the interdepartmental committees, action committees, conferences (for example, the IT summit) and cabinet committees, but also with other, informal decision-making hubs within the power triangle of government, parliamentary group and party (Fischer et al, 2007). Ministerial bureaucracy is essential with regards to concrete policy-making in Germany. The administration is not only responsible for the implementation of decisions, but also for drafting and preparing them (Mayntz, 1985, p 184).10 This process starts with ‘backstage’ agenda-setting: it takes place ‘within a circle of experts, interest groups and/or ministerial bureaucracy’ (Jann and Wegrich, 2009, p 88), especially if the issue is more of a technical nature (Howlett and Ramesh, 2003, p 139). The policy-making process then goes on with developing specific proposals, coordination within and between ministries and preparing the legislative process. Organisational and personal structures of (federal) ministries are important for policy-making. Formally the federal executive is organised by three principles that result in power concentrating on the cabinet and the chancellor. Article 65 in the German Grundgesetz (GG, Constitution) distributes the executive power between 95

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the chancellor (Kanzlerprinzip), the federal ministers (Ressortprinzip) and the cabinet (Kollegialprinzip).The chancellor ‘shall determine, and be responsible, for the general policy guidelines’ (Richtlinienkompetenz) (Article 65 GG), he/she is in charge of the appointment and dismissal of ministers (Article 64 GG), and of the allocation of the numbers and portfolios of ministries. However, the Ministries of Finance, Justice and Defence are constitutionally protected (Hustedt and Tiessen, 2006, p 24). Within these general policies, every minister conducts his/her ministry and policy domain independently, following the so-called Ressortprinzip (departmental principle). Thus, ministers are not subordinate to the chancellor, and she or he cannot instruct them on single issues within their ministries’ affairs, but the chancellor sets out the general policy guidelines.The administration of the ministry includes the authority to decide on the number and character of departments, divisions and sub-divisions to enact a ministerial agenda and to determine the personnel policy of the ministry (within the framework of budgetary and party/proportional representation restrictions) (Pilz and Ortwein, 2008). Within the framework of the Gemeinsame Geschäftsordnung der Bundesministerien (GGO, German Joint Rules of Procedure for Federal Ministries) the federal ministers are equipped with strong autonomy and a powerful administrative foundation that is organised in strict hierarchical lines under the management of state secretaries with civil service status (who, as effective chiefs of administration, rank directly below the ministers). These few top officials can be removed at any time, which traditionally happens after changes of ministers or governments (Hustedt and Tiessen, 2006). Below this political level are the Abteilungen (departments). For example, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs actually consists of seven departments dealing with: • management of staff and finance of the house • principle questions of the welfare state (including bulletins on future developments, poverty and social inclusion) • labour market and unemployment • labour law and occupational safety • social insurance and security • problems of people with disabilities, prevention and rehabilitation • European and international, social and labour market policies. Each of those is subdivided into eight to twelve Referate (units). In general, these sub-departments11 are the basic units in the process of policy-making. They are the actual working units responsible for getting tasks done, where professional expertise is located. Clearly, there are certain differences in the details and the division of labour, for example, the Ministry of Health used to have smaller departments than the Ministry for Social Affairs. This structure has repercussions for the content and processes of policy-making. Higher functional responsibility is paired with the ‘departmentalisation of the mind’ (Adorno, 1951). This pattern of a decentralised policy-making and analysis follows three maxims: • do not suggest anything that overstretches your capacity for work; • never suggest anything that is not accepted in high places (cf Mayntz, 1985, p 190); • abide by what is available and manageable. 96

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Therefore, a selective and conservative or risk-averse approach prevails. This highlights the important functions of homogenisation and leadership of the political management (ministers and state secretaries). Here, suggestions for issues of the departments are selected and requested, implications for (power and party) politics are considered and the extensive coordination between ministries – for example, with the principal of overall control, lists of agenda items and circulation procedures – is put into motion. It can contribute to minimise conflicts (negative coordination), to improve the coherence of policies (positive coordination) and, in addition, it offers the chance for innovative solutions (productive coordination) that happens quite rarely, however, as seen above (Buhr, 2010). Negative coordination prevails, that is, coordination between organisational units, in which the enforcing organisational unit merely examines if a variant of a decision has a negative influence on the status quo or on the interests of other units. In contrast to positive coordination, there is no examination of possible optimal combinations from which all involved actors would benefit the most. This leads to substantially diminished efforts, which is the cause of the empirical dominance of this variant of coordination12 (cf Scharpf, 1993). However, the development or discussion of alternatives is suffocated structurally which can lead to problems, especially in the case of cross-sectional policy areas such as environmental or innovation policy13 (Buhr, 2010) (see Table 7.1). Table 7.1: Difference between positive and negative coordination Criterion Consideration of the problem Search for solutions Target solution Processing of the issue Alternative decisions Cost of coordination Level of innovation Occurrence

Negative coordination

Positive coordination

Separate By oneself Best on its own One unit Few Low Low Frequent

Connected Together Best for everyone Every area Many High High Rare

For a long time, the traditional ‘lawyers’ monopoly’ prevailed in the personnel structure of the ministries and emphasised the organisational influences on policy-making.This changed substantially in the course of the expansion and reforming of the ministries during the 1970s.‘Traditional’ bureaucrats have been supplemented by more ‘political’ types of officials and the permeability between politics and administration has increased (classically see Putnam, 1973). Even more detailed, Mayntz (1985, p 201) differentiates, on the level of the department heads and civil servant state secretaries, the following types of roles: • administrators • experts

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• promoters • politicians (see also Aberbach et al, 1990; Derlien, 2001; Jann and Veit, 2010). With regards to academic origin, social scientists and economic researchers, as well as more recently communication experts, have been added to law professionals. However, since governance still functions largely via the medium of law, the elective affinity to the corresponding discipline continues to exist. Affiliation to a scientific school of thought occasionally plays an important role and influences policy-making, for example, in areas of economic and employment policy. Quite often, the handwriting of the department head is clearly visible – sometimes even beyond changes of governments or ministers (which could be observed recently, in particular in the Ministries of Labour and Family as well as Finances).

Informational level: problem of knowledge and uncertainty Classically, Ellwein expresses the following demand: according to plan, the government obtains information through subordinate administration. The government receives processed information about decisions made, solvable problems, calls for funds, needs perceived by the administration, and so on (Ellwein, 1976, p 175). However, as a result, in practice there is the problem of control on the one side, that is, that ‘crucial and correct’ information reaches the political leadership, and on the other hand, the problem of ‘overload’, that is, that information is overly complex, meaning that it is not sufficiently processed and selected for policy-making. The coordination deficit produced by the organisation thereby repeats itself on the level of informationprocessing. This mostly follows the ministerial structure and generally ends at the border of the department. In addition, an overarching concept of data-processing is missing (Mayntz and Schuhmacher-Wolf, 1985, pp 253f; Czerwick, 1991).Yet there are some remarkable improvements in the compatibility of the systems, and since 2007 there has been a federal government chief information officer, a position held by a State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior. It should be added that the support of rational policy-making via comprehensive information meets with resistance because many actors are conscious of micro-political uses of non-transparency and because they do not assume systematic phenomena but rather the solution of individual cases; perhaps the pronounced data protection regulation also plays a role. Mayntz states that available knowledge is not used, which mostly reflects the departments’ and divisions’ capacity for information-processing which is limited by time and personnel constraints, although occasionally attitude factors also play a role, for instance, doubts about the practical usefulness of scientific theories or pure ignorance of available knowledge (Mayntz, 1985, p 207; see also Chapter 19, this volume). The role of advisers and advisory boards – who, according to Wildavsky, have the function of ‘speaking truth to power’ – has already been mentioned (see also Chapter 10, this volume).The Rürup Commission has not only analysed the problems of social security, but has developed recommendations for action.14 It has also collected essential data and integrated that into a relatively concise model.15 Of course, the question of the missing political consensus in the commission, government and society remains

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(see also Lamping and Schridde, 2011), yet that seems to be normal in a pluralistic world and is much reflected in the ‘frontstage’ debates. In the face of these organisational and informational deficits of policy-making, it is not surprising that shifts in goals, problems of implementation and ‘garbage can’ effects happen (Cohen et al, 1972).This might be one of the biggest arguments for the establishment of external (ad hoc) expert commissions – and the examples mentioned above (such as the Hartz or Rürup Commissions) are proof for this thesis.They seem to open new ‘windows of opportunity’ more easily. According to Kingdon (1995), a ‘policy window’ opens traditionally when problem, policy and political streams meet and provide a chance for a new view. ‘Windows of opportunity’ open by themselves or are actively opened.They emerge through events in the current of politics, such as the inauguration of a new government after elections, through changes in parliamentary committees, new chairpersons in committees or through changes in national sentiment. Thus, new chances arise that did not exist before. ‘Windows of opportunities’ open because of events in current issues, for example, through focusing on events, dramatic occurrences, reports by commissions, and so on. Such events restructure political and public attention and some issues manage to jump on to the political agenda while others disappear or are postponed. Additionally, ‘windows of opportunity’ are actively opened when politicians suddenly see new chances and use them for their own interests.Then the situation is favourable for policy entrepreneurs (for instance, Bert Rürup and Peter Hartz). The appointment of the Hartz Commission is an example of this. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder used a scandal at the (former) Federal Labour Office (uncovered by the Federal Audit Office) to push forward reforms in employment policies that were gridlocked and blocked by strong interest groups. Yet, Hassel and Schiller (2010) interpreted the Hartz reforms as an effort – in our view, primarily by the responsible departments and divisions – to (likewise) solve the crisis of municipal finances, while other observers of the chancellorship and the political leadership identified the dynamisation of the labour market and the organisation of the labour administration as central goals where the issue of municipal finances did not play a role. Obviously, there were shifts of purpose and ‘garbage can’ effects at work.

Strengths and weaknesses: policy-making in the information society To sum up, the outlined structures and deficits of policy-making and policy analysis in Germany are reflecting tensions between: • good in-house capacities on the one hand, and • sometimes narrow policy advocacy coalitions and cognitive maps on the other. As a result the danger of conformity or ‘groupthink’ arises. Or, to put it differently, ‘smart people working collectively can be dumber than the sum of their brains’ (Schwartz and Wald, 2003) – leading to grave deficits in individual and organisational learning and communication. Much of the Hartz reforms, for example, with their emphasis on efficiency and activation, sounded like neoliberal and managerial phrases – they had, as yet, no connotations for the classical social policy melody of solidarity 99

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and help and were thus not understood or accepted in wide parts of society. In this regard good in-house capacities with well-educated and experienced policy analysers would have been of great help to the Hartz Commission. Instead, a well-known (external) business consulting firm was asked to advise, which highlights a typical dilemma: either you get expertise in policy and politics, or you get policy innovation but little integration in the political landscape. More learning from each other on both sides (or more precisely, of both policy advocacy coalitions) would probably have improved the outcome. The starting situation of the learning administration can be summed up as follows. Above all, it is necessary to learn in a specific form and quality, leading to cultural change in government. This collides with an organisation that is institutionally not prepared for fundamental changes such as this16 (Wollmann, 1997; Klimecki, 1998). There are also now incentives or institutionalised pathways that make an exchange of policy science and policy-making easier. So, policy-making in Germany more often resembles an art than a science. Studies on the communication of governments and reforms provide further evidence that the interaction between government, administration and the public has changed, and an essential key word is the media, or information society. A paper by the Bertelsmann Foundation states that, under the new conditions, the following aspects are crucial: • a credible, appropriate and inspiring language of political actors in the process of communication; • the efficient and strategic use of modern methods and techniques of distribution; as well as • the construction of more efficient administrative and institutional structures for the development and implementation of communication strategies in the federal government (Bertelsmann-Stiftung, 2006, p 5; see also Delhees et al, 2008).17 In that respect, the basic structures of policy-making, with all their weaknesses and strengths, have remained on track over the post-war era – in spite of all the reforms and changes in issues and environment.

Notes We are very thankful to Lisa Haug, Anna Schweickert, Benjamin Schmid and Anja Landenberger for their great support in improving this chapter.

1

Ellwein (1976) refers here to the act of governing which he puts into the context of administration and leadership. He differentiates between the following functions: information, coordination, planning and decision-making, finding of means, organisation and consensus-building.These are also problems that successful policy-making and policy analysis have to solve.

2

Our own observations and expert discussions (with the former State Secretary, H. Tiemann, Professor Dr U. Zolleis and Dr S. Blancke) mainly cover the 2000s.

3

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Federal government Or, to put it differently, the corresponding ministry has the largest budget, with about €150 billion. 4

The multivolume History of social policy (published by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the Federal Archive) can be used as comprehensive and broad groundwork. There is quite a similar development in academic German policy science (see Chapter 3, this volume).

5

Political planning denotes the pre-emption of political objectives with the intention of contributing to their optimal implementation by methodically linking intent, purpose and means and by systematising courses of action (Schubert and Klein, 2006). 6

Since the Chancellor’s Office coordinates the federal ministries, its internal structure reflects the respective ministries, so labour and social policy is located in Department 3 (the Department of welfare, health care, labour, infrastructure and social policy).

7

This is synonymous for the far-reaching labour market reforms, which included an organisational restructure of the employment service, the end of the coexistence of federal agencies and the local social work offices, the merging of unemployment assistance and social assistance into the new unemployment benefit (Hartz II) and the establishment of the new doctrine of activation with elements of workfare. 8

See Benzner (1989) for administrative interest mediation and Pappi et al (1995) for the policy area. 9

Programme development is a cohesive process even if it is based on the division of labour between different institutions.The political formation of will and administrative decisionmaking procedures are thereby closely intertwined (Mayntz, 1985, p 184; regarding the special case of Europeanisation, cf Voelzkow and Holtmann, 2000).

10

There are about 1,300 sub-departments (Referate) in the national ministries and the number is quite constant, despite reorganisations or the founding of new federal ministries. 11

If n is the number of areas of deliberation and a the number of alternative decisions subject to negotiation in every area of deliberation, then the number of relations to check in case of positive coordination is Rp = n x (n-1) x a2 , whereas with negative coordination the number of relations is limited to Rn = (n-1) x a. 12

An exception is a State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior functioning as the federal government’s chief information officer. He/she coordinates the IT system that was established in 2007 at the federal level as well as coordination with the state level (Länder). 13

The commission proposed for pension insurance, maintaining the current system of funding via contributions, raising the legal retirement age from 65 to 67 years and introducing the so-called ‘sustainability factor’ into the pension formula. For health there was a sharp division: one group proposed an extension of the existing social insurance system (for the whole population), whereas the other favoured a radical change of the system by introducing capitation fees. 14

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Policy analysis in Germany It is not only the resources of the responsible Ministry for Social Affairs have been used for this, but also those of the German Council of Economic Experts, offering insight into the limits of ministerial processing of information in exceptional cases.

15

For example, the traditional principles of the (permanent) civil service collide with modern management principles – the role of a neutral servant is not the same as that of an active political entrepreneur. 16

This means precisely: besides respective structures and sufficient personnel resources, the professional use of innovative instruments and methods for communication demands a high measure of expert knowledge. The individual federal departments as well as the Federal Press Office (BPA) as a central institution for coordinating governmental communication on reforms should therefore have a staff at their disposal that is educated in the planning and implementing of communications strategies. Included in this is at least substantiated methodical know-how in the areas of ‘storytelling’, eloquent ‘framing’, dialogical communication, active issue management, media observation and similar (Bertelsmann-Stiftung, 2006, p 13).

17

References Aberbach, J.D., Derlien, H.-U., Mayntz, R. and Rockman, B.A. (1990) ‘American and German federal executives. Technocratic and political attitudes’, International Social Science Journal, vol 123, pp 3-18. Adorno, A.W. (1951) Minima Moralia, Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben, Berlin/ Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Benz, A. (2008) ‘Föderalismusreform in der Entflechtungsfalle’, in Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismusforschung Tübingen (ed) Jahrbuch des Föderalismus 2007, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp 154-79. Benzner, B. (1989) Ministerialbürokratie und Interessengruppen, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Bertelsmann-Stiftung (2006) Discussion paper on the expert dialogue ‘Politische Reformkommunikation’, Berlin. BMAS (Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the Federal Archives) (ed) (2001-08) Geschichte der Sozialpolitik in Deutschland seit 1945, 11 Bände, BadenBaden: Nomos. Bogumil, J. and Schmid, J. (2001) Politik in Organisationen. Organisationstheoretische Ansätze und praxisbezogene Anwendungsbeispiele, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Buhr, D. (2010) Chaos oder Kosmos – Die Koordination der Innovationspolitik des Bundes – Probleme und Lösungsansätze, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Cohen, M. et al (1972): A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice, in: Administrative Science Quarterly, vol 17, pp 1-25. Czerwick, E. (1991) ‘Organisation und Koordination des Informations- und Kommunikationstechnikeinsatzes in der Bundesverwaltung’, Staatswissenschaften und Staatspraxis, vol 2, no 1, pp 460-81. Delhees, S., Korte, K.-R., Schartau, F., Switek, N. and Weissenbach, K. (2008) Wohlfahrtsstaatliche Reformkommunikation. Westeuropäische Parteien auf Mehrheitssuche, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Derlien, H.-U. (2001) ‘Öffentlicher Dienst im Wandel’, Die öffentliche Verwaltung, no 54 , pp 322-8. 102

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Ellwein, T. (1976) Regieren und Verwalten, Opladen:VS Verlag. Fischer, T., Schmitz, G. and Seberich, M. (eds) (2007) The strategy of politics: Results of a comparative study, Gütersloh:Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung. Florack, M. and Grunden, T. (eds) (2011) Regierungszentralen, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Grunow, D. (ed) (2003) Verwaltungshandeln in Politikfeldern, Opladen:VS Verlag. Hassel, A. and Schiller, C. (2010) Der Fall Hartz IV. Wie es zur Agenda 2010 kam und wie es weitergeht, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. Heinze, R.G. (2002) Die Berliner Räterepublik.Viel Rat – wenig Tat,Wiesbaden:VSVerlag. Howlett, M. and Ramesh, M. (2003) Studying public policy: Policy cycles and policy subsystems (2nd edn), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hustedt, T. and Tiessen, J. (2006) ‘Central government coordination in Denmark, Germany and Sweden – An institutional policy perspective’, Forschungspapiere ‘Regierungsorganisation in Westeuropa’, no 2,Universitätsverlag Potsdam, pp 1-63. Jann, W. and Veit, S. (2010) ‘Politicisation of administration or bureaucratisation of politics? The case of Germany’, Potsdamer Diskussionspapiere zur Verwaltungswissenschaft, no 6, Potsdam. Jann, W. and Wegrich, K. (2009) ‘Phasenmodelle und Politikprozesse’, in N.C. Bandelow and K. Schubert (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp 75-114. Kingdon, J. W. (1995) Agendas, alternatives and public policies, New York: Longman. Klimecki, R.G. (1998) ‘Verwaltungsreform durch organisationales Lernen – auf dem Wege zu einer Lernenden Verwaltung’, Management Forschung und Praxis, no 24, Constance. Lamping, W. and Schridde, H. (eds) (2011) Der Konsultative Staat. Reformpolitik und Politikberatung, Wiesbaden: Barbara Budrich. Mayntz, R. (1985) Soziologie der öffentlichen Verwaltung, Heidelberg: C.F. Müller Juristischer Verlag. Mayntz, R. (2001) ‘Zur Selektivität der steuerungstheoretischen Perspektive’, MPIfG Working Paper, vol 1, no 2, Köln: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. Mayntz, R. and Schumacher-Wolf, C. (1985) ‘Verwaltungspolitische Strategien technischer Innovationen’, in T. Ellwein and J.J. Jesse (eds) Verwaltungsvereinfachung und Verwaltungspolitik, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp 251-69. Müller-Rommel, F. and Pieper, G. (1991) ‘Das Bundeskanzleramt als Regierungszentrale’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vol 21-22, pp 3-13. Pappi, F.U., König, T. and Knoke, D. (1995) Entscheidungsprozesse in der Arbeits- und Sozialpolitik, Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus Verlag. Peters, G.B., Rhodes, R.A.W. and Wright, V. (2000) Administering the summit: Administration of the core executive in developed countries, NewYork: Palgrave Macmillan. Pilz, F. and Ortwein, H. (2008) Das politische System Deutschlands. Systemintegrierende Einführung in das Regierungs-,Wirtschafts- und Sozialsystem, Munich: Oldenbourg. Putnam, R.D. (1973) ‘The political attitudes of civil servants in Western Europe’, British Journal of Political Science, no 3, pp 253-90. Sabatier, P.A. (1999) Theories of the policy process, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Scharpf, F.W. (1973) Planung als politischer Prozess. Aufsätze zur Theorie der planenden Demokratie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Scharpf, F. W. (1985) ‘Die Politikverflechtungs-Falle: Europäische Integration und deutscher Föderalismus im Vergleich’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, vol 26, no 4, pp 323-56. 103

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Scharpf, F.W. (1993) ‘Positive und negative Koordination in Verhandlungssystemen’, in A. Héritier (ed) Policy Analyse. Kritik und Neuorientierung, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Sonderheft 24, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 57-83. Schmid, J. (2011a) ‘Politikberatung – das Beispiel der Rürup-Kommission’, in W. Lamping and H. Schridde (eds) Der Konsultative Staat. Reformpolitik und Politikberatung, Wiesbaden: Barbara Budrich, pp 123-34. Schmid, J. (2011b) ‘Die (mangelnde) Interdependenz in der Arbeitsmarkt- und Sozialpolitik im deutschen Föderalismus’, in J. Oberhofer and R. Sturm (eds) Koalitionsregierungen in den Ländern und Parteienwettbewerb, Munich: Allitera Verlag, pp 65-82. Schröder, B. (2010) ‘Beratungsgremien bei der Bundesregierung und im Bundestag’, Infobrief Wissenschaftliche Dienste WD 3 – 3010 – 372/10, Berlin, Deutscher Bundestag. Schröder, G. (ed) (2002) Progressive governance for the XXI century: Contributions to the Berlin Conference, Munich: Springer. Schubert, K. and Klein, M. (2006) Das Politiklexikon (4th updated edn), Bonn: Dietz. Schütt-Wetschky, E. (2008) ‘Richtlinienkompetenz (hierarchische Führung) oder demokratische politische Führung?’, in E. Holtmann and W.J. Patzelt (eds) Führen Regierungen tatsächlich? Zur Praxis gouvernementalen Handelns, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 85-97. Schwartz, J. and Wald, M.L. (2003) ‘Smart people working collectively can be dumber than the sum of their brains: “Groupthink” is 30 years old, and still going strong’, New York Times, 9 March. [See also www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/SmartPeople-Dumber9mar03.htm] Schwickert, D. (2011) ‘Wie neue Ideen in die Politik gelangen’, in M. Florack and T. Grunden (eds) Regierungszentralen, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 225-48. Shonfield, A. (1965) Modern capitalism: The changing balance of public and private power, London: Oxford University Press. Tsebelis, G. (1995) ‘Decision making in political systems:Veto players in presidentialism, parliamentarism, multicameralism and multipartyism’, British Journal of Political Science, no 25, pp 289-325. Voelzkow, H. and Holtmann, E. (eds) (2000) Zwischen Wettbewerbs- und Verhandlungsdemokratie:Analysen zum Regierungssystem der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Wollmann, H. (1997) ‘Modernization of the public sector and public administration in the Federal Republic of Germany – (mostly) a story of fragmented incrementalism’, in M. Muramatsu and F. Naschold (eds) State and administration in Japan and Germany, Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp 79-103.

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Statist policy advice: policy analysis in the German Länder Roland Sturm and Markus M. Müller

Policy analysis in the German Länder1 is above all the business of Länder ministries, Länder audit offices and parliamentary research units. Ministries may hire the advice of private consultancies. They may also listen to lobbyists – some of whom have their own think tanks – and to the representatives of institutions legitimised by social corporatism, such as Chambers of Commerce. By policy analysis, we refer to policy input at large, although we place special emphasis on formal and informal policy advice as provided by a number of institutions.

Agenda-setting and policy analysis under institutional restrictions All German Länder have the necessary institutional prerequisites for identifying political challenges, the financial means to work with experts and the ability to organise epistemic communities.Their governments are responsive to regional problems.They plan and organise political processes and evaluate alternative strategies. More than in decentralised forms of federalism, however, the German Länder are restricted in their control of the political agenda in Germany’s unitary federalism. Policy analysis on the Länder level is therefore focused on a rather narrow range of topics. Furthermore, it tends to suffer from a limited choice of alternatives, especially when institutional obstacles, as is the case with European Union (EU) subsidy control, for example, or the imperatives of Germany’s cooperative federalism, force Länder governments to comply with rules outside their jurisdiction (Sturm, 2006). Controlled agenda-setting in German federalism takes several forms. A noninstitutionalised instrument of nationalised agenda-setting in the Länder is party politics (Schmidt, 1980). Länder parties have recently won greater freedom to develop their own political initiatives and to put Länder interests before the interests of their national party organisations (Detterbeck and Renzsch, 2008, p 52). In addition to informal restrictions to political choice on the Länder level, there are two important formal restrictions: federal and EU competences. In Germany`s brand of cooperative federalism, which is anchored in a complex universe of interlocking policy-making involving the federal and the Länder levels, the Länder have lost most of their autonomy, even with regard to taxing and spending.They have no power to legislate in matters of taxation as this is a federal responsibility, and can only veto new legislation in the Bundesrat (the legislative body representing the 16 federal states). And because of the 2009 federalism reform, which put a ceiling on annual budget deficits, they now have to live with reduced spending powers (Sturm, 2010, pp 103ff). Costly Länder policies, for example, concerning higher education or infrastructure projects, certainly have a Länder policy input. However, the role of the federal government in financing these projects has important consequences for the feasibility of Länder policy initiatives. 105

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The core Länder competences – public administration, the police, the media, culture and education – still allow the Länder to differ somewhat in their preferred area of policy analysis. Policy-making at the EU level is usually, to some extent, detached from Länder policy routines, but is nonetheless a factor restricting political choice and therefore needs to be taken into account for policy analysis. The Länder depend, to differing degrees, on funding from EU Structural Funds or the Common Agricultural Policy. Implementation and policy analysis is here in the hands of a network of Länder and federal civil servants (Sturm and Schorlemmer, 2008, p 72). The Länder also try to access other EU programmes, and are affected by European legislation, implying that they have to accept numerous EU regulations. Länder civil servants introduce the Länder preferences into the deliberations of the complex network of national experts that monitor the actions of the European Commission. In a limited way the Länder can search for opportunities for agenda-setting, and have three alternatives. First, they may play by the rules set by federal government and the EU and may try to find a political niche (Hildebrandt and Wolf, 2008b). Second, they can decide to go it alone (or find a Länder strategy). Institutional consequences of Länder strategies are cross-border and inter-regional efforts to engage with other regions/Länder in low politics, such as tourism, waste management or water resources management (Raich, 1995). Third, the Länder may try to develop new policy fields that have so far escaped the attention of the EU or the federal government. In some respects this has been true for labour market policies (Schmid, 2010) and industrial policies (Sturm, 1991), environmental policies until the 1970s (Eppler, 2008, p 323) and rural development policies (Grajewski and Mehl, 2008).

Decision-making processes Two observations describe and explain policy analysis and decision-making by Länder governments: diffusion of public policies across Länder boundaries, effectively creating similar policy approaches and convergence, and difference between Länder, both in terms of heterogeneous preconditions for Länder policies as well as with regard to divergent approaches by their governments. The diffusion literature is broad and much of it is informed by the experience of US fragmented federalism, with few, almost exclusively informal, mechanisms of policy-making coordination (see, for example, Berry and Berry, 2007).There is significant policy diffusion among German Länder, most of which is rather uniform, incremental and highly formalised. Ideals of economic policies, standards of education policy performance or the constitutional implementation of a Schuldenbremse (balanced budget requirement) have been taken up by all Länder governments, in essence pushed by policy analysis in joint working groups and Fachministerkonferenzen (‘ministers’ conferences) as well as Bundesrat procedures. These highly formalised and standardised settings for policy coordination among Länder governments and between them and the federal government can only be understood when one takes into account the organisational structure of Länder governments, with their fully developed political and administrative apparatus.The actual political and administrative practice of this routine-based system of policy coordination gives policy diffusion in Germany quite a unique character and causes convergence in many policy fields on an almost automatic basis. It is so deeply embedded in policy-making and many decision-making procedures that 106

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we should speak of an established culture. This is even the case where one would expect competition between Länder governments due to conflicting interests, such as Standortpolitik, with which Länder attempt to attract investments and new business developments (Müller and Sturm, 2010, pp 195-215).The strong link of politics and administration regarding policy analysis is a general feature of Länder policy-making. As well as the impact of decisions of former governments, the power of socioeconomic factors or the relative importance of formal and informal diffusion paths, we would expect that party political conflict may be a major source of differences in policy-making (Hildebrandt and Wolf, 2008a, pp 15-16). If political parties have held office for a long time, it should be the rule that their beliefs, norms and policy differences become visible in what is decided when finite resources are to be distributed across policy fields, and priorities regarding political goods need to be set. In fact, as many contributors to Hildebrandt and Wolf (2008b) attempt to show, there are policy variations between Länder in accordance with the preferences of the party in government. Some of it seems rather symbolic or peripheral, such as variations in Studiengebühren (university fees), accounting for less than 1 per cent of total university education spending where they exist, or affirmative action and gender mainstreaming (Gleichstellungspolitik), to mention only two. Other issues, such as the organisation of public administration (how middle and lower bureaucracies are organised), electoral systems (the specific mixture and mechanism of proportional and majoritarian elements), or school systems (two or three types of secondary schools), are more substantial. However, they do not necessarily vary in accordance with party political preferences. Cross-Länder differences of decision-making within a given policy area, we would rather hypothesise, are generally less significant than cross-area differences, say, between education policy and environmental or economic policies. The constitutional situation of the Länder, with its specific procedures for lawmaking, policy implementing and review, does not tell us much about the practice of policy analysis and its impact. Formally, the Länder constitutional systems mirror their claim to and their identity as ‘states’ (Eigenstaatlichkeit). Each one of them has a full governmental structure (with a head of government, called ‘Minister-President’ in most Länder, as well as ministries of different size and significance), parliaments of significant size, courts of auditors and constitutional courts. While there is some variation in how ministries are named and what policy fields are deemed significant enough to deserve a ministry, institutional differences between the Länder are limited. How civil servants are hired, the salaries they earn, the career paths they can pursue and so on is organised quite uniformly. Since the 2005 reform of German federalism the Länder governments can make their own public employment laws, and differences in this respect are still marginal. Decision-making in Länder governments is driven by the logic of coalition government and the art of creating and sustaining a political bureaucratic apparatus, in which the capacities of the bureaucratic organs, namely, the ministries and their subordinate administration, need to connect with the intentions, norms and contingencies of the political world. Democratic government based on party politics in a representative system is always characterised by fluid centres of power. Who is important and influential is not necessarily determined by formal office-holding. It also depends on the image presented by the media, the setting of societal actors in the field, party political developments, the contingency of human sympathies and antipathies as well as something we used to call ‘fortuna’. 107

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As in most parliamentary systems, policies in the Länder are usually initiated by the government. Only for symbolic reasons or if purely parliamentary issues are involved (for example, remuneration of members of parliament), a bill will start its way in the Länder parliaments. First and foremost, any new government starts with a coalition treaty based on the analysis of former policies and party political preferences. Coalition treaties represent a melange of mechanisms for the resolution of conflicts between coalition partners, an agenda of political projects to be tackled in the current Legislaturperiode (legislative period) as well as a set of norms, values and symbolic selfrepresentations (for example, environmentally oriented), which themselves serve both to communicate with the party rank and file of the coalition partners and to provide a general normative framework within which the partners fight for their ideas and issues. After all, and even more so today than some decades ago, coalitions are formed for a limited period of time.The parties in government compete, so there is constant tension between conflict and consensus strategies by the relevant actors (Müller, 2011). It has been claimed that Koalitionsausschüsse (coalition committees) are the most important locations of political decision-making, including policy analysis and conflict resolution. They are usually made up of the head of government as well as his or her equivalents on the side of the other coalition partners, the Fraktionsvorsitzende (parliamentary party leaders) of the coalition parties, as well as other major representatives of the coalition parties. Depending on the coalition ‘culture’, hardly anything of importance is decided by the government, ministries or parliament without prior approval of the coalition committee. However, its actual power depends a lot on the actors involved, particularly the participants themselves, as well as the set of issues and problems to be addressed. In contrast to cabinet, for example, there is no formal need to involve the coalition committee. Thus, when it is dysfunctional, for instance, when it produces decisions that do not allow ministries to act or prevents the chancelleries and so on doing their job of governing, it is no longer be addressed. If this happens, it is usually a sign of political sclerosis and government crisis. There are (at least) three major actors in Länder governments that provide and claim the ability of policy analysis and a corresponding steering capacity in dayto-day policy-making. First and foremost is the Staatskanzlei (state chancellery), the formal seat of the Minister-President. This institution coordinates and supervises the general government line of policy-making and resembles, in many ways, the Chancellor’s Office at the federal level. The power of state chancelleries stems from their close interconnectedness with the head of government, including their position in interfederal arenas, as well as their role in preparing cabinet and coalition committee decisions. The second of the major actors are the ministries, which represent the offices of the individual cabinet members.They have both the ministerial expertise of the subject matter as well as the administrative apparatus to realise the government’s decisions. ‘Details matter’, and it is the bureaucratic expertise without which any coordinating unit, like a state chancellery, is more or less void. Chancelleries and ministries have different ways of recruiting staff. Apart from political appointments, including positions of high confidence, ministries recruit in accordance with the rules of their resort, that is, the career tracks of justice, of finance and the like. State chancelleries frequently recruit staff from ministries. Sometimes positions in the former are not filled on a permanent basis, so chancelleries have greater flexibility. Borrowing staff from ministries for limited terms means that the old ministerial ties remain strong. For seconded civil servants new loyalties to the 108

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chancellor are risky. There is no special career pattern for policy analysts, nor are analysts specifically searched for. Strategy units, where they exist, are usually either filled with staff that are already on board, or with confidants of significant political loyalty. Consequently, no general statement on analysis techniques and methods, on dominant schools and doctrines, can be made.The judicial environment has, however, a dominant impact. New debates on better governance through higher participation and more transparency may in the long run change the framing of problems and the cultural predispositions of ministries and chancelleries vis-à-vis policy analysis and policy-planning. In effect, the state chancellery and the ministries need to act in harmony to secure a smoothly working government which is able to confront the third major actor in policy-making forcefully: organised society, including lobbyists and civil society.There are permanent contacts between government and organised society in each Länder on matters of policy analysis. Most federal organisations, such as business and labour organisations, non-profit, for-profit and lobbying groups and so on, are also active at the Länder level. A considerable share of government activity is directed towards these organisations. They are affected by both government regulations as well as direct or indirect recipients of government spending. Thus, they have a significant interest in becoming or staying involved in governmental policy analysis and policy-making, as both their legitimacy and their political power, sometimes even their pure existence, depend on public policies. Without the incentives for policy analysis and the results of policy analysis provided by societal organisations, Länder governments would find policy implementation to be a much harder job because of the threat of permanent conflict (Hanf, 1978). In the context of policy-making in the Länder it is not easy to separate ‘organised society’ from Länder bureaucracies and political actors.We witness a policy-oriented network structure that throws government decision-making into a complex process, where policy-makers are veto players, negotiators and often subordinates, quite often at the same time. Three examples may illustrate this. First is health policy, and hospitals in particular. The Länder are in charge of financing the maintenance of hospitals to ensure sufficient and general access to their services in all regions. However, Länder are the Krankenhausträger (hospital authority) for only a few hospitals, namely, university hospitals, which have a major research focus. The rest of the hospitals are, in essence, either sponsored by local governments (Stadt- oder Kreiskliniken) or by non-profit organisations, such as churches or public charities. Both of the latter cannot be seen as government bodies, although local governments are legally defined as (independent) Gebietskörperschaften (public territorial bodies) of the Länder and are thus part of their ‘statehood’. They are formally subject to Länder governments’ Staatsaufsicht (legal supervision) that includes the constitutional competence to rearrange local communities in terms of size, organisation and fiscal remuneration provided no abolition of local government is intended and local government autonomy is ensured. However, when it comes to issues of public finance, local governments act as bargaining partners vis-à-vis the Länder governments.They pursue their (fiscal and political) self-interests. Second is education policy, and the school system in particular. The Länder are responsible for maintaining a functioning school system in all regions to guarantee that children go to school and get a decent level of education. However, the schools themselves are, with very few exceptions, not owned by the Länder. Most schools are 109

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sponsored by local governments, quite a few are sponsored by non-profit organisations, and some by for-profit ones. The Länder governments hire the teachers and pay for them (only for ‘public’ schools,2 that is, the local government schools). The Länder also subsidise the maintenance and development of school infrastructures, such as buildings and cafeterias. In the case of ‘private’ schools, particularly those under the authority of non-profit organisations, Länder governments ‘refund’ a significant proportion of their cost, because these schools reduce the burden of public schools. Länder governments not only finance education (which amounts to almost half of their annual budgets), but they also stipulate what is to be taught, to what extent and at which age in varying degrees for public and private schools. This kind of ‘content regulation’, however, results mostly from ‘inter-Länder cooperation’ in the Kultusministerkonferenz (conference of education ministers) and their joint efforts in policy analysis. Third is economic policies, and subsidies for businesses in particular. Many of these programmes, some of which are co-funded by the federal government, are implemented by business organisations, such as the Industrie- und Handelskammern (chambers of industry and commerce), Handwerkskammern (chambers of trade) or Innungen (guilds) and Fachverbände (professional associations). While the chambers are, unlike local governments, (independent) öffentlich-rechtliche Körperschaften (public bodies), and thus formal parts of Länder statehood (and subject to state supervision), associations and guilds are not. Legal relations between members and these entities as well as among these organisations vary, mainly according to federal law. But in essence there is no government domination of either of them. Chambers, guilds and professional associations are hybrids: a product of legislation that would disappear completely if the law was to be cancelled and at the same time a Selbsthilfeeinrichtung der Wirtschaft (organisation of business interests) with (internal) decision-making mechanisms designed to guarantee autonomy. From a governmental perspective, organised society is a major force in shaping discourses on government performance. Depending on their relative weight, these actors comment and evaluate governmental action in media discourses. These discourses – that is, press, radio and television coverage, the new social media – are seen as a ‘currency’ in politics. The views expressed here have direct consequences for policy analysis and policy evaluation. No matter how many people actually read, watch or listen to these reports and comments, decision-makers take them seriously, not necessarily in their own right, but they serve as resource for political competition within and between parties.

Policy instruments There are only a few categories of instruments on which governments can rely. First is law-making (in a broad sense), including regulation and participation in the federal legislative process as far as the Länder are concerned.We have already argued that the scope of sub-national legislation in Germany is small, in terms of size and discretion. However, Bundesrat voting behaviour might not only be of high relevance to federal, but also to Länder, policy-making, for example, regarding taxes and revenues.A second category of instruments is the provision of resources to pay for state or societal services, including incentives for private or third sector actors to achieve certain social welfare gains. Budget constraints are the most important drawback of this sort of instrument. 110

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Länder budgets are almost completely ‘bound’ by legal or political liabilities due to the present and future costs of public employment (education and the police in particular), infrastructure investments and programmes, often co-financed by federal or local governments. And third, perhaps most importantly, communication with the media, the public and political stakeholders of diverse kinds. This category of policy instrument is obviously a bit diffuse, and it is certainly not easily distinguishable from the two categories just discussed. However, much governmental work is simply ‘communication’ and this is not only the consequence of party political conflict and other forms of pure ‘politics’. Rather, giving meaning to what one does as a government by talking and presenting issues to audiences, no matter how substantiated by legal or other facts, follows, to some extent, its own rules and thus constitutes a policy instrument in its own right. One could add a fourth instrument, nationalisation and privatisation, which are, of course, restricted to a rather small, but important, section of the government spectrum. They gained momentum in the 1980s and 1990s, when several Länder governments sold their shares in enterprises of different sorts, energy suppliers in particular. And as recently as 2011, the government of the state of Baden-Württemberg bought back parts of its former energy monopolist. One of the most powerful political resources governments have in general is their power to influence media discourses. Their aim is to communicate the priorities originating from the results of their policy analysis. Länder governments have a natural advantage in playing the media game. They set most issues of the political agenda simply by ‘governing’, that is, for example, making government decisions public, setting the stage for governmental activities, such as a visit to a devastated site after a flood, a cabinet meeting followed by a government press conference, and bringing good news to societal, communal or private recipients of subsidies, such as hospitals, farmers, chambers of commerce, or theatres. Länder governments are closer to societal actors than the federal government and are held directly responsible for the quality of important (public) services, in particular schools and public security. The major addressee of Länder governments in their efforts to manage public opinion is the Landespressekonferenz, the conference of journalists at the Länder level interested in politics. A high reputation in the eyes of this group of journalists is essential for cabinet members.The ‘political capital’ produced by journalism, articles, reports, television and radio coverage is the currency that is crucial to make virtually every policy instrument work. Media research has illustrated, as Floß (2010, pp 179-80) reports, that media coverage has a negative impact on political support if political processes are portrayed as inefficient. Governments in general and Länder governments in particular need to demonstrate ‘governmentability’, also in the sense of administrative management. Strong communication skills help even where strong interests are involved, be it those of fellow members of parliament, or those of lobby groups and recipients of various kinds. The role of Länder governments is characterised, as mentioned above, by a relative lack of legislative powers. Debate can rarely be ‘conducted’ by a Länder government ‘in the shadow of hierarchy’. However, beyond (formal) legitimacy, Länder governments are generally able to provide two resources: funding and meaning.While the first has become more and more of a problem in times of budgetary constraints, the latter is potentially infinite. Governments need to be credible, reputable and in certain arenas inspiring to make things really work and to produce joint policy efforts. Coordinated governance instruments were popular at the federal level in the late 1960s and 1970s. 111

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Nowadays, forms and kinds of coordination play with a pluralistically opened neocorporatism without any macroeconomic intentions. At the Länder level, they seem to be designed to order complex negotiation and bargaining processes concerning important political challenges, while setting the scene for the media, and demonstrating both leadership and participatory skills. Policies, particularly new policy instruments, are rarely ‘designed’ in the sense of innovatively invented and formulated by either societal actors or a formalised joint discussion process of government and society. New ideas in policy analysis are more frequently born out of fortunate incidents, entering the arena by chance. This can be an interesting idea put forward by a research institute or some experimental experience elsewhere, taken up by a civil servant attending an international conference, which then circulates among ministerial units in search of someone ready to write up a new policy design for the Länder government. Transfer by chance might thus be the most important source for innovation. Working groups of Länder and federal governments play a particularly important role in strengthening policy inventions by distributing them (or preventing them from coming to life). It seems difficult to make general statements about effects, as the culture of these interfederal and crossLänder processes of policy coordination varies by policy field. Moreover, certain issues in policy fields, such as the secondary school system, come with a historical, institutional and ideological load. Depending on the legacy of such preconditions, Länder governments are more or less (un)willing to serve as policy laboratories for other Länder, to coordinate with other Länder governments or to let external advice and expertise provided for by third parties become effective. Whether epistemic communities (Haas, 1992) should be considered an important factor of policy analysis at the Länder level is an open question. There is only scarce evidence. Apart from quite specific studies, such as the OECD’s PISA (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment) reports (Wolf, 2008), which evaluate school performance, (external) expertise is more or less instrumental. Most external expertise goes back to an interested party, be it in government and parliament or outside state institutions. And, of course, little expertise is really undisputed, at least with regard to its consequences for policy-making. Thus, expertise and expert testimonials are more a sub-category of ‘communication’ resources than an independent influence on policy analysis. ‘Coordinated governance’ is in general a major challenge for Länder governments. In health, education or economic policies, cultural or security issues, both regulation as well as spending are politically unthinkable without stakeholder involvement. As Donahue and Zeckhauser (2008, pp 500-3) argue, private involvement in governments’ activities is hardly ‘new or rare’.They distinguish in particular between ‘direct government provision’ and ‘cheque writing activities’. In their research they find empirical evidence for the US that direct government provision, that is, services provided by public employees, has been in decline since the Reaganomics of the 1980s. To our knowledge, there is no application of their methodology to the German Länder. However, we assume that while there was a peak in the growth of public employment in the 1960s and 1970s, this, and efforts to reduce public employment today, are not driven by ideology. No Thatcherite ideas inform debates about cutting back on direct state activities.The most common form of public employment is Beamte (tenured civil servants). As these employees do not pay social security contributions and enjoy privileges vis-à-vis health insurance, ‘tenure’ causes a significant burden 112

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on future Länder budgets. This marks a difference to the federal government insofar as outlays for public employment are of much greater relative importance for Länder budgets than for the federal budget. German legalism is a central topos that helps to understand policy analysis, policymaking and the instruments used for policy implementation. Civil servants with legal training as well as legal thought, as such, still dominate administrative practice, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Policy analysis that ignores the significance of legalism will also fall short of recognising the effects of cooperative federalism for the path dependency of policy development. Legalism contributes to a strong cultural orientation, which implies equal living conditions in the Länder. The equality paradigm stresses both uniform legal development and also a redistribution of resources to guarantee a comparable level of infrastructure development in the whole of Germany. Even when Länder governments could pursue a different line of policy-making or could make use of a different set of policy instruments, the advocates of convergence find support in the German legalist-corporatist tradition. Many decision-makers, advisers and analysts, both in public administration and in parliament, have gone through legal training, and those who have not usually accept the predominance of the legal discourse including its standards.As soon as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ administer the law by deciding cases, chances are that these decisions become subject to judicial review. Interpretation of laws by the judiciary is considered to be of utmost importance and is respected by both administrative and political decision-makers. In a sense, the legal value of a policy is often more highly regarded than its political value. While this is certainly not to argue that there is no political discretion left, and that interests and ideas cannot break through a wall of legalism, legalism represents a major force in day-to-day policy analysis and policy-making. This certainly accounts for the high quality of German administration in general in terms of Rechtsstaatlichkeit (obedience to the law), thus making public administration predictable and trustworthy. However, it also implies an extraordinary emphasis on the relative uniformity of legal acts and their consequences.

Policy innovation Policy reform on the level of the Länder as a result of policy analysis can come in four categories: (a) efficiency reforms, (b) reforms resulting from Länder competition, (c) policy advice, and (d) reforms resulting from popular demands.

Efficiency reforms A typical efficiency reform is the call for a reduction of red tape and of staff in ministries and – in general – of public administration. As the Länder are responsible for the lion’s share of public administration in Germany, their policies are crucial for creating efficiency gains. We can witness in all Länder elements of new public management (NPM) strategies although nowhere a complete acceptance of those. The responsibility of ministries for resources management has been strengthened, targeting is used to keep policies focused and cost-efficiency comparisons are more widely used. Policy analysis in this context is to a greater extent now influenced by rational choice methods and economic indicators (Schorlemmer, 2006, pp 92ff). In

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addition, the number of staff of the Länder has been reduced, but the intended savings have not been forthcoming; on the contrary, staff costs have increased. There is a great deal of consensus on the new kind of policy-making that is implied by efficiency reforms. An empirical study has shown that all the Länder expect cost reductions for their economies, transparency of political decisions, savings and improved legitimacy of policies (Sturm and Müller, 2005, p 29). Less clear is who should take responsibility for efficiency reforms. It can be shown that only if political capital is invested in these reforms, this means that there is some kind of prime ministerial responsibility for reform measures, policy analysis will change and the power of vested interests will be reduced.

Reforms resulting from Länder competition There is a surprisingly low level of policy learning with regard to the instruments of efficiency reforms at the Länder level, and also when it comes to subsidy controls (the Länder do not even agree on the definition of a subsidy). In some other policy fields it is possible to identify avant-garde groups of Länder who took the lead in new policies and thereby provoked others to follow and to copy successful policies. For industrial policy-making, especially for the decision to promote ‘technology parks’ (regional centres for technological innovation), it can be shown that the innovation narrative was developed by the government of Baden-Württemberg in the 1980s. Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, together with Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia, were the first Länder to create a new policy focused on bringing together science, start-ups and public funding on a small scale in order to inject a dose of new economic activities into regional economies. All the other Länder followed their example, with mixed results, however, because there were soon too many ‘technology parks’ around searching for demand, and the avant-garde group of Länder had lost its competitive advantage (Dose and Drexler, 1988; Jürgens and Krumbein, 1991). A similar dynamic has been analysed with regard to Länder policy-making in the field of labour market policies (Schmid and Blancke, 2001).The existence of an avantgarde group of Länder was explained in this context less by paradigmatic changes in the perception of policies. These can certainly be observed with regard to industrial policies where the economic success of Japan in the 1980s challenged state–industry relations in Germany.With regard to policy change in Länder labour market policies, the decisive factor was the size of the unemployment problem. Labour market policies as well as social policies (Rothgang and Wessels, 2008) of the Länder were, above all, problem-driven. Nine German Länder were in the avant-garde group which engaged in active labour market policies and was searching for new instruments to improve regional employment, also in the long run. Here the economically more successful Länder with lower unemployment rates were hesitant to follow the lead of the avantgarde group. They drew different lessons for policy-making and relied with greater confidence on markets. There was also a divide between the innovation policies of the Länder in the field of education policies. The challenge of the international studies on school performances did not lead to a uniform response, although it had some effects on the convergence of policy instruments and was strongly supported by the institutionalised cooperation of the Länder. To a lesser extent than used to be the case, the strategies of education policies followed party political lines. Still there is policy learning. It has 114

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been observed that this starts from bilateral exchange between the Länder and then spreads in concentric circles (Münch, 2010, p 189). In a number of policy fields, such as higher education and police reform, the legal norms dominating activities meant that policy innovation produced convergence out of the plurality of Länder regulations (for higher education until 2006: federal framework legislation, and for the police, for example, the penal code). It has been shown, however, that in the field of environmental protection, where federal regulations are seen as having weaker sanctions, a number of Länder at least temporarily tried to resist convergence and contributed to considerable delays in policy innovation (Volkery, 2008, pp 270ff) (see Table 8.1). Table 8.1: Policy innovation by efficiency reforms in the Länder Ideas-driven

Problem-driven

Convergence by federal coordination

Industrial policy Labour market policies Police Universities (until 2006) Education policies Social policies Environmental protection

External incentives

Education policies

Policy advice Policy analysis and policy advice by think tanks, such as the Bertelsmann Foundation, foundations of political parties or other independent organisations are certainly noticed by policy-makers, although we know little about their impact. If think tanks want to be heard they need acceptance in most of the Länder. An important filter is party politics. Reports on policy alternatives are often written by academics. Their role, however, is not to contribute to policy analysis, but to legitimise a party political decision. Academics can shape the debate on important political issues if there is not yet a party political controversy on the subject (for instance, climate change). A more neutral institution is the Audit Office, although its conclusions cannot escape party competition either. Opposition parties in particular sometimes see the Audit Office as an ally (see Table 8.2). Table 8.2: Policy analysis by third parties Institution

Significance

Strategic use

Epistemic community (universities, experts) Audit Office

High, when there is no party political controversy, otherwise low to medium High, if there is party political interest in scandalising the findings; medium, when only public servants feel the pressure

From strategic to defensive (where advice ignores political confrontation) Rare; exception: special reports of audit offices

Reforms resulting from popular demands Popular demands for policy reform had one common denominator: more direct democracy.These demands led to political reform at the Länder and the local level. At 115

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the local level directly elected mayors became the rule and the number of referenda on local affairs increased. On the Länder level hurdles for referenda were lowered. Most of the referenda initiatives focused on the reform of education policies and the reform of democratic institutions. Initiatives concerning social and economic policies were also of some importance (Sturm, 2010, pp 142ff).

Conclusion Policy analysis in the German Länder suffers from institutional and procedural restrictions and the lack of budgetary firepower. The importance of epistemic communities, think tanks or other independent advice for policy analysis is limited. Expertise tends to become an additional weapon in the all-pervasive party political game. Policy analysis is, above all, the task of ministries, and is strongly influenced by lobbyism and hybrid state–society organisations. All the Länder use a comparable spectrum of policy instruments, and we have identified two reasons why this is the case – the procedural bias of the Rechtsstaat, that is, the predominance of legal thought which concentrates on form and not on results, and the party political need to sell politics, especially to the media.The Länder operate in a fully functioning party political environment, which politicises policy analysis even if this means that policy-making has inadequate substance. For the Länder, policy learning and policy diffusion – be it from the federal level or among the Länder – is a source of shared policy analysis.

Notes The Länder are the 16 states that embody a sub-national level of politically autonomous units in Germany.The Länder claim ‘statehood’, that is, their governments and parliaments and so on are legally independent from the federal administration. The major task of the Länder is the implementation of both federal and Länder laws. The Länder executives sit in the Bundesrat, the Second Chamber for federal law-making. 1

2

Many teachers at private schools are civil servants seconded to private schools.

References Berry, F. Stockes and Berry, W.D. (2007) ‘Innovation and diffusion models in policy research’, in P.A. Sabatier (ed) Theories of the policy process, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp 223-60. Detterbeck, K. and Renzsch, W. (2008) ‘Symmetrien und Asymmetrien im bundesstaatlichen Parteienwettbewerb’, in U. Jun, M. Haas and O. Niedermayer (eds) Parteien und Parteiensysteme in den deutschen Ländern,Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 39-55. Donahue, J.D and Zeckhauser, R.J. (2008) ‘Public–private collaboration’, in M. Moran, M. Rein and R.E. Goodin (eds) The Oxford handbook of public policy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 496-528. Dose, N. and Drexler, A. (eds) (1988) Technologieparks, Opladen:Westdeutscher Verlag. Eppler, A. (2008) ‘Die Umweltpolitik von Bund und Ländern zwischen Kooperation und Entflechtung angesichts europäischer Vorgaben und sachpolitischer Herausforderungen’, in H. Scheller and J. Schmid (eds) Föderale Politikgestaltung im deutschen Bundesstaat, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp 311-42. 116

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Floß, D. (2010) The impact of mass media on political support: A preferences-perceptions model of media effects, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Grajewski, R. and Mehl, P. (2008) ‘Variable Politik trotz wachsender Verflechtung. Netzwerkgovernance am Beispiel der Politik zur Entwicklung Ländlicher Räume’, in H. Scheller and J. Schmid (eds) Föderale Politikgestaltung im deutschen Bundesstaat, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp 284-310. Haas, P.M. (1992) ‘Epistemic communities and international policy coordination’, International Organization, vol 46, pp 1-35. Hanf, K. (1978) ‘Introduction’, in K. Hanf and F. Scharpf (eds) Interorganizational policy making, London: Sage Publications, pp 1-15. Hildebrandt, A. and Wolf, F. (2008a) ‘Die Potenziale des Bundesländervergleichs’, in A. Hildebrandt and F. Wolf (eds) Die Politik der Bundesländer, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 11-20. Hildebrandt, A. and Wolf, F. (eds) (2008b) Die Politik der Bundesländer, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Jürgens, U. and Krumbein, W. (eds) (1991) Industriepolitische Strategien. Bundesländer im Vergleich, Berlin: Edition Sigma. Müller, M.M. (2011) ‘Koalitionstheorie und Koalitionspraxis am Beispiel BadenWürttembergs’, in J. Oberhofer and R. Sturm (eds) Koalitionsregierungen in den Ländern und Parteienwettbewerb, Munich: Allitera Verlag, pp 105-14. Müller, M.M. and Sturm, R. (2005) ‘Institutionelle und politische Voraussetzungen für erfolgreiche Deregulierung in den Ländern’, in S. Empter, F. Frick and R.B. Vehrkamp (eds) Auf dem Weg zu moderner Regulierung, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, pp 11-46. Müller, M.M. and Sturm, R. (2010) Wirtschaftspolitik kompakt, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Münch, U. (2010) ‘Föderale und parteipolitische Interdependenzen bei schulpolitischen Innovationsprozessen’, in Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismus-Forschung Tübingen (ed) Jahrbuch des Föderalismus, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp 188-99. Raich, S. (1995) Grenzüberschreitende und interregionale Zusammenarbeit in einem ‘Europa der Regionen’, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Rothgang, H. and Wessel, A.C. (2008) ‘Sozialpolitik in den Bundesländern’, in A. Hildebrandt and F. Wolf (eds) Die Politik der Bundesländer, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 137-72. Schmid, J. (2010) ‘Die (mangelnde) Interdependenz in der Arbeitsmarktund Sozialpolitik im deutschen Föderalismus – Von der Unitarisierung zur Balkanisierung?’, in J. Oberhofer and R. Sturm (eds) Koalitionsregierungen in den Ländern und Parteienwettbewerb, Munich: Alliteraverlag, pp 65-82. Schmid, J. and Blancke, S. (2001) Arbeitsmarktpolitik der Bundesländer, Berlin: Edition Sigma. Schmidt, M.G. (1980) CDU und SPD an der Regierung. Ein Vergleich ihrer Politik in den Ländern, Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus Verlag. Schorlemmer, I. (2006) Erfolgreicher Bürokratieabbau in den Ländern. Ziele – Akteure – Verfahren, Berlin: Logos. Sturm, R. (1991) Die Industriepolitik der Bundesländer und die europäische Integration, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Sturm, R. (2006) ‘Economic reform at the Länder level: New life for regional interventionism’, in K. Dyson and S. Padgett (eds) The politics of economic reform in Germany, Abingdon: Routledge, pp 94-109. 117

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Sturm, R. (2010) Föderalismus, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Sturm, R. and Schorlemmer, I. (2008) ‘Germany’, in M. Baun and D. Marek (eds) EU cohesion policy after enlargement, Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp 52-72. Volkery, A. (2008) ‘Naturschutzpolitik in den Bundesländern’, in A. Hildebrandt and F. Wolf (eds) Die Politik der Bundesländer, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 257-73. Wolf, F. (2008) ‘Die Schulpolitik – Kernbestand der Kulturhoheit’, in A. Hildebrandt and F. Wolf (eds) Die Politik der Bundesländer, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 21-42.

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nine

Local policy processes: economisation, professionalisation, democratisation Jörg Bogumil and Claudia Ruddat

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 framework1 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 BadenWürttemberg (1,101 municipalities), however, still have a high number of small and very small municipalities. 119

Policy analysis in Germany

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. The specific configuration of municipal functions, powers and structures is defined by the respective state constitution (Landesverfassung) and by the state-authored municipal constitutions (Gemeindeordnung). As well as self-administration, the municipalities exercise general state functions delegated to them. These contain mainly tasks in social welfare, public health, economic promotion, transport and public facilities. Hence, the room for manoeuvre to control municipal revenues is extremely limited.

Municipal responsibilities The municipalities mainly exercise functions of inner administration and general state functions, social welfare, public health, economic promotion, transport and public infrastructure and facilities. As such, municipalities and municipal associations administer a big part of public tasks. On the one hand they exercise functions of the federal state and the Länder as lower administrative units (delegated functions according to Article 83 ff GG). On the other hand they can exercise quite a number of self-administrative tasks under their own responsibility, according to Article 28 GG. Those tasks of self-administration can be differentiated between obligatory and voluntary functions. With regard to contents functions of organisation, services and planning can be distinguished (Bogumil, 2005).

Delegated functions Among the delegated functions are registration, building inspection, foreigners’ affairs, civil defence and regulatory law; main tasks include vehicle registration, residence authorisation, passport and registration affairs, foodstuffs control, school supervision and industrial and trade law. In this domain municipalities have no room for manoeuvre in exercising their functions.The functions delegated by the federal state in particular are characterised by a comprehensive directive authority of the state.The controlling authorities (Länder ministries, district administration) exercise legal and substantive supervision (Bogumil, 2005).

Functions of self-administration (obligatory and voluntary) Regarding the self-administrative tasks, obligatory and voluntary tasks have to be distinguished. Table 9.1 summarises the relevant functions of self-administration.

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Local policy processes Table 9.1: Functions of self-administration Voluntary functions

Obligatory functions

Public parks Museums Public pools Theatres Sports facilities Youth facilities Public libraries Gatherings for older people Economic promotion Town twinning

Municipal streets Development plans Building planning Childcare Youth welfare Housing allowance School administration Adult education centres Rubbish disposal Promotion of housing construction

Source: Bogumil and Holtkamp (2013, p 18)

Regarding the self-administrative functions the municipal council is the responsible omnicompetent authority.The state level only exercises legal supervision, supervising if the municipalities are not violating the law in fulfilling their tasks. However, the voluntary part of municipal functions has been constantly diminishing due to the further contraction of already tight municipal budgets and the legal requirements of the European Union (EU), the state and the Länder regarding the establishment of equal living conditions (Bogumil, 2005).

Between consociational and competitive democracy Municipal decision-making processes depend on many independent variables, among which are municipal size, institutional arrangements of the municipal constitutions, local political culture and staff constellations. General characteristics of local policy processes are the dominance of administration, a high interdependence of politics and administration as well as the existence of informal pre-decision committees. Research in general focuses mainly on the institutional arrangements of the municipal constitutions. The link between the decision-making structure (framed by the municipal constitution) and the decision-making processes is beyond dispute and unfolds as the different rules (for example, electoral system, competences of the mayor, elements of direct democracy) change the characteristics of the decision-making processes (Bogumil, 2001). The other central variable to explain local policy processes has received far less attention: municipal size. In our opinion this has the most important effect on municipal politics – bigger municipalities have complex professionalised decisionmaking structures, more difficult coordination tasks and a higher conflict potential. But most importantly, the extent of party competition increases equally with the size of the municipality (Ellwein and Zoll, 1982; Hennecke, 1999). In larger rather than in smaller structures politics is separated from the social structures and develops a life of its own. Here, local politics is no longer perceived as an apolitical sphere, in reach of the citizens and not separated from daily societal life. Local politics in smaller municipalities has no sphere of its own. Citizens do not need parties for orientation because they can evaluate the actual situation by themselves or trust the personally 121

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known local dignitaries to judge. In smaller cities, too, local politics mainly has the function of representing different social groups rather than making decisions, as local affairs are perceived as rather technical issues.With increasing size, however, the circumstances become more unclear, the awareness of own political competences decreases, and personal knowledge of local politicians diminishes. In this case, parties exercise an orientation function (Bogumil, 2010). Thus, it is not surprising, that in North Rhine-Westphalia, with many big cities and few smaller municipalities, party competition has always played a bigger role. Since the 1990s, however, municipal institutions have been subject to reform: municipal constitutions have been amended, the ‘new steering model’ introduced, elements of direct democracy and other forms of citizens’ participation have been fostered, and public services have been liberalised and privatised. Those reforms also touch the role of parties at the local level as there has been a new arrangement of elements of consociational and competitive democracy (Bogumil, 2001). The notions of consociational and competitive democracy here refer only to partisan consociation and competition, meaning the interrelations between political parties. The central difference, also at the local level, is amicable settlement of conflicts for consociational democracy versus conflicts between majority and opposition for competitive democracy (Lehmbruch, 1967).The level of party competition is defined by the degree to which local parties can monopolise municipal politics regarding staff, contents and procedures (Wehling, 1991). In contrast to the classic notions of comparative government (parliamentarianism, presidentialism), the notion of municipal consociational and competitive democracy does not refer to formal institutions. It is, rather, a tool to describe patterns of behaviour, norms and influences. Municipal consociational democracy is characterised by only marginal party competition of local parliament and mayors in the phases of nomination, campaign and ruling. Nevertheless, the position of the mayor is dominating. Municipal competitive democracy, however, is characterised by a pronounced party competition in all phases and a less influential mayor (Holtkamp, 2008). Especially in the northern Länder, but also in other big cities, competitive democracy, existing as such since the 1970s, has come under pressure through increasing elements of consociational democracy. The dominance of parties is declining as the structures of democratic interest regulation are diversifying. Representative decision-making structures are enhanced by direct and cooperative elements (Bogumil, 2010).The two ideal cases of municipal competitive and consociational democracy, with the latter having a more important tradition in the southern Länder, can be used to classify decision-making processes. Nevertheless, since 1945 this trend has rather favoured consociational democracy. But still, in North Rhine-Westphalia, competitive democracy with important party competition prevails, which is not only due to the size of the municipalities, but also due to the different frameworks provided by municipal law in the different Länder. The previously mentioned trend will, however, keep stable in small and middlesized German municipalities. This is not surprising if one takes into account the decreasing size of party members in relation to the considerable number of seats in local parliaments (Holtkamp, 2006, 2008).

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Trends and constraints Direct democracy Starting in Eastern Germany, a trend to reform municipal constitutions has developed since 1991. The model was the south German Council-Mayor Constitution of Baden-Württemberg, with a directly elected major and citizens’ initiatives and referenda. Citizens’ initiatives and referenda were implemented in Schleswig-Holstein (1990), Hesse (1993), Rhineland-Palatinate (1993), North Rhine-Westphalia (1994), Bremen (1994), Bavaria (1995), Lower Saxony (1996), Saarland (1997) and Hamburg (1998), following the example of Baden-Württemberg (1956) and the new Länder. Since then, details of the municipal constitutions have changed. After 40 years of representative democracy, democratic decision-making has been complemented through elements of direct democracy. While differences still persist, municipal constitutions are experiencing unexpected harmonisation. Since the competence for municipal constitutions lies at the Länder level, this is especially notable (Holtkamp, 2005; Gabriel and Walter-Rogg, 2006). Empirical research on utilisation shows considerable variance regarding the employment of citizens’ initiatives and referenda (Rehmet and Mittendorf, 2008). The research centre Citizens’ Participation and Direct Democracy of the University of Marburg has collected over 7,000 direct democratic procedures (citizens’ initiatives and citizens’ and council referenda) over the last 15 years (Rehmet and Mittendorf, 2008) (see Table 9.2). Independent variables that explain the frequency of utilisation of direct democratic procedures are legal requirements regarding permissible issues and the required quorum of signatures as well as municipal size. Experiences from Bavaria show clearly that lower institutional obstacles increase the frequency of use. As all Länder have lowered those obstacles continuously during the last few years, a further increase in use is to be expected; the success rate of direct democratic procedures is about 40 per cent (Rehmet and Mittendorf, 2008; www.datenbank-buergerbegehren.de, 15 March 2012; Bogumil and Holtkamp, 2012).

‘New steering model’ and ‘new financial management’ For a long time German administration used to be seen as exemplary in international comparison. It was the German sociologist Max Weber who described it as prototype of bureaucracy. It has been – and largely still is – characterised through hierarchy, division of labour, fixed competencies and expert training. Local administration in Germany was also framed by these principles. The structure of local administrations was quite uniformly shaped after the plan for administrative structuring developed by the Kommunale Gemeinschaftsstelle (KGst, Municipal Association for the Modernisation of Administration) in the 1950s. Local administration was based on a strict division of labour and strong hierarchies (Bogumil et al, 2007). Since the 1980s, however, this well-ordered administrative organisation has increasingly attracted criticism. It is now seen as being too complicated, expansive and inflexible. Critics asked for a reduction of bureaucracy and more public responsiveness, while, in comparison to other countries, efforts to reform stayed in containable limits. The NPM debate only came to Germany in the 1990s due to German reunification 123

Policy analysis in Germany Table 9.2: Frequency of citizens’ initiatives and council referenda by Länder Land

Municipalities

Since

BB

BE

RR

Total/ year

Total/ municipality

NW

426

1994

539

154

9

43.9

1.6

BY

2,057

1995

1,759

995

77

188.7

1.4

HE

426

1993

322

108

0

25.3

1.0

BW

1,146

1956

485

367

91

17.5

0.8

BB

450

1993

102

130

99

19.5

0.7

SN

547

1990

196

131

47

18.7

0.7

SH

1,135

1990

275

126

16

20.9

0.4

ST

1,215

1990

127

155

91

18.7

0.3

SL

58

1997

14

0

0

1.1

0.2

NI

1,201

1996

212

69

2

20.2

0.2

MV

976

1993

77

39

26

8.4

0.1

TH

1,006

1993

86

25

0

6.5

0.1

RP

2,493

1994

134

50

0

11.5

0.1

Total

13,136

4,328

2,349

458

Source: www.mehr-demokratie.de; authors’ own calculations, 2010 Notes: NW = North Rhine-Westphalia, BY = Bavaria, HE = Hesse, BW = Baden-Württemberg, BB = Brandenburg, SN = Saxony, SH = Schleswig-Holstein, ST = Saxony-Anhalt, SL = Saarland, NI = Lower Saxony, MV = Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, TH = Thuringia, RP = Rhineland-Palatinate. BB = citizens’ initiative; BE = citizens’ referendum; RR = council referendum.

and the emerging budgetary crisis. The KGst rejected the administrative structure it developed as too bureaucratic, stating that bureaucratic centralism should be replaced by a lean, customer-oriented administration acting more like a company (Banner, 1991). The central claim of the ‘new steering model’ has accordingly been that the classic bureaucratic steering involved dysfunctional outcomes and that modern concepts of economic management could be successfully transferred to public administration. The now negatively connoted and even caricatured model of centralised and bureaucratic steering was contrasted with a new model of transparent, decentralised and outcome-oriented steering, involving motivation instead of alimentation for employees, individual responsibility instead of hierarchy for the organisation, results instead of rules for procedures, and costing or double bookkeeping instead of cameralistics for the budget (Banner, 1991). Main elements of the ‘new steering model’ are: • contract management between the political and the administrative sphere, meaning that politicians content themselves with defining goals while concrete implementation is left to the administration; • budgeting, meaning the combination of responsibility for tasks and budgets in the different departments; 124

Local policy processes

• output control through a general division of the budget into products and costing; • installation of a central administrative unit for general steering and controlling tasks. Furthermore, these new administrative structures are to be fostered by an increased customer orientation and intermunicipal benchmarking processes (Bogumil and Holtkamp, 2013). Since the 1990s, many municipalities used the ‘new steering model’ as a template hoping to be able to face the emerging budgetary crisis. But only a few years later, quite a few municipalities filed the ‘new steering model’ away. In contrast to the model, local politics still concentrate on detailed intervention (‘how’), not truly integrating the idea of output control (‘what’), which is so central to the ‘new steering model’. Budgeting is only partly implemented because experience showed that too strong a decentralisation of financial responsibility could be disadvantageous to budget consolidation. Furthermore, the development of products and costing used quite a large amount of personal resources, sometimes only to be withdrawn a few years later. For many administrators, the initial reform euphoria soon turned into disenchantment and general scepticism. Only customer orientation has a thoroughly positive assessment. Some elements of customer orientation had already been developed earlier, but through the ‘new steering model’ they diffused widely in the whole republic. Processing of citizens’ inquiries shortened, service quality and customer satisfaction increased.Active complaint management and one-stop agencies for citizens’ concerns were the most successful instruments, and are a matter of course in most municipalities today (Bogumil et al, 2007; Kuhlmann et al, 2009). During the implementation of the ‘new steering model’ in the mid-1990s, the municipalities used intensive consulting by KGst and management consultancies. As most municipalities did not perceive the advice as useful, this trend decreased strongly in the following years. Consultancy from policy analysis itself is not very common. It mostly refers to participation and direct democracy and to the organisation of the municipal constitutions.There is, however, no systematic knowledge about the extent and effects of this consulting. Most recently, central elements of the ‘new steering model’ have become legally binding through the new municipal budget law, or Neues Kommunales Finanzmanagement (NKF, new municipal financial management).The binding implementation of double bookkeeping or costing was attached to similar expectations as the ‘new steering model’. For the first time, municipal assets and liabilities that were only inadequately integrated in cameralistics have to be systematically integrated into municipal budgets. Furthermore, the municipalities were obligated to implement further elements of the ‘new steering model’ (for example, output control, controlling, reporting). Nevertheless, implementation problems are also present for the second attempt to systematically reform municipal administrations. Regarding management by objectives, for example, decision-makers do not provide clear hierarchies of goals so that measurement of target achievement is very difficult. Moreover, the effects of the ‘new financial management’ are unclear due to transaction costs and selective appropriation by the administrative personnel. Path dependence of formal institutions and informal routines further reduces the impact of binding modernisations (Bogumil et al, 2011).

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Policy analysis in Germany

‘Citizens’ community’ The ‘citizens’ community’ (Bürgerkommune) is among the most popular of concepts in municipal politics – through a higher participation of citizens, local politicians hope to reduce disenchantment in politics in order to foster civic engagement and to diminish severe budgetary stress. The idea of a customer-oriented administration is central to the concept of ‘citizens’ community’, and depends on the conveyance of civic engagement and participation in the municipal planning processes. It thus adjusts the triangle of forces between citizens, administration and local parliaments.While the ‘new steering model’ focuses mainly on the inner modernisation of administration (except for customer-orientation), the concept of ‘citizens’ community’ is based on a recalibration of the interrelations between politics, administration and citizens.The concept is often used, however, but quite differently interpreted and implemented. Nevertheless, five goals are essential to practitioners and scientists (Bogumil and Holtkamp, 2011): • • • • •

Acceptance: higher satisfaction with local services and projects Democratisation: higher participation in municipal decision-making processes Solidarity: support of local assistance networks Efficiency: relief of municipal budgets Effectiveness: improved political outcomes with regard to political goals

These ambitious goals are difficult to implement all at the same time. To optimise goal attainment, politicians choose a multidimensional approach that integrates the advancement of citizens’ roles as customers, participators and contractors. Regarding the role as contractor, the phases of policy formulation and planning are concerned (for instance, round tables); regarding the role as participators and customers, the phase of policy implementation is concerned.While the role as customer can be understood as the rather passive evaluation of the municipal output (for example, active complaint management, customer surveys), the role as participator is characterised by active co-creation of municipal output (for example, maintenance of sports facilities by associations) (Holtkamp et al, 2006). These three pillars of the ‘citizens’ community’ contribute, to a different extent, to the above-mentioned goals of the concept. While the role as participator is suitable to foster efficiency (for example, transfer of tasks to associations) and solidarity (for instance, self-help, civic engagement and neighbourly help), the role as contractor is especially appropriate to reactivate local democracy.Thus, if politicians do not want to play the different roles off against each other, all three citizens’ roles are to be advanced equally. In order to unfold the maximum possible benefit, a ‘citizens’ community’ has to be founded on four elements (Bogumil and Holtkamp, 2011): • Comprehensive policy coordination: citizens only have limited sympathy for and comprehension of departmental limits and constraints and prefer their problems to be treated holistically. Under ideal circumstances, participating citizens have only one central contact person (for example, a so-called ‘citizens’ officer’) in order to prevent them from having to go through countless municipal officials (one-stop participation). This requires new organisational structures.

126

Local policy processes

• Participation management: municipal decision-makers should give thought to the questions, when, where, how and which issues citizens are to be consulted with before using the different instruments inconsiderately. Thus, participation management under equal participation of majoritarian and oppositional factions assures the continuity of the ‘citizens’ community’ regardless of changing political majorities. • Delegation of responsibility: delegation of competencies to the district level increases incentives for citizens to engage in planning and implementation of local policies. Doing so, citizens become aware that their participation determines the results. Free-riding is limited due to higher social control. • Cultural change: collective learning is necessary so that municipal decision-makers approach citizens directly and appreciate their participation as enrichment rather than as a disturbance of their routines or a retrenchment of their competencies. The concept of a ‘citizens’ community’ has been criticised for being too state-centred. While projects are often initiated by societal actors, participation management can quench initiative and self-reliance, and municipal steering can be perceived as illegitimate interference.As the idea has been explicitly developed as a reform concept for local administrations, the autonomous achievements of actors from civil society are, in many cases, rather untended (Bogumil and Holtkamp, 2013). Another challenge for the implementation of a ‘citizens’ community’ is the tight financial situation of many municipalities. Research shows that in North RhineWestphalia, with a very tight budgetary situation, far less possibilities for participation can be implemented than in Baden-Württemberg, where the financial situation of the municipalities is more relaxed.

Limited financial room for manoeuvre A high number of German municipalities are now experiencing severe budgetary crisis. The continuous compensation for financial shortfalls through borrowing (called ‘liquidity protection credits’ since the introduction of double bookkeeping) has even become a mass phenomenon. From 1997 to 2009 the total amount of those cash credits increased by more than six-fold, from €5.2 billion to €40.5 billion. This extreme progression is classified as the biggest problem of municipal budgetary policy (Boettcher and Junkernheinrich, 2009). However, not all municipalities are equally concerned by the budgetary crisis. Some have managed to balance their budgets without credits, even in times of adverse economic development. Regardless of the average rising indebtedness, the budgetary situation of the German municipalities is characterised by considerable variance.The German Länder are not concerned to the same extent.While in North Rhine-Westphalia municipalities have used cash credits for years, the municipalities in other Länder have not been struck by severe budgetary stress. The allocation of cash credits per inhabitant shows that municipalities in Baden-Württemberg do not have significant financial problems. Even municipalities in the five Länder of the former GDR have only quite low cash credits per inhabitant.The most difficult situation can be found in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. Nearly half of all cash credits, meaning nearly €20 billion, are accumulating in the municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia. But even there cash credits have been quite unequally allocated, 127

Policy analysis in Germany

with the municipalities from the Ruhr area deviating from the other municipalities to an important and increasing extent since the turn of the millennium (Holtkamp, 2010) (see Figure 9.1). Figure 9.1: Cash credits per inhabitant (€) in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the new Länder (NL) and BadenWürttemberg (BW)

Source: Junkernheinrich and Micosatt (2008); Holtkamp (2012)

Causes for the tight budgetary situation are manifold, and the literature distinguishes exogenous (socioeconomic and demographic situation, structure of urban development and municipal capital and resources) and endogenous (institutional and actor-centred) causes (Bogumil et al, 2011). • Socioeconomic situation: the situation of the local economy and population is the basis for the municipalities’ financial situation.While the performance of local businesses is vital for the revenue side (for instance, from taxes and fees), the social structural circumstances of the population (for example, education, income, unemployment) has a big influence on (social) expenditure. • Demographic situation: population decrease in particular can open out into financial problems as expenditure on infrastructure cannot be decreased proportionally to the decline in population. This is especially relevant for bigger cities with an accordingly extensive supply in infrastructure. • Structure of urban development: urban areas provide a considerable range of functions and services for the periphery. Those are usually cost-intensive and come along

128

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with high expenditure regarding social security, culture and recreation, public transport and street maintenance as well as environmental protection. • Municipal capital and resources: the distribution of functions and expenditure between Länder and municipalities as well as municipal financial equalisation influences the indebtedness of the municipalities.There is probably a high variance depending on the different Länder. Furthermore, the credits of Länder and respective municipalities are like communicating pipes, so that municipal indebtedness might also depend on the indebtedness of the respective Land. • Institutional variables: fiscal law and the shifting of functions as well as emergency budget regimes are possibly limiting the scope of municipal action.The municipal oversight might interfere and demand a budget consolidation concept or the appointment of a so-called ‘savings commissioner’. Research shows that the depth of engagement varies considerably between the Länder (Geißler, 2009; TimmArnold, 2010). • Actor-centred variables: among the actor-centred variables are the governing party and the difference between consociational and competitive democracy.While change of power has not proved to have had a significant effect on municipal debt (Gabriel et al, 1994; Wagschal, 1996; Holtkamp, 2000), consociational and competitive democracy are connected with another hypothesis.While in consociational contexts efficiency might play a bigger role, in competitive circumstances with high party competition, efforts for consolidation are expected to be less consistent (Holtkamp, 2010; Timm-Arnold, 2010). To sum up, the municipal financial situation is a result of a complex interaction of exogenous parameters, endogenous preconditions and decisions in the municipality. The respective shares of the different factors are currently being scrutinised in a project funded by the German Research Foundation and led by Jörg Bogumil, Lars Holtkamp, Uwe Wagschal and Martin Junkernheinrich (www.sowi.rub.de/ regionalpolitik/forschung/Haushaltsdefizite.html.de).

Summary and perspectives All in all, ambivalent trends are observable at the municipal level, which refer to the known effectiveness–legitimacy dilemma. On the one hand economisation at the municipal level increases. On the other hand there are clear trends of democratisation. Research on local politics has generally focused on problematic developments in the municipalities. In the face of budgetary crisis, the interference of budgetary authorities and privatisation, several authors have stated a massive loss of municipal freedom of action or even the end of municipal self-administration (Wohlfahrt and Zühlke, 2005). It is indeed true that some municipalities, as, for example, in North RhineWestphalia, have been limited in their options for action due to the budgetary crisis. It is also correct that the federal state and Länder have significantly pushed this negative trend by shifting financial problems and costs to the municipal level. However, this alarmist perspective ignores the persisting advantages and functions municipal selfadministration is still exercising for the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany and which can partly be used in spite of difficult circumstances. In the light of a growing disenchantment with politics and politicians, and an increasing scepticism towards a purely representative democracy, especially at the 129

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local level, new forms of democracy can be implemented. To a certain extent the democratic deficits on the federal level can be compensated (Dahl, 1992, p 33; Crouch, 2004, p 145; Vetter, 2011). Furthermore, municipal self-administration is an important experimental ground. Municipalities are currently putting new offers for participation and forms of democracy to the test that the federal state and Länder can learn from. The problem remains that input and output legitimacy only seldom increase at the same time. But with a ‘citizens’ community’ and a committed civil society it seems at least locally possible to generate a sufficient democratic legitimation to accommodate the tight municipal room for manoeuvre. Taken as a whole, these functions of municipal self-administration support the idea of more democratic experiments for municipally implementable reforms as well as for those that are only performable at a higher level. On the basis of this discussion we propose additional possibilities for further democratising bottom-up democracy (Bogumil and Holtkamp, 2013). • Extension of presidential democracy: a perspective of output legitimacy could favour the promotion of consociational democracy in those Länder with a rather competitive tradition such as North Rhine-Westphalia.The municipal constitutions could assign more legal competencies to the mayor so that he or she can act more independently from the majorities in the local parliaments. Furthermore, vote splitting between political parties would foster personalisation of electoral law and diminish party discipline and disputes between the majority and opposition. This way mayors could more easily organise their majorities in local parliament to break up political blockades, in particular, in cohabitational constellations. • Professional democracy: parliamentary seats and faction leadership are strictly defined as honorary activities and can therefore not be formally regarded as a profession. Nevertheless, especially in cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, processes of informal professionalisation of local politics can be observed (Reiser, 2006, p 61). These are fostered on the one hand by posts in partly privatised municipal enterprises or, on the other hand by corporations (such as housing companies, welfare organisations or construction companies) that are interested in having a council member in their midst (Reiser, 2006, p 167). But informal professionalisation is linked to a strong lack of transparency and partly with political corruption. It seems to make sense to increase parliamentary allowances considerably, especially for faction leaders in big cities. Considering the budgetary crisis, this stronger professionalisation could be financed by a measurable reduction in the number of parliamentary seats. • Gender democracy: women are still under-represented in local politics in Germany, reflecting the diverse structures of inequality and discrimination.The French case shows that gender parity can easily be achieved, on the condition that appropriate institutional parameters are enforced (Holtkamp and Schnittke, 2010). In Germany the advancement of women is institutionally still underdeveloped. Only some parties have prescribed female quotas for the municipal level with, however, only limited impact, especially in smaller municipalities (Holtkamp and Schnittke, 2010). Legal candidate quotas might be an adequate corrective. • Democracy by lot: from 1996 to 2012 municipal voter participation has decreased from 71 to 49 per cent in the ‘old’ Länder (of the Federal Republic of Germany), while voter participation at the federal level has remained constant. Nearly half 130

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the population does not participate in municipal parliaments, without identifiably hampering the work of the political parties. One possibility in reacting to these challenges could be to recruit an equivalent part of local parliamentarians by lottery from the registers of the local residents’ registration office. Equivalent to empirical social research an albeit smaller random sample is drawn to guarantee a recruitment independent from political parties. By doing so, citizens characterised by disaffection with politicians and parties could be more easily included. First experiences with democracy by lot show that drawn citizens show a high orientation towards public and social goods (Leggewie, 2011, p 164) and take their role as representatives of the citizenship very seriously. Decision-makers should consider the variance between municipalities regarding their institutional and socioeconomic structures while implementing these reform options (see Table 9.3). Table 9.3: Types of bottom-up democratisation Presidential democracy Professional democracy

Gender democracy

Democracy by lot

Goals

Relevant for

- Democratic control and responsivity through voting out - Diminish blockades in the case of cohabitation - Reduction of corruption - Increased capacity to act by a weaker fragmentation of parliaments - Gender parity - Renewal of political parties - Cooperative leadership - Participation of non-organised citizens - Incentive for parties to foster participation

All municipalities Big cities

All municipalities except the very small ones Small and middlesized municipalities

Source: Bogumil and Holtkamp (2013, p 212)

There is no single best way to democratise democracies, but municipalities can be an experimental ground to try out different forms of democracy. Where else can democracy be tested if not in municipalities characterised by a relatively strong proximity to their citizens and only limited risks of a potentially too strong democratisation? The limited room for manoeuvre of the municipalities, their inclusion into federal coordination processes and common standards of service supply do not have to be interpreted detrimentally. They allow a quite low-risk democratisation on little questions and the direct environment of citizens in contrast to general standards in social and environmental policy or civil rights.

Note See Gunlicks (1986) for a comprehensive but unfortunately not completely up-to-date overview in English. 1

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References Banner, G. (1991) ‘Von der Behörde zum Dienstleistungsunternehmen – Die Kommunen brauchen ein neues Steuerungsmodell’, Verwaltung, Organisation, Personal, vol 13, no, pp 6-11. Boettcher, F. and Junkernheinrich, M. (2009) Kommunaler Finanz- und Schuldenreport Nordrhein-Westfalen, unter Mitarbeit von Gerhard Micosatt, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung. Bogumil, J. (2001) Modernisierung lokaler Politik. Kommunale Entscheidungsprozesse im Spannungsfeld zwischen Parteienwettbewerb, Verhandlungszwängen und Ökonomisierung, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Bogumil, J. (2005) ‘Kommune/Kommunale Selbstverwaltung’, in Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanung (ed) Handwörterbuch der Raumordnung, Hannover: Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanung, pp 515-21. Bogumil, J. (2010) ‘Parteien in der Kommunalpolitik. Hoffnungsträger oder Auslaufmodell?’, in D. Gehne and T. Spier (eds) Krise oder Wandel der Parteiendemokratie. Die politischen Parteien zwischen Persistenz und Adaption, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp 37-48. Bogumil, J. and Holtkamp, L. (2011) ‘Bürgerkommune’, in B. Blanke, F. Nullmeier, C. Reichard and G. Wewer (eds) Handbuch zur Verwaltungsreform (4th updated and supplemented edn), Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 177-86. Bogumil, J. and Holtkamp, L. (2013) Kommunalpolitik und Kommunalverwaltung – Eine praxisorientierte Einführung, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Bogumil, J., Ebinger, F. and Holtkamp, L. (2011) ‘Vom Versuch das Neue Steuerungsmodell verpflichtend einzuführen. Verwaltung und Management. Wirkungen des Neuen Kommunalen Finanzmanagements in NRW’, Verwaltung & Management, vol 17, no 4, pp 171-80. Bogumil, J., Grohs, S., Kuhlmann, S. and Ohm, A.K. (2007) 10 Jahre Neues Steuerungsmodell – Eine Bilanz kommunaler Verwaltungsmodernisierung, Berlin: Edition Sigma. Crouch, C. (2004) Post-democracy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dahl, R.A. (1992) ‘The problem of civic competence’, Journal of Democracy, no 3, pp 45-59. Ellwein,T. and Zoll, R. (1982) Wertheim. Politik und Machtstruktur einer deutschen Stadt, Munich: Juventa Verlag. Gabriel, O.W. and Walter-Rogg, M. (2006) ‘Bürgerbegehren und Bürgerentscheide – Folgen für den kommunalpolitischen Entscheidungsprozess’, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Kommunalwissenschaften, vol 45, no 2, pp 39-56. Gabriel, O.W., Kunz, V. and Zapf-Schramm, V. (1994) ‘Parteiideologien und Problemverarbeitung in der kommunalen Infrastrukturpolitik’, in O.W. Gabriel and R.Voigt (eds) Kommunalwissenschaftliche Analysen, Bochum: Brockmeyer, pp 79-103. Geißler, R. (2009) Kommunalrechtliche Steuerungsansätze der Haushaltskonsolidierung – Haushaltssicherungskonzepte im Vergleich, Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam. Gunlicks, A.B. (1986) Local government in the German federal system, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hennecke, H.-G. (1999) ‘Das Verhältnis von Politik und Verwaltung in den Kommunalverfassungen der deutschen Länder. Miteinander oder Gegeneinander?’, Verwaltung und Management, vol 5, no 3, pp 132-6.

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Holtkamp, L. (2000) Kommunale Haushaltspolitik in NRW – Haushaltslage – Konsolidierungspotentiale – Sparstrategien, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Holtkamp, L. (2005) ‘Reform der Kommunalverfassungen in den alten Bundesländern – eine Ursachenanalyse’, in J. Bogumil and H. Heinelt (eds) Bürgermeister in Deutschland. Politikwissenschaftliche Studien zu direkt gewählten Bürgermeistern, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 13-32. Holtkamp, L. (2008) Kommunale Konkordanz- und Konkurrenzdemokratie. Parteien und Bürgermeister in der repräsentativen Demokratie, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Holtkamp, L. (2010) Kommunale Haushaltspolitik bei leeren Kassen, Berlin: Edition Sigma. Holtkamp, L. (2012) Verwaltungs- und Haushaltsreformen – Eine problemorientierte Einleitung, FernUni-Kurs, Hagen: Fern-Universität Hagen Holtkamp, L. and Schnittke, S. (2010) Die Hälfte der Macht im Visier – Der Einfluss von Institutionen und Parteien auf die politische Repräsentation von Frauen, Berlin: HeinrichBöll-Stiftung. Holtkamp, L., Bogumil, J. and Kißler, L. (2006) Kooperative Demokratie – Das politische Potenzial von Bürgerengagement, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. Junkernheinrich, M. and Micosatt, G. (2008) Kommunaler Finanz- und Schuldenreport Deutschland 2008. Ein Ländervergleich, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung. Kuhlmann, S., Bogumil, J. and Grohs, S. (2009) ‘Evaluating administrative modernization in German local governments: success or failure of the “new steering model”?’, Public Administration Review, vol 68, no 5, pp 851-63. Leggewie, C. (2011) Mut statt Wut – Aufbruch in eine neue Demokratie, Hamburg: Edition Köber Stiftung. Lehmbruch, G. (1967) Proporzdemokratie: Politisches System und politische Kultur in der Schweiz und in Osterreich. Tübingen: Mohr. Rehmet, F. and Mittendorf, V. (2008) Bürgerbegehrensbericht 2008, Berlin/Marburg: Mehr Demokratie e.V. (www.mehr-demokratie.de). Reiser, M. (2006) ‘Zwischen Ehrenamt und Berufspolitik – Professionalisierung der Kommunalpolitik in deutschen Großstädten’, Dissertation, Wiesbaden. Timm-Arnold, K.-P. (2010) ‘Bürgermeister und Parteien in der kommunalen Haushaltspolitik’, Dissertation, Hagen. Vetter, A. (2011) ‘Lokale Politik als Rettungsanker der Demokratie?’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, vol 7/2011. Wagschal, U. (1996) ‘Der Einfluss von Parteien auf die Staatsverschuldung’, Swiss Political Science Review, vol 4, no 96, pp 1-32. Wehling, H.-G. (1991) ‘“Parteipolitisierung” von lokaler Politik undVerwaltung? Zur Rolle der Parteien in der Kommunalpolitik’, in H. Heinelt and H.Wollmann (eds) Brennpunkt Stadt, Basel: Birkhäuser, pp 149-66. Wohlfahrt, N. and Zühlke, W. (2005) Ende der kommunalen Selbstverwaltung. Zur politischen Steuerung im Konzern Stadt, Hamburg:VSA Verlag.

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Federal government in Germany: temporary, issue-related policy advice Rolf G. Heinze

Introduction: increasing policy advice in Germany In recent years, federal-level policy advice has gained considerable importance, and political consultancy is now a veritable part of policy-making in Berlin. Of course policy advice in the form of institutionalised academic and scientific counselling and support to government, ministries and parliament was already established and had grown since the late 1960s. However, since the move of the federal government and almost all of its ministries as well as the German parliament to Berlin (completed in 1999), policy advice has grown rapidly as a political industry. This has come about mainly from the overall rising importance of counselling in a modern Wissensgesellschaft (knowledge society), but is also part of the special and more competitive political climate in Berlin, which has not only led to a pluralised consulting industry in Germany, but also changed its self-conception (Heinze, 2009). On the one hand, a multilayered consulting industry with new players and providers has evolved, making policy advice much more difficult. On the other hand, this development has caused a fundamental change in the relationship between state/ government and interest groups/associations and conventional lobbyism. The once strong influence, of business associations and unions in particular, has declined remarkably. Nowadays, in addition to nationwide operating interest groups, large companies tend to represent themselves and are seeking their own influence in Berlin and Brussels. A good example to highlight this kind of rising particularisation, as well as the growing heterogeneity and role of major enterprises, is the political struggle regarding the phasing out of nuclear power and increasing the use of sustainable energy, which is a new approach in German energy policy. Several severe conflicts have thus resulted such that leading business associations, such as Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI, Federal Association of German Industry), have not been able to formulate a consistent position towards government and its new energy policy. Internal conflicts like this within major business interest groups are mainly caused by socioeconomic factors such as the rapid growth of ‘renewables’, a growing industry that already has strong roots in the manufacturing industry and traditional economy. These internal tensions are further exacerbated by emerging new political parties and party constellations. From cases like this we can learn that heterogeneity within the system of interest groups reduces the influence of larger (business) associations and strengthens large enterprises and special interest groups in the political arena. Obviously the clientele of traditional associations is shrinking, a development that has also been noticed by crucial/influential political actors. 135

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The development toward a Räterepublik (Republic of Councils)1 has been heavily criticised, although no government can ignore external advice, be it from associations or academic or scientific experts. Regarding the veto power of organised interests, a former German Minister of Finance, Peer Steinbrück, explained: ‘Many actors in Germany abuse their veto power disproportionately and, moreover, extend themselves disproportionately without any democratic legitimation.As soon as someone mentions the word “reform”, I see crowds of lobbyists in my mind’s eye trying to secure existing advantages or seeking new ones’ (2010, p 405). Although steady influence and frequently ritualised strategies of associations are sometimes critically commented, associations, interest groups and other nongovernmental actors are an integral part of modern governance (cf Jann, 2008). From this viewpoint there would seem, on the one hand, to be a good deal of continuity, but on the other hand, the basic conditions for the strategies of associations to influence political decision-making have structurally changed, so that in addition to the functional change from hierarchical to a more moderating mode of governance, new resources (for example, knowledge) and problem-solving potentials must be developed. In accordance with these needs, new and highly differentiated forms of consulting have emerged. Other than the traditional councils of experts and scientific advisers, new and temporary models of interest intermediation have developed, such as strategic alliances of interest groups and scientific consultancies or think tanks.This is a lesson learned in particular from the failure of the Bündnis für Arbeit (Alliance for Work), a kind of concerted action programme from the red-green government in Germany (1998–2002) designed to cope with unemployment. Here the strong influence of employers and labour associations was considered too difficult to manage. At least from the government’s point of view, the main reason for the programme’s failure was the participation and influence of the powerful stakeholders from capital and labour. This view received some support in public and academic discussions. A major result of this experience was that succeeding government commissions (for example, the Hartz or Rürup Commissions) were of a more open and pluralist nature and thus able to unlock political blockades. This change can be observed at the federal as well as the Länder (state) level, both with government commissions and commissions installed by parliaments. The so-called Berliner Räterepublik (see Heinze, 2002) experienced its heyday during the first governing coalition of Social Democrats (the Social Democratic Party, SPD) and the Green Party. Due to severe conflicts within the governing parties, and also because of the rather low success of several key projects, this kind of new mode of governance lost importance. Although the new government’s high hopes of strategic governance have not been fulfilled yet, this does not mean that it rejects all kinds of advice. However, as a result, they had out-functioned as an instrument for fundamental political reforms.This conclusion also holds true for various ‘round tables’ on several levels of the political system and on a variety of policy issues. ‘Round tables’ usually have combined social and economic interest organisations, scientific experts, political representatives and members of the political administration. The result is that the traditional German ‘consensus society’, with its clear political camps and long-standing patterns of social partnership, dispersed and liberal, more competitive patterns of interest intermediation increasingly determine current political decision-making processes (cf Streeck, 2009a). Moreover, the occurring new patterns also define the relationship between politics and science in a new way. 136

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Background: developments and debates on policy advice in Germany Although scientists and academics still provide a large portion of political advice in Berlin, there are new important actors involved such as foundations or commercial organisations.These new providers coexist with rather institutionalised interest groups and institutes closely linked with these groups. It is particularly worth highlighting that in this new scene of interest in intermediation and political advice, a general change concerning the recruitment patterns of the Berlin government has appeared. While expert counsels for the assessment of aggregate economic development generally only consist of economists, the membership structure of, for example, the benchmarking group Bündnis für Arbeit or the Rürup Commission (health policy reform) was an interdisciplinary group of experts. One critical observation is the fact that the new advisory business is usually not primarily concerned with the acquisition of (new) knowledge or the observation and analysis of long-term trends. Instead these actors use data and information very selectively and only if favourable for their political goals. So the new advisory business not only multiplies the number of actors (promoting more or less special interests) but also more often than not confounds and puts into disarray political decisionmaking processes. This elevates the lack of transparency not only by quantity but also by quality. Independent of this, scientific and academic policy advice has to convince with quality and the disclosure of methods for the acquisition of knowledge, although in recent years the trend towards ‘scientification’ of politics has been connected with a tendency towards a politicisation of science.Wolfgang Streeck quite rightly advises against a sociotechnological model and of politicians putting pressure on or ‘seducing’ scientists and academics: Politicians like to imagine society as a machine with a couple of ‘adjustment screws’: you adjust it right and the world functions according to plan.The task of science should be to label the screws.This requires theory; that is ensured knowledge about if-then relations between cause and effect. Theories are usable for political management if they set factors as causes which are used by politics as measures, and affect certain conditions which are objectives for politics. (Streeck, 2009b, p 13; author’s own translation)

To a certain degree this is the reason why scientists who forecast probable positive futures and scenarios are so popular. Most politicians wish to hear positive messages and the announcement of growth (for example, in the social services sector or the health industry). The opposite is true for caveats, for example, regarding growing inequality in health, care or education. In the race for public and political attention some scientists turn into ‘missionaries’ and often lose sight of the fact that this might damage evidence-based policy advice: Their risk is to develop from advisors into missionaries – or, similarly, to be disqualified as missionaries who try to help their own dispensation to triumph. What happens then is that they are regarded as normal political actors, such as any other representatives of special interests. By doing so their claim to their role as an expert is destroyed – and their alleged advice is evaluated 137

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This shows that it would be better to cultivate a habitus that emphasises a more incremental use of knowledge, such as is the case in pragmatic models of policy advice. In this case, policy advice from the academic world would better fit the instrumental needs of policy-makers. This could, to a certain degree, at least prevent politicians from using scientific expertise just to legitimise already reached decisions. In spite of the fast growth of academic and commercial policy advice, there is little reason to believe that political processes can systematically be controlled and managed. Of course, from a scientist’s point of view, his or her expertise plays an important role in political decision-making processes but nevertheless, a serious stance of that expert is certainly helpful. The fact that social science knowledge and recommendation is increasingly requested lies with its competence to identify societal developments and trends, and this is what political decision-makers ask for in times of uncertainty. From a political decision-maker’s point of view policy advice must recognise the inherent complex characteristics of a political process and understand that political action follows a variety of rationalities.Therefore advice and recommendations must be well rooted in empirical knowledge about political processes and be well reasoned on the basis of theoretical knowledge about political organisations.This is increasingly so as many models of policy advice are characterised by rather naive ideas of knowledge and naive assumptions about the rationality of structures inherent in organisations. A more complex concept of policy advice could, for example, help bridge the gap between the self-description of political actors and the existing inconsistencies and real ‘rationality gaps’ in political organisations. But generally speaking, there is little reason to believe that scientific findings and achievements can congruently be transferred into political decision-making processes. In this respect, the potential to increase rationality is rather limited and in general it cannot be increased by guidelines and ethic appeals. Academic policy advice more often than not suffers from the very fact that the institutional idiosyncrasies of the ‘policy-making system’ are not seen.This is foremost true for outdated but still-used technocratic models of policy advice. However, it is also the pragmatic, more realistic approach that quite often lacks the sensitivity necessary to operate within and with political institutions and administrative systems: Competent scientific policy advice requires detailed institutional knowledge, though institutional knowledge without any theoretical or empirical education is useless for scientific advice. On the other hand, even the best references in theory and quantitative economic research are no replacement for the absence of knowledge about applicable law or the institutions and functional processes regarding old-age provision or health care. (Rürup, 2009, p 9; author’s own translation)

Policy advice to parliament and/or government provokes questions regarding democratic legitimation and control. Political advice often takes place without a critical public, it functions much more informally and, moreover, it reproduces given power structures. The more think tanks are established, the fiercer the criticism. These developments are generally understandable. On the other hand, these new forms of cooperative policy-making in networks and commissions are usually established by 138

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governments or parliaments and therefore amenable to public control. Mostly these new forms of policy-making within networks and experimental settings have no legal basis; they temporarily complement the legitimated system and conventional procedures of political decision-making, but do not replace them. Moreover, governments can establish councils of experts and commissions as a major part of their decision-making strategy and establish appropriate rules of procedure. Be it on the basis of constitutional, democratic or theoretical objections, scepticism regarding ‘governance by commissions’ is, generally speaking, unfounded, and in political praxis, considerable structural variation from conventional forms of political decision-making exists (cf Heinze, 2002). The structural shift in the system of organised interests and the significant changes in the relationship between science and politics also affect political actors and their strategies. In recent years consensus-like ‘round tables’, with representatives of organised interests, are increasingly disappearing, and commissions have emerged composed of a variety of members and which are established for a limited period of time. Part of this new ‘management of governance’ is the recombination of governmental problem-solving capacities and societal actors. In this perspective societal capacities of self-management are no longer just limited to established associations and trade unions, but increasingly include scientific expertise and welfare and civil society organisations. But this change does not, of course, necessarily increase the rationality of political decisions; it can also result in an increase in contingencies and conflicts. This is even more likely as ‘official’ government policy overextends itself in terms of its scope and rationality. Politics has only … simulated the power to manage where there was no political management or where it had shrunk to mere simple reaction. Politicians have not done that in vain but have followed the impression of the media, especially television. They have rarely shown their powerlessness regarding processes of the global world such as the lack of controllability of capital flows, the agenda-setting of large companies or powerful NGOs [non-governmental organisations]. Instead, they have shown muscles where there were not any.They blundered into a trap of the media which suggested almightiness; a trap which promptly snapped shut. (Münkler, 2010, pp 52f; author’s own translation)

One of the reasons for the ‘outsourcing strategy’ of governments is the increasing complexity of a developing knowledge society (Wissensgesellschaft), accompanied by a versatile media scene. Non-stop but unstructured information flow and highly stratified expert knowledge necessitates orientation, and knowledge to produce orientation becomes important. A major component here is to overcome an alleged hierarchy of knowledge or rather, the obsolete dualism between science on the one hand and practical knowledge about politics on the other. So, a general definition of political advice becomes difficult due to its heterogeneity.This is especially true if political advice takes place in the form of discourses or dialogues. Here the traditional distinction between experts and uninformed disappears. Therefore not only for policy-making but also in all parts of society there is a search for new management resources, and often the established borders between politics and science, society and economy, become blurred. These processes of expanded boundaries have brought about a much more open government amenable to advice. 139

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On the other hand, these very processes cause even more dependence on academic or scientific advice, with the result that functional dependencies evolve and counselling processes become non-transparent. Generally speaking, experience shows that the complexity of political decision-making processes has increased. Moreover, in recent years an increasing personalisation of policy decision-making can be observed. Enforced by the media and how they stage politics, the focus is usually only on a few political leaders (cf Korte, 2003; Jann and König, 2008; Lamping and Schridde, 2011). Here the key position is primarily held by television that promotes personalisation and stimulates the emotionalisation of politics. In recent years criticism and doubts regarding overall ability to govern modern societies have increased, and it remains an open (research) question to what extent academic or scientific advice can help overcome these doubts. But there is no doubt that an extended need for strategic reorientation, policy advice and policy moderation is needed if parties and associations continue to paralyse themselves and block political communication until disenchantment with politics increases – a great challenge for politics is to learn from earlier shortcomings. Especially in times of rapid change political organisations, parties and politicians must find ways for strategic reorientation; the market for policy advice, however, is based on complexity. In order to find a solution some political actors set up confidential ‘round tables’ with politicians and scientific experts to produce orientation knowledge and introduce new models of interchange and advice. Advice here relies on dialogue and discourse – its common ground is that it works beyond an everyday mode of governance. Advice here takes place in the form of regular meetings between politicians and scientists or ‘round tables’ in foundations or academies, and extends to confidential dialogues between political leaders, high-ranking bureaucrats or leaders of other political organisations with selected experts. The main concern of advice by dialogue is usually not detailed decision-making in particular policy areas; rather the focus is on general orientation and broader policy decisions, and can therefore be observed especially in political phases of change. In these discursive or reflexive forms of advice, the input of the academics involved is not restricted to hard data, knowledge and comments. Instead, social scientists in particular often play an active role as innovators and sources of inspiration.

Bündnis für Arbeit2 and think tanks as components of the Berliner Räterepublik In recent years the integration of societal organisations into political decision-making and the production of politics have gained considerable importance. It was one of the most strategic decisions of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 1998 onwards to introduce advisory boards and commissions such as the Bündnis für Arbeit and, later on, the Rürup or Hartz Commissions. On the one hand, these commissions and councils were established to provide and include expert knowledge for major reform programmes. On the other hand, they functioned as an instrument to protect and release government from societal and party reactions on controversial government decisions and by that, from ground-breaking social and economic reforms. One example of this was the Bündnis für Arbeit. It was set up in autumn 1998 with a wide range of topics such as labour market policy, tax policy, working time policy, education 140

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policy, pension policy and questions about the constitution of labour and occupation. This rather broad spectrum was orientated towards successful examples and reform models in other Western countries.The overall aim was to provide integrated political solutions for a variety of political issues by tripartite decision-making. In other words, a consensus strategy including labour and employer associations into major policy-making was adopted to find sustainable ways out of high unemployment, to develop new employment (particularly in the service sector) and to improve the competitiveness of Germany as a location for business (cf Heinze, 2011). The ‘benchmarking group’ 3 focused primarily on possible advantages for employment in the service sector, one reason being that major companies in the capital-intensive industry had cut jobs and outsourced production on a large scale. Another reason was that the potential for employment in the sector for personalised services seemed to be rather high at that time, especially for people with lower qualifications.The starting hypothesis was that the reduction of incidental wage costs was an appropriate tool to support and increase employment in this labour-intensive sector. To reach the highest possible effect, the benchmarking group did not focus on a general reduction of ancillary labour costs but concentrated on the lower end of the labour market (Heinze and Streeck, 2000). Apart from target-setting and the definition of subsequent agendas, in German policy-making the institutional setting and the involvement of interest groups and associations plays an essential role. In the first phase, from autumn 1998 until summer 1999, there was major concern regarding the institutional development of the Bündnis für Arbeit. Due to the fact that various policy areas and difficult constellations of political actors had to be considered, this phase took longer than originally planned, and brought about highly complex structures. In retrospect, the aim of including all relevant actors of the political-administrative system and the interest group system of associations into the Bündnis was quite successful. However, looking at a central precondition of all successful social pacts with comparable aims in comparable countries, the it suffered from a considerable deficiency. From the very beginning it was not possible to develop a common perception of problems; instead, the parties and groups involved expressed and developed further major differences regarding their picture of the sociopolitical situation. Political negotiation in the main framework, the Alliance for Work, ultimately became very difficult, and collective bargaining rather unsuccessful.The opposite was true for the ancillary group of advisers, the socalled benchmarking group. Here it was possible to define common denominators and joint agendas. One main point in the early phase of the Bündnis für Arbeit was the articulation of different perceptions regarding the situation of Germany as a location for business. This starting point was not very conducive to consensus-oriented processes of arrangements. By developing a benchmarking study, which regarded Germany as a location for business as well as a socially acceptable place of living, it was planned to change the problem definition in order to give tripartite discussions more room and to stimulate common processes of explanation, and also to seek new resources of problem-solving.These efforts have been well communicated and documented in the study ‘Benchmarking Germany’ and were presented, moreover, in other handouts and in more extensive essays from the benchmarking group. However, these well-reasoned attempts were not shared by all relevant actors of the Bündnis.The discussion process within the various workgroups and groups of experts was, in many cases, prone to 141

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conflict – only the group of scientists (the benchmarking group) was able to reach an expeditious consensus. Conflicts emerged just at the moment when trade unions and the umbrella associations of business and industry joined the ‘arena’ and tried to include the results from the advisory group into their organisation’s strategies. Although the discussion in the expert group did not support consensus all the time, during the work of the Alliance most actors developed a positive view on such efforts. In addition to the internal inability to reach consensus, the significance of such negotiation rounds was questioned in public debates from mid-1999 onwards. Bündnis für Arbeit was confronted with the problem that the most important of the participating large interest groups and associations stuck to old familiar routines and their well-known positions and that the government had not executed power in cases in which negotiation rounds had failed to produce results. Moreover, for the Bündnis it was also rather difficult to bridge the diverse inherent logics of the many players involved and the various political arenas. It became apparent very early on how difficult it was to realise even minor institutional reforms. The difficulties multiplied when exchange between different policy areas had to be organised. Therefore the Bündnis put a great deal of effort into organisation and coordination to overcome institutional blockades. The Bündnis could probably have functioned well in times without elections and political campaigns. However, in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), with its 16 Länder (states), within a timespan of four to five years, 17 elections had been held and important political negotiations like these were, as a matter of course, under critical public observation.This also counts for its weaknesses and contributed to the fact that political and institutional limits were not easy to overcome. Moreover, in the political debates from 1998 onwards it turned out that, particularly for the governing parties, profiling (with the objective of not losing more support from the electorate) was more important than the continued search for consensus solutions in the main matters of the future of the country. On the other hand, the complex institutional architecture of the German welfare state cannot be changed overnight. Therefore firm policy-making and governance was needed, even for minor institutional reforms. The German experiences, from an international and comparative point of view, can be summarised as follows. There was a window of opportunity to reform the German welfare state; although this window was opened by the Bündnis für Arbeit, the tripartite approach to constructively use it failed. The traditional system of interest groups and associations ‘dropped the ball’. Subsequent efforts – some smaller in size – experienced a more pluralist recruitment pattern to include ‘new’ advisory boards and think tanks into policy-making and reform.

Opportunities and limits of policy advice from the perspective of organisational sociology and political theory From our discussion so far it is clear that the Bündnis für Arbeit provided rather limited achievements. Although incorporated from the beginning, scientific, evidencebased policy advice could do little to improve its output. I now therefore question the political and institutional frame, including procedural aspects of policies. New sociological organisation studies provide important evidence that political decisionmaking differs quite substantially from what traditional theories suggest. For example, 142

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this applies to the ‘garbage can theory’ by Cohen et al (1972), which refers to the complexity, selectivity and contingency of political decision-making processes. Another example refers to the organisational sociology of Weick (1995), who made the inherent ‘disorder’ and ‘unpredictability’ of organisations a subject of discussion. Strategic deficits like these cannot be eliminated by conventional measures of scientific or academic information-processing and provision to political actors; in fact, politicians are flooded with a huge number and vast variety of information and publications. Advice to politicians – be it from a scientific service and/or members of Enquete Commissions (Commissions of Enquiry – can certainly help in managing complex challenges. With this in mind it becomes clear how important it is to have different types of advice at hand – be it from scientific experts, commissions, input from sociopolitical actors such as interest groups, associations, the church, trade unions and so on, but also from communication experts and political advisers with their own economic interests. If the topic or the arena of policy advice is blurred, and counselling processes are often of certain interest to the media, political actors may prefer confidential rounds and strategic discourses of advice. As we have seen with the example of the Bündnis für Arbeit, better strategic orientation of political actors is required if political parties and interest groups are to block communication and political bargaining. My assumption is that politicians increasingly demand strategic discourses with scientists, economists, politicians and tied-in journalists in which they can arrange ideas and form their own concepts. There are, of course, enough discussion groups, initiatives, talks and hearings, but only rare occasions for discourses on strategic and/or confidential issues. The aim of this type of counselling process is usually to detect barriers and drawbacks and to overcome obstacles. If it comes to questions about the transfer of ideas and concepts developed in strategic discourses, experts and scientists are much in demand, and experience shows that politicians are increasingly dependent on this kind of support: new meaningful orientation knowledge (Orientierungswissen) and dialogue-oriented advice. In the Berlin Republic of Councils it is the new private agencies, private foundations and private think tanks in particular that are increasingly trying to fulfil that demand. To accommodate the above-mentioned demands, however, advisers are needed who ‘cross’ boundaries or who are accepted as ‘public intellectuals’. From this a major new challenge for science and scientists emerges: dialogic knowledge management. From this position the function of science is to structure the dialogue, to introduce evidence-based knowledge and to develop a methodology that increases learning processes in networks. Such new forms of policy advice should not forget that well-founded scientific reforms could also fail, be it due to structural difficulties in managing advisory processes, or to the characteristics of the political processes themselves. In this respect more and better research and knowledge is needed and, of course, exchange of best practices about dialogic knowledge management. The aim is to develop better instruments to help discover contingencies that are not visible for the actors on the implementation side of politics. Scientific advice can help to develop alternatives to conventional practices; it can help to overcome potentially outdated necessities; it questions argumentative patterns that are preferred in political practice; and it connects best practice to new contexts. Scientific knowledge thereby offers new opportunities to achieve unique results in a practical context (Kieser, 2008, p 108). However, political decision-making and the production of policies follows complex inherent characteristics that scientific advisers must observe.This does not imply, of course, 143

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subordinating knowledge and evidence to the aims of interest groups and politics. Rather, it is about the independence of the science and academic consultancy, which has to follow its own standards and rules and even has to maintain the ‘stress ratio between sweetheart deals and unpleasant truths’ (Weingart and Lentsch, 2008, p 16; author’s own translation). As mentioned before, political decisions are not as rational and clear as political theories claim; rather, we can speak about policy-making as an organised anarchy. Coincidences – such as the right moment, the ‘window of opportunity’ or the accidental success of political entrepreneurs – play a greater role than scientific advisers, who tend to adhere to conventional ways of problem-solving: The mentioned elements of the decision processes (decision opportunities, problems, solutions and participants) are no longer related to each other; rather the decision process shows anarchic features.What is crucial is not the objective requirement of the problem-solving but the context of the decision process [...]. The coupling of the elements of the decision process can therefore be described as a coincidental flowing together of relatively independent streams. However, this does not imply a total irregularity; rather these four streams are channelled via organisation structures and the social structure of society. (Schmid, 2011, p 5; author’s own translation)

In this context it is worth differentiating between the various multiple streams that run relatively autonomously, and to follow their own dynamics (cf Kingdon, 1995; Nagel, 2009; Rüb, 2009). It is common to differentiate between a problem stream with a special focus on events, a policy stream (or option stream) in which ideas are tested and discussed with interest groups and experts and a political stream (politics stream) that encompasses the ‘zeitgeist’, national cultures of conflict, the distribution of powers of organised interests, the ideology of the governing party and so on. In general, the multiple stream approach starts from the assumption that there are not necessarily systematic connections between a problem and a certain political decision; policymaking is much less rational and does not necessarily result in proper problem-solving decisions. In reality political bargaining differs quite considerably from abstract logics and models based on rational decision-making. In practice this means that politicians are constantly overstressed and pushed by an excessive number of challenges, activities and events, so decision-making and problem-solving often happens ‘ad hoc’ and autonomously. Lack of clarity is a constant and structural variable of the production of politics and ‘time’ a determining factor in policy-making (cf Rüb, 2006). With respect to these contingencies, and recognising the fact that politics is frequently pre-occupied with itself, stringent results (from a scientific point of view) are the exception rather than the rule. More often than not a ‘window of opportunity’ is needed as well as ‘political entrepreneurs’ who prepare and finalise decisions. On the basis of a multiple stream approach or that of organisational sociology it becomes rather clear that dominant veto positions – those that prefer postponing decisions or who do not want to change anything – are mostly found in large or umbrella organisations. The former Minister of Finance Peer Steinbrück made it explicit in a case of social policy: ‘The unbroken tendency to move burdens of the social security system into the future and accumulate them there in order to escape from today’s necessary corrections (which of course boil down to conflicting 144

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impertinences) will continue to strain public finances’ (2010, p 276; author’s own translation). Delayed problem-solving and an attitude that ‘the fuss will blow over’ have been characteristic of the political administrative system in Germany for some time. ‘To wait out something’ may work for a short time, but it is certainly no formula for responsible governance. In fact it is an obligation to governments to take active leadership and to provide the necessary output to the advantage of society and a developing economy. This cannot be achieved by the commonly still accepted idea of ‘just continuing’ – over time, problems accumulate and even create new difficulties. My reference to the ‘limits of rationality’ in political decision-making and production has been necessary, since in political and social sciences (but also in the political practice of interest groups and associations) there often exists a rather naive idea concerning knowledge and rationality in political counselling. Successful political advice has to offer a much more complex image than ‘rationalistic’ models suggest. First, it has to be accepted that the time horizon of politics and science differ considerably. Second, strategic advice constellations differ in terms of content and – depending on the policy area in focus – in terms of actor constellations. Generally speaking, hard and fast statements concerning strategic policy advice are very difficult to make. But what is certain is that they need to be formulated explicitly and differently in the various policy areas and action programmes. In addition, policy advice has to acknowledge different policy phases in which the incorporation of scientific advice takes place. In the phase of problem definition and even more so with agenda-setting, a certain knowledge and political configuration is already fixed, which afterwards limits the scope for scientific policy advice. Nevertheless, scientific advice is comparatively easy at the beginning of a policy process, and as long as more general topics are at stake. On the other hand, it is a tough job in straightforward decision-making phases. In the former phase, knowledge-based analysis and assumptions about causal consequences as well as the social appropriateness of certain political interventions are relevant. That is, definitions and orientations must allow for a certain openness, in the sense that the ‘final wording and definition still have to be negotiated’. In recent years there has been increasing scepticism in the social sciences regarding the effective extent of national policy measures and – even more critically – about the general ability to govern modern societies. But for all that, there is no reason for resignation. Scientific policy advice can help considerably in coping with the occurring difficulties of modern societies and can improve responsible governance. On the other hand, what social science knowledge and immediate experience from participation in counselling processes teaches is that we have to reject naive conceptions of a renaissance of ‘the state’ (cf Heinze, 2009). Despite sophisticated analyses and farreaching international comparisons, what is really demanded of social science advice are ways and means of enhancing social and societal responsibility and the readiness to adopt experimental policy-making to discover new opportunities for action. Aiming at this, strict distinctions between sociological, economic and political science research become meaningless. Moreover, it is important to further the interaction and to explore and to learn more about the interaction between science, the economy, governance and policy-making and the participation of interest groups and societal actors. Artless observation and simple counting of figures is no longer enough. On

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the contrary, a new ethic of responsibility is required, and the corresponding problemsolving skills both require more and more professional policy advice. Most social scientists would take it as a given that societal forecasting and political prognosis as well as forward-looking projections are a relevant part of the discipline. Yet it is highly controversial to what degree social scientists and representatives of other disciplines should engage in policy counselling and political advice. From an insider’s view the latter discussion is rather difficult to accept. Social science, as well as other sciences, is responsible, of course, for contributing to successful policymaking with the best possible inputs, although this is only feasible if scientists accept responsibility and connect themselves to societal and political actors.Then a major aim of professional advisers is to stimulate new and even experimental measures, modes and techniques. Since innovative processes are quite often not well organised and frequently change during the course of action, social scientists should actively take part. However, giving advice is not usually a one-way process. Immediate experience from real-life processes not only widens empirical knowledge but can indeed also help to advance social science theories and concepts. However, institutional reform of what is often called the ‘German model’ cannot be solely realised by the state, parties and organised interests.Taking the dynamics of modern societies into account, politics and policy-making become gradually more difficult, and more critical situations, conflicts and crises will emerge. Of course there will rarely be space for ideal solutions, and at the end there will be no backdoor to escape. Responsible decision-making has to accept all this and nonetheless has to search for the best possible solutions and the most reasonable decisions. In doing so objective considerations and scientific arguments are of eminent importance.The part of scientists, therefore, is to introduce the best possible basis for political decisions, to stimulate learning and to facilitate innovative decisions. Whether or not the rising number of think tanks and advisory firms in the Berlin Republic of Councils contribute to better and more allocation of scientific knowledge remains an open question, and some doubts may be reasonable.There is some evidence and hope that governments will use advisory boards and commissions not only in terms of ‘agenda-cutting’ in certain situations but also to ‘reduce public pressure for reforms’ (Hörisch, 2010, p 36; author’s own translation). The prospects for an active and successful management of modern societies are seemingly not very high, but this does not allow for disparaging politics, government and the state. Governmental provisions and interventions are far too necessary and present in all spheres of societal life.And it is a fact that learning processes mostly only happen under massive pressure or by external shocks, especially in a society dominated by large umbrella organisations. Nevertheless, government and the state cannot just be reduced to a bail-out in times of market failure or as a lender of last resort in times of financial crisis. Government and the state may be overstrained as institutions responsible for all conditions of life. Nonetheless, because there is not yet a script for a better balance between government, market and active society, professional policy advice has just begun its success story.

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Notes This term refers to new modes of governance in which parliaments lose more and more political power and instead, advisory boards, commissions and expert groups gain in importance, increasingly affecting the political landscape.

1

The Bündnis für Arbeit is of interest for the analysis of policy advice, since it was a political project of the then existing federal government, which was prepared, with respect to its content, by a scientific advisory board and that was also scientifically accompanied in various stages. Such a constellation, in which scientific policy advice and actual political implementation are combined, is very rare and can therefore be well used for an ex-post consideration.

2

3

The author was a member of this benchmarking group.

References Cohen, M.D., March, J.G. and Olsen, J.P. (1972) ‘A garbage can model of organizational choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, no 17, pp 1ff. Heinelt, H. (2011) ‘Ratsuchende Politiker, beratende Wissenschaftler – und verschiedene Ebenen politischen Handelns’, in W. Lamping and H. Schridde (eds) Der konsultative Staat, Opladen: Budrich, pp 47ff. Heinze, R.G. (2002) Die Berliner Räterepublik. Viel Rat – wenig Tat?, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Heinze, R.G. (2009) Rückkehr des Staates? Politische Handlungsmöglichkeiten in unsicheren Zeiten, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Heinze, R.G. (2011) Die erschöpfte Mitte. Zwischen marktbestimmten Soziallagen, politischer Stagnation und der Chance auf Gestaltung, Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa. Heinze, R.G. and Streeck, W. (2000) ‘Institutionelle Modernisierung und Öffnung des Arbeitsmarktes: Für eine neue Beschäftigungspolitik’, in J. Kocka and C. Offe (eds) Geschichte und Zukunft der Arbeit, Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus Verlag, pp 234-61. Hörisch, F. (2010) ‘Kommissionen als Mittel zur Beibehaltung des Status quo?’, Zeitschrift für Politikberatung, no 1, pp 25ff. Jann, W. (2008) ‘Regieren als Governance Problem: Bedeutung und Möglichkeiten institutioneller Steuerung’, in W. Jann and K. König (eds) Regieren zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp 1ff. Jann, W. and König, K. (eds) (2008) Regieren zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Kieser, A. (2008) ‘Wissenschaftler, Unternehmensberater und Praktiker – ein glückliches Dreiecksverhältnis?’, Revue für postheroisches Management, no 2, pp 98ff. Kingdon, J.W. (2003) Agendas, alternatives, and public policies (2nd edn), Boston, MA/ Toronto: Longman. Korte, K.-R. (2003) ‘Maklermacht. Der personelle Faktor im Entscheidungsprozess von Spitzenakteuren’, in G. Hirscher and K.-R. Korte (eds) Informationen und Entscheidungen, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp 15-28. Lamping, W. and Schridde, H. (eds) (2011) Der konsultative Staat. Reformpolitik und Politikberatung, Opladen and Farmington Hills, MI: Budrich Verlag. Münkler, H. (2010) Mitte und Maß. Der Kampf um die richtige Ordnung, Berlin: Rowohlt. 147

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Nagel, A. (2009) Politische Entrepreneure als Reformmotor im Gesundheitswesen? Eine Fallstudie zur Einführung eines neuen Steuerungsinstrumentes im Politikfeld Psychotherapie, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Rüb, F.W. (2006) ‘Die Zeit der Entscheidung. Kontingenz, Ambiguität und die Politisierung der Politik – Ein Versuch’, hrss – Hamburg Review of Social Sciences, vol 1, no 1, pp 1-34. Rüb, F. (2009) ‘Multiple-Streams-Ansatz: Grundlagen, Probleme und Kritik’, in K. Schubert and N.C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0 (2nd revised and extended edn), Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, p 353. Rürup, B. (2009) Vom Elend der wissenschaftlichen Politikberatung, MS TU Darmstadt. Schmid, J. (2011) Mikropolitik – Pluralismus mit harten Bandagen?, Tübingen: MS Universität Tübingen. Simon, F.B. (2011) ‘Praktisch funktioniert es, aber tut es das auch theoretisch? Systemtheoretisch–konstruktivistische Perspektiven der Politikberatung’, in W. Lamping and H. Schridde (eds) Der konsultative Staat, Opladen: Budrich, pp 259ff. Steinbrück, P. ( 2010) Unterm Strich (2nd edn), Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe. Streeck, W. (2009a) Re-Forming capitalism: Institutional change in the German political economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Streeck,W. (2009b) ‘Man weiß es nicht so genau.Vom Nutzen der Sozialwissenschaften für die Politik’, MPIfG Working Paper, vol 9, no 11, Cologne. Weick, K.E. (1995) Der Prozess des Organisierens, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Weingart, P. and Lentsch, J. (2008) Wissen – Beraten – Entscheiden. Form und Funktion wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung in Deutschland, Weilerswist:Velbrück.

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Parliamentary in-house research services and policy-making in Germany – Sancho Panza or David’s sling? Stefan Marschall

Given that in the German legal tradition policy-making is primarily based on the adoption of ‘standing rules’, the formal centre of law- (and policy-)making in Germany is the Bundestag, the national parliament. Like all directly elected assemblies in modern democracies, the Bundestag has been equipped with far-reaching legislative powers as well as with control competences. When executing these traditional parliamentary rights, it can resort to research services that are part of the organisational structures of the Bundestag, supporting individual members as well as associations of parliamentarians such as committees or party groups. This chapter focuses on these in-house support units by referring to general debates on the role of parliament within processes of policy-making in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). The chapter proceeds as follows. First, the theoretical and conceptual context for an understanding of the role and, as could be argued, the necessity of parliamentary in-house research services is laid out. The criticised discrepancy between the formal and factual role of the Bundestag in the law-making process serves as a starting point for the argument, taking into account its relation with and ‘domination’ by the federal government in particular. Facing an alleged imbalance within this relationship and a decline of parliament in law-making, the normative functions of parliamentary research services crystallise. The empirical part of the chapter sketches the operating principles, staff capacities and the part played by different branches of research services within the German parliament.The historical development of the in-house research capacities are outlined, looking in particular at the functions of the services for the parliamentary majority on the one hand, and the opposition on the other. Referring again to the debate on the ‘deparliamentarisation’ of politics, the conclusions discuss whether and how the in-house research services can contribute to the empowerment of the German parliament when it participates actively in legislation or when it controls legislation initiated by the executive branch.

German Bundestag: ‘parliament’ and/or ‘legislature’? Taken from a constitutional perspective, the Bundestag as the only directly elected organ at the federal level constitutes the central place of policy-making in the FRG. Article 77, Section 1 of the German Constitution (Grundgesetz, GG) stipulates that federal laws must be approved by the German parliament:‘Federal laws shall be adopted by the Bundestag.’ The German Constitutional Court has taken up and underlined the legislative prerogative of the Bundestag in its rulings by crafting what has been called the Wesentlichkeitstheorie (Theory of Legislative Reservation; see BVerfGE 47, 149

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46 ff, BVerfGE 49, 89).According to the Court’s interpretation of the Basic Law, every binding policy decision, which affects basic rights or any decision of fundamental relevance for the German people and society, must be subject to the parliamentary prerogative by being adopted as federal law (as opposed to an ‘ordinance’ that can be enacted by the federal government). The Wesentlichkeitstheorie reflects the German tradition of forming and legitimising political decisions by law, explaining why, effectively, many fully qualified lawyers are involved in policy-making, for example, by being civil servants within the public administration (Reichard and Röber, 2009). In consequence, this approach also yields a part within policy-making to the judicial branch: once adopted as legal acts, the products of policy-making might become the object of judicial supervision and possibly revision. Indeed, despite the parliamentary legislative ‘prerogative’, law-making in democracies (including Germany) is not restricted to parliaments; on the contrary it can be carried out by a number of formal and informal players. The legislative role of the government in particular has been characterised as central in theoretical and empirical terms, in some ways even superseding the law-making powers of parliament. Moreover, formal institutions such as federal chambers or constitutional courts as well as societal actors such as interest groups or media act in the legislative arena (von Beyme, 1997). The – seemingly paradoxical – ‘legislative’ role of the ‘executive’ has been a focal as well as an orientation point for a long time. In comparative politics, the law-making functions of parliamentary bodies as well as the nature of political systems have been defined along the respective legislative–executive relationship (see, for example, Shugart and Carey, 1992; Lijphart, 1999). On the one hand, early parliamentary theorists such as Walter Bagehot and John Locke conceptionalised the role of ‘parliament’ primarily as supporter and critic of the government, leaving legislative competences in large parts to the executive branch. On the other hand, within the concept of a division of power as outlined by Montesquieu or the Federalist Papers, legislative power is primarily, if not exclusively, granted to the elected assembly, which is explicitly called a ‘legislature’ in ‘division of powers’ theories. The ‘parliament–legislature’ distinction translates into one of the most prominent approaches to differentiate democracies: the classification as a ‘parliamentary’ versus a ‘presidential’ system (von Beyme, 2000). In parliamentary democracies parliaments (from the perspective of the parliamentary majority) elect, support and control the government (prototype:Westminster), whereas in presidential systems, legislatures serve principally as law-making counterweights to the independent executive branch (prototype: US Congress). Not only because its inventor refers to the same prototypes, the distinction ‘parliament versus legislature’ stands in line with the classification of parliamentary bodies as ‘arenas’ or ‘transformatory legislatures’ as proposed by Nelson Polsby (1975) in his ground-breaking article on ‘Legislatures’ in the Handbook of political science.While he characterises ‘transformative legislatures’ such as the US Congress as bodies able to rather autonomously ‘transform’ proposals into laws, he contends that arenas such as the British Parliament serve for most parts as ‘formalised settings for the interplay of significant forces in the life of a political system’ (Polsby, 1975, p 277). Polsby’s distinction evidently resembles the approach Winfried Steffani applies to characterise the operating principle and quality of elected assemblies (Steffani, 1979) by distinguishing between Arbeitsparlamente (working parliaments) and Redeparlamente (debating parliaments). Once again, referring to the US Congress and Westminster as 150

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models, Steffani classifies elected assemblies along the criterion in which form and locus parliamentary work primarily takes place – that is, in the form of law-making in committees (Arbeitsparlament) or in the form of public debates in the plenary chamber (Redeparlament). With regard to these distinctions, the role of the Bundestag in policy-making has been described ambiguously. On the one hand, the German parliament is clearly embedded in an almost prototypical parliamentary system, which results in a functional cooperation between the parliamentary majority and the government, particularly in the legislative field (Döring, 1995; Holtmann and Patzelt, 2004). As a matter of fact, the executive dominates law-making in terms of the quantity of legislative activity and its success (Ismayr, 2008). Until the end of the 16th legislative period of the German Bundestag (1949–2009), about two thirds of the bills that have become laws in Germany were introduced by the government.1 Despite the parliamentary character of the system, the inferior role of the Bundestag in policy-making has been subject to criticism (von Beyme, 1997), for the reason that the imbalance which has existed from the outset has been enhanced by further developments.The increase of public policy activities and political regulation as well as context factors such as the ‘unitary’ and ‘executive federalism’ (Gunlicks, 2003) are viewed as contributions to what has been labelled a ‘deparliamentarisation’ in law-making in the FRG, that is, a decline of the legislative role of the Bundestag (for an overview, see Schüttemeyer, 2009). Recent debates have focused on the question of how processes of ‘Europeanisation’ have further constrained the legislative and control competences of the Bundestag (see, for example, Töller, 2004). This is where the role of parliamentary research services comes into the picture – as a way of strengthening the policy competences of parliament vis-à-vis the empowerment of the government, that is, by supporting the Arbeitsparlament structures of the German Bundestag.2 As will be shown in this chapter, from a historical perspective the establishment of parliamentary research capacities could indeed be viewed as a reaction to an Informationsungleichgewicht (imbalance of information; see Götz, 1988) between the federal parliament on the one hand, and the federal government including its administration on the other. However, it is open to debate as to whether this reaction is effective and/or – normatively – appropriate.

In-house services of the German Bundestag: a systematic overview The Bundestag’s in-house research services are part of the parliamentary organisational system and are thus shaped by its typical characteristics, such as the pluralism and multilevel nature of this type of organisation (Marschall, 2005). As the parliamentary system is split into different working arenas, in-house research services are correspondingly part of diverse elements within this system (see Quick, 1976): the administration of the Bundestag, the administration of party groups and the staff of the individual parliamentarians.These different strands of the parliamentary research services vary in terms of their functions, capacities and operational logic.

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Research services within the Bundestag administration Like most parliaments, the Bundestag has been equipped with its own administrative body which supports the parliamentary work in many respects (actual number of employees: about 2,500; see Feldkamp, 2010, chapter 19.1). In its structures and working principles the Bundestagsverwaltung (Bundestag administration) follows the structure of the German federal ministries (Voss, 1983), for example, in its hierarchical organisation. Starting from the top, the Direktor beim Deutschen Bundestag (secretarygeneral of the German Bundestag) is the head of the administration.The main body is composed of four Abteilungen (directorate-generals) that again are divided into three directorates each.Within the directorates the Referate/Fachbereiche (divisions/research sections) serve as the basic operational units. Inside the administration of the German Bundestag, one directorate being part of Directorate-General W: Research and External Relations is explicitly dedicated to serve as parliamentary Wissenschaftliche Dienste (WD, research services). Directorate WD is composed of 11 research sections to which portfolios have been assigned that are supposed to cover all relevant policy fields by reflecting the portfolios of the parliamentary standing committees and the federal ministries (see Figure 11.1). Some of the sections attend to specific parliamentary needs, for example, the research section for history, contemporary history and politics. The research sections of Directorate WD offer services to the parliamentary committees as well as to individual members of parliament. Directorate WD is not the only entity within the administration of the Bundestag providing parliamentary research services in a broader sense; other units also assist parliamentary work. For example, committees and their chairs in particular are supported administratively by secretariats that are part of the Directorat-General: Parliament and Members of the Bundestagsverwaltung. Several units in the Directorate-General: Information and Documentation provide access to literature and data resources, the parliamentarians and groups of members of parliament can resort to, for instance, by operating the archives and library of the Bundestag as well as several databases. Being part of an administration that is meant to serve the parliament as a whole, the research services of the Bundestag are bound to a supra-party approach.They are obliged not to privilege any party group but to treat all parliamentarians and parliamentary groups equally. By being a pillar of the Bundestagsverwaltung, by serving a ‘political’ target group at the same time and beyond that by upholding ‘scientific standards’, the in-house research services are embedded (or stretched) within a complex triangle encompassing principles of administration, politics, and research – which might lead to conflicting internal and external expectations (von Winter, 2006).

Research units within the support services of the parliamentary groups Within the German Bundestag groups of members of parliament belonging to the same Fraktionen (party group) are equipped with resources to build up their own administrations that assist the groups organisationally as well as regarding policy questions. These Fraktionsdienste (support services of the parliamentary groups; see Schüttemeyer, 1998, pp 42-7) also encompass research capacities. The research units within the groups’ services aid individual members of the particular parliamentary group as much as policy-focused intragroup associations of parliamentarians (Arbeitsgruppen, Arbeitskreise, Arbeitsgemeinschaften). Reflecting the operational structures 152

Parliamentary in-house research services and policy-making in Germany Figure 11.1: Research sections of Directorate WD: Research Services, as of May 2012 Research Section WD 11 European Affairs Reserch Section

Research Section WD 1 History, Contemporary History and Politics Research Section WD 2 Foreign Affairs, International Law, Economic Cooperation and Development, Defence, Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid

Research Section WD 10 Culture, Media and Sport Research Section WD 9 Health, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth

DIRECTORATE WD Research Services

Research Section WD 8 Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Education and Research Research Section WD 7 Civil, Penal and Procedural Law, Environmental Protection Law, Transport, Building and Urban Affairs

Research Section WD 3 Constitutional Law and Public Administration Research Section WD 4 Budget and Finance

Research Section WD 6 Labour and Social Affairs

Research Section WD 5 Economics and Technology, Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture, Tourism

Source: Organisational chart of the Bundestagsverwaltung, 2 May 2012 (www.bundestag.de/bundestag/verwaltung/organisationsplan.pdf)

of the German Arbeitsparlament, that is, the salient role of the committee system within the Bundestag, the individual research assistants of the support services are usually assigned to the respective Obleute (party group representatives of the standing committees). The capacities of intragroup research services depend on the size of the groups as the distribution of the resources designated for the establishment and operation of the services is based on the respective numbers of group members. Thus, in small parliamentary associations, the number of assistants and therefore the division of labour are unavoidably limited – the consequence being that the assistants must cover more than one policy field. On the contrary, the research services of the party groups are by nature ‘partisan’ as they operate on behalf of the parliamentary parties exclusively for their members. They also build bridges with experts within the extra-parliamentary party organisation, thereby linking the parties’ intra- and extra-parliamentary expertise.

Research services within the individual members of parliament staff Research services are also part of the ‘system’ that surrounds the individual parliamentarians. All members of the German Bundestag are provided with a fixed budget to employ their own personal ‘research services’, that is, assistants supporting the members of parliament within their parliamentary activities. However, the decision on how to spend the staff budget is not regulated centrally, but left to each member of the Bundestag.The average staff of a German parliamentarian usually comprises at least one research assistant who is supposed to primarily support the legislative and control work of the member of the Bundestag. However, compared to the staff sizes

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of members of ‘legislatures’ such as the US Congress, the German parliamentarians are only able to draw on small resources. To sum up, the in-house research services are organised polymorphically. Within their policy-making and control work, single parliamentarians can resort to the services offered by the Bundestagsverwaltung, by the party groups or by their own staff. As these arenas are comparably independent from each other, overlaps or conflicts between the different resources on which the members of parliament can draw might occur.

Genesis and development of the research services The history of the in-house research services of the German Bundestag starts with the birth of federal parliamentarism after the Second World War, and prima facie tells a story of expansion – in all three aforementioned organisational arenas of parliament.

Research services as part of the Bundestagsverwaltung3 The establishment of the research services within the Bundestag’s administration can best be described as an evolutionary process of differentiation and specialisation (von Winter, 2006, p 200). However, as Backhaus-Maul argues, the development of the research services in the Bundestagsverwaltung cannot be explained just by referring to the logic of research- and policy-driven demand, but additionally (and primarily) to administrative and political-parliamentary influences on the organisation of the Bundestagsverwaltung (1990, p 25).The first German Bundestag was already supported by an administration that incorporated a Wissenschaftliche Abteilung (a directorate assigned to offer research services to the parliamentarians), solely encompassing – in the tradition of the pre-war German Reichstag – the library and the archives staffed with only 16 employees (Schindler, 2000, p 3428). The first parliamentary initiatives to establish in-house research units that were oriented towards the US Congressional Research Services were launched in the 1950s, but failed to succeed. Only by the mid1960s were the foundations laid for the later creation of differentiated research services by creating a division called Dokumentation (documentation) (von Winter, 2006). At the beginning of the 1970s, after the Bundestagsverwaltung had already been enlarged in the wake of the so-called Kleine Parlamentsreform in 1969 (small-scale parliamentary reform), the basic construction of research services, which has been preserved in its main features until today, was established.The Hauptabteilung Wissenschaftliche Dienste (Directorate-General: Research Services) was founded incorporating a directorate called Wissenschaftlicher Fachdienst (Specialised Research Service) composed of five research sections focusing and providing expertise on an array of policy fields. An additional sixth research section (Parlament) was part of the Directorate-General Allgemeiner Parlamentsdienst (General Parliamentary Services). Since the beginning of the 1970s the structure of the research services and the mode of their incorporation into the administrative structures have been changed several times, as the general organisation of the Bundestagsverwaltung has quite frequently been the object of reform. One evident development is the growth of capacities. The number of research sections rose up to today’s 11, as the need has arisen to cover new fields such as environmental policy and to take into consideration the implications of European integration on policy-making in Germany (for example, by establishing the research section on European Communities). Nowadays, about 154

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500 people work in the respective sections of the Bundestagsverwaltung compared to the above-mentioned 16 in the first German Bundestag; however, the number of upper-level civil servants within these sections has not increased significantly from the 1970s until the mid-2000s: only from 39 to 56 (von Winter, 2006, p 209). Half of the upper-level civil servants are fully qualified lawyers, followed quantitatively by political scientists, historians and other civil servants with a humanities or social sciences background, as well as by several economists and a few natural scientists (Deutscher Bundestag, 2006, p 5). This still robust dominance of lawyers within the parliamentary research services mirrors the Juristenmonopol (monopoly of lawyers) in public administration – and that policy-making is indeed about crafting laws in a formalistic meaning.

Research services as part of the party group administration The establishment of party group research services was closely discussed with the general plea to strengthen the policy powers of the whole parliament towards the government. In the 1950s a group-focused solution was given preference to the establishment of research services within the Bundestagsverwaltung, indicating the already prominent role of the party groups in the early Bundestag (Schüttemeyer, 1998, p 52). Starting in 1955, the parliamentary groups were provided with resources that were explicitly meant for employing academic assistants; in 1963 a ‘surcharge for the legislative service of the party groups’ was established, providing parliamentary groups with financial resources which, taken by their denomination, were and still are assigned to support their law-making activities. The expansion of the research services proceeded against the background of a general expansion of the support services of the parliamentary groups. Over time, the party groups’ staff turned from support secretariats into administrations with complex structures. While as early as the 1950s only a few people served the political groups (Schindler, 2000, p 1008), in 2010, 870 people were working for the parliamentary parties – almost 400 of them as upper-level civil servants (Feldkamp, 2010, chapter 5.9). Suzanne S. Schüttemeyer observes that a remarkable growth in political group administration usually took place when a particular party moved from the majority to the opposition benches within the Bundestag, for example, after elections. However, after regaining power, the size of the political group support services was not reduced respectively, leading to a jumpy yet continuous growth of the groups’ research capacities over time (Schüttemeyer, 1998, p 46).

Research services as part of the individual parliamentarians’ staff Compared to the research structures serving the party groups, the support for individual members of the German Bundestag was established rather late.The provision that parliamentarians should be granted personal assistants was one element of the aforementioned ‘small-scale’ parliamentary reform of 1969. The members of the Bundestag were given a monthly budget that was only to be used to build up personal staff, although it started on a rather small scale. In the year after the provision came into force (1970), a total of 663 people were employed as personal staff of the individual parliamentarians; within this group only 142 worked as academic assistants, that is, about 21 per cent (Schindler, 2000, p 3263). Over the years, the size of the line-item 155

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budget provided for employing staff members has steadily increased. In the 1970s each parliamentarian received 1,620 DM per month (approximately €800); this has amounted to about €15,000 a month today.4 In 2009, a total number of 6,784 people served within the personal staff of the parliamentarians; out of this group, 2,232 were qualified as academic assistants (32 per cent); many of them worked at the seat of parliament in Berlin where adequate office space and workplaces were provided within the premises of the German Bundestag, but a remarkable share of the staff was deployed in the constituency offices of the parliamentarians (see Feldkamp, 2010, chapter 17.4).

Specific logic of parliamentary in-house research services Parliamentary in-house research services can be distinguished from other sources of policy expertise, as they are characterised by unique guiding principles (see Zeh, 1976; von Winter, 2006): • The in-house research services attend exclusively to the role of the parliamentarians, committees and political groups. In principle, only parliamentary actors can make use of their expertise. Nonetheless, even from the beginning, the parliamentary research services have published their reports making their expert opinions usable by people and organisations outside the parliamentary system. Their reports have been made available in print versions and since 2000, also on the Bundestag website.5 • The research services work first and foremost on demand, meaning that only in very rare cases do they actively draft expert reports on their own initiative. The predominant procedure is that individual parliamentarians or parliamentary associations ask the research services for support and expertise, and they respond to it.Thus, they do not work like think tanks or research institutes within or outside universities, which generally decide on their own research agenda. • The nature of the work of the in-house services is to collect, analyse, compare, process and communicate research findings that have been produced by other institutions.The services do not carry out their own primary research (for example, by conducting surveys). The special role of the in-house services must be viewed against the background of the new dualism, that is, along the dichotomy between the parliamentary majority and ‘its’ government on the one hand, and parliamentary opposition on the other (Andeweg and Nijzink, 1995; see above).While the members of the parties in office could easily (and often do) resort to expertise within ‘their’ ministries (Ismayr, 2001, pp 106 ff), the parliamentarians of the oppositional party groups have to rely on alternative channels for information, such as the ones offered by the in-house research services. Thus, the parliamentary research services take on a special role for the parliamentary opposition. This matches with the observation that political group research services expand every time a party group moves from government to the opposition benches (Schüttemeyer, 1998, p 46; see above). Because the capacities of the opposition are chiefly geared to controlling and criticising the ruling majority, the role of the research services becomes primarily not to take part in law-making but to assist in the supervision and monitoring of the government and ‘its’ parliamentary majority’s (legislative) activities by the parliamentary minority. Consequently, Wolfgang Ismayr 156

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proposes increasing significantly the resources for the ‘oppositional’ party groups to establish independent research capacities (2001, p 460). Nevertheless, the members of the parliamentary majority can also resort to Bundestag expertise, for example, to foster their argument. By being drawn into the antagonism between the parliamentary majority and minority, the work of the research services is in danger of becoming instrumentalised by the party groups and their interests.When the research services are asked to provide information, this request could be driven by the specific interests of party actors, in an extreme case ‘demanding’ findings to support their respective policy positions.To put it in system theory terminology, on the bridge between the political and the research sub-system, the binary code of politics (government/opposition) might superimpose the code of science: true/false (Luhmann, 1995). Apart from tendencies of instrumentalisation, the normative function of the research services could still be defined as making parliament more independent from alternative and possibly less reliable sources of expertise, be it ministerial bureaucracy or interest groups. In this sense, the establishment of parliamentary research services has tried to contribute to the empowerment of the parliament (at least of its opposition) in the policy-making processes.

Parliamentary research services: a remedy for ‘deparliamentarisation’? Within their involvement in policy-making in Germany, the members of the Bundestag – whether as individuals or organised in associations – have access to a broad array of in-house research service units whose capacities have been considerably enlarged within the last few decades. At the outset, the establishment and expansion of these services can be considered as a response to the increase in public policy activities and political regulation in Germany as well as at the European level. Moreover, it can be understood as a reaction to the imbalances between government and parliament’s role in legislative processes that is allegedly based on the expertise supremacy of the ministerial bureaucracy. Whether it is at all possible to counter the policy competences of the ministerial bureaucracy by establishing specific and independent parliamentary research capacities has been severely questioned – empirically as well as normatively. Empirically, just by focusing on and comparing the sizes of these two policy-supporting administrations, could the impression of a David–Goliath relationship, or rather a Don Quixote (Sancho Panza) constellation arise? The staff size of the whole Bundestag administration is smaller than the number of personnel of most single federal ministries. Parliament seems to be tilting at windmills. However, from a normative perspective,Wolfgang Zeh (1976, pp 184 ff) argues that it should not be the business of the parliamentary research services to change the overall power construction of the policy processes in Germany, but rather to contribute to minimise ‘intra-parliamentary’ imbalances of information between individual members of parliaments and between the political groups. With this perspective, the functions of the in-house services are rather moderation, communication and management of information than the development of alternative policy proposals.

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This argument raises the crucial question as to which role parliament could and should play in policy-making processes, considering the increase in the complexity of legislative affairs and the ‘legislature–parliament’ dichotomy presented at the beginning of this chapter. Going back to the aforementioned debates in comparative parliamentary research, a case can be made that the ‘arena’ functions of the Bundestag in particular, namely its control and communication capacities, should be strengthened – possibly even at the expense of its own legislative activities. The genuine power of parliaments and parliamentarians – and eventually a preferable way of regaining lost competences – is not solely and primarily based on their law-making competences but at the same time, and perhaps much more in their ability to build linkages to their constituencies, to shed light on otherwise arcane spheres of ‘public’ policy-making and to control government actions. For control and communication tasks, however, parliamentarians also need the support of research and communication resources within and outside the parliament. Apart from the in-house research capacities, members of parliament can and do draw on a variety of alternative and additional sources, such as (public) interest groups or external research institutions. In the end, the Bundestag’s in-house research services are just a piece of the puzzle as to how to empower parliament.

Notes 1

See the documentation online at www.bundesrat.de (2 May 2012).

Interestingly, Steffani classifies the German parliament as a hybrid of a Redeparlament and Arbeitsparlament (Steffani, 1979, p 103). 2

3

For the history of the research services until 1999, see Schindler (2000, pp 3401ff).

4

See Schindler (2000, p 3261) and Feldkamp (2010, chapter 17.4).

5

See www.bundestag.de/dokumente/analysen/index.html (2 May 2012).

References Andeweg, R.B. and Nijzink, L. (1995) ‘Beyond the two-body image. Relations between ministers and MPs’, in H. Döring (ed) Parliaments and majority rule in Western Europe, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, pp 154-78. Backhaus-Maul, H. (1990) ‘Die Organisation der Wissensvermittlung beim Deutschen Bundestag. Am Beispiel der Wissenschaftlichen Dienste’, in T. Petermann (ed) Das wohlberatene Parlament. Orte und Prozesse der Politikberatung beim Deutschen Bundestag, Berlin: Edition Sigma, pp 19-63. Beyme, K. von (1997) Der Gesetzgeber. Der Bundestag als Entscheidungszentrum, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Beyme, K. von (2000) Parliamentary democracy: Democratisation, destabilisation, reconsolidation 1789–1999, Basingstoke: Macmillan. Deutscher Bundestag (2006) Aufgaben, Organisation und Ausstattung der Unterabteilungen Wissenschaftliche Dienste und Petitionen und Eingaben in der Verwaltung des Deutschen Bundestages, Berlin: Deutscher Bundestag. 158

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Döring, H. (1995) Parliaments and majority rule in Western Europe, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. Feldkamp, M.F. (2010) Datenhandbuch zur Geschichte des Deutschen Bundestages 19902010 (www.bundestag.de/dokumente/datenhandbuch). Götz, F. (1988) ‘Das Informationsungleichgewicht zwischen Regierung,Verwaltung und Parlament’, Publizistik – Vierteljahresschrift für Kommunikationsforschung, vol 33, pp 633-44. Gunlicks, A.B. (2003) The Länder and German federalism, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Holtmann, E. and Patzelt, W.J. (2004) Kampf der Gewalten? Parlamentarische Regierungskontrolle – gouvernementale Parlamentskontrolle: Theorie und Empirie, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Ismayr, W. (2001) Der Deutsche Bundestag im politischen System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Ismayr, W. (2008) ‘Gesetzgebung im politischen System Deutschlands’, in W. Ismayr, Gesetzgebung in Westeuropa, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 383-430. Lijphart, A. (1999) Patterns of democracy: Government forms and performance in thirty-six countries, New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Luhmann, N. (1995) Social systems, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Marschall, S. (2005) Parlamentarismus. Eine Einführung, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Polsby, N.W. (1975) ‘Legislatures’, in F.I. Greenstein and N.W. Polsby (eds) Handbook of political science, vol 5, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, pp 257-319. Quick, H.-J. (1976) Organisationsformen der wissenschaftlichen Beratung des Parlaments. Eine Untersuchung zur institutionellen Verankerung einer Technologiebewertungseinrichtung beim Deutschen Bundestag, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Reichard, C. and Röber, M. (2009) ‘Verwaltungsentwicklung und Ausbildungsreformen – Aktuelle Tendenzen in einer unendlichen Geschichte’, dms – der moderne staat – Zeitschrift für Public Policy, Recht und Management, vol 2, no 1, p 109-31. Schindler, P. (ed) (2000) Datenhandbuch zur Geschichte des Deutschen Bundestages 19491999. Eine Veröffentlichung der Wissenschaftlichen Dienste des Deutschen Bundestages, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Schüttemeyer, S.S. (1998) Fraktionen im Deutschen Bundestag 1949-1997, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Schüttemeyer, S.S. (2009) ‘Deparliamentarisation: How severely is the German Bundestag affected?’, German Politics, vol 18, no 1, pp 1-11. Shugart, M.S. and Carey, J.M. (1992) Presidents and assemblies: Constitutional design and electoral dynamics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Steffani, W. (1979) Parlamentarische und präsidentielle Demokratie. Strukturelle Aspekte westlicher Demokratien, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Töller, A.E. (2004) ‘Dimensionen der Europäisierung – Das Beispiel des Deutschen Bundestages’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, vol 35, no 1, pp 25-50. Voss, E.A. (1983) Parlamentarische Dienste – die Bundestagsverwaltung, Heidelberg and Hamburg: Rv Decker’s Verlag. Winter, T. (von 2006) ‘Die Wissenschaftlichen Dienste des Deutschen Bundestages’, in S. Falk, A. Römmele, D. Rehfeld and M. Thunert (eds) Handbuch Politikberatung, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 198-214.

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Zeh, W. (1976) ‘Die Wissenschaftlichen Dienste des Deutschen Bundestages – ein Gesetzgebungshilfsdienst’, in J. Rödig (ed) Studien zu einer Theorie der Gesetzgebung, Berlin: Springer, pp 173-90.

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The German Bundestag and external expertise: policy orientation as counterweight to deparliamentarisation? Sven T. Siefken and Suzanne S. Schüttemeyer

(How) do parliaments analyse policy? Policy analysis has two meanings that are closely related, yet must be analytically distinguished: in an applied sense, it refers to a process of gaining a deep understanding of the contents and intricacies of policy issues, with the aim of generating ‘usable knowledge’ (Lindblom and Cohen, 1979) as a foundation for concrete policy advice or action.The scholarly sense aims at understanding ‘what governments do, why they do it and what difference it makes’ (Dye, 1976). Dye’s often-quoted title evokes an interesting question: what about parliaments? An obvious answer is that government must be understood in a broad sense, comprising the whole policy-making system, as in Congressional government (Wilson, 1892), hence also the parliament. However, in German textbooks on policy analysis, the Bundestag is never systematically covered and rarely mentioned – if at all in the context of case studies (cf Schneider and Janning, 2006, pp 66ff; Schneider, 2009, pp 196ff; Blum and Schubert, 2011, pp 98ff). Similarly, textbooks on the German parliament largely overlook the perspectives, models and theories of policy analysis. This mutual ignorance is very likely due to an unfortunate rift in German political science between parliamentary research on the one hand and the policy perspective on the other (cf Kropp and Ruschke, 2010). A probably much more relevant and much more severe reason is that parliaments (at least those operating in parliamentary systems of government) are not taken very seriously when it comes to the core business of actually shaping policy decisions. Governments in the narrow sense of the word, that is, cabinets, ministers and in particular the ministerial bureaucracy, are regarded as the key political actors in this process.This perception of the distribution of weights is long-standing and has been further strengthened by developments of globalisation and European integration, where a dominance of the executive cannot be denied, but it has gained an almost dramatic momentum in recent years with the dawning of the debate on ‘deparliamentarisation’ or ‘post-parliamentarism’.These two catchwords claim that parliaments are neither able to represent the large variety of differentiated interests nor command sufficient expertise and specialisation to regulate ever more complicated subjects. In this view, ‘parliaments would be rivalled or even superseded by expert commissions, neo-corporatist structures and policy networks. In these, private and semi-private actors would represent specialized interests much more competently, would deal objectively with complex issues in a problem-oriented way, negotiate and find solutions in an effective manner’ (Schüttemeyer, 2009, p 2). 161

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Neglecting parliaments in the studies of policy analysis would indirectly confirm these assertions instead of testing them empirically. Hence, studying whether and how parliaments analyse policy does more than bridge a gap between sub-fields of political science. It sheds light on a core argument of a debate that holds that parliaments are on the verge of becoming marginal institutions because they can no longer fulfil their key functions. To look into this, the functions of the German parliament in the political system must first be briefly inspected. This is then related to the model of the policy cycle. After a short overview of the various resources of parliamentary policy analysis, this chapter concentrates on the use of outside expertise through legal and statutory instruments designed for the Bundestag as a whole, as well as through resources available for the individual deputy through their mandate.

Parliamentary functions in the policy cycle Following Walter Bagehot’s (1867 [1993]) famous writing on the House of Commons and, to a lesser extent, John Stuart Mill’s (1861) Considerations on Representative Government, the functions of parliaments have since been assembled and adjusted to democratisation in various catalogues.They can be condensed into election, legislation, control and communication.1 The legislative function usually comes to mind first when thinking of what parliaments do: making laws. This is not least supported by the use of language: in German the word Gesetzgeber (law-maker) is the synonym for parliament. In parliamentary research, however, the distinction between making laws and giving laws is crucial for an appropriate understanding of the institution. Normatively, this must not be misunderstood: a parliament that passes a bill is fulfilling the core function of democratically legitimising a decision, binding all citizens, no matter to what extent it was concretely involved in preparing the content. In parliamentary democracies this involvement takes on a wide variety of forms as the legislative/executive relationship in such a system is highly complex. These considerations are also reflected in the common typological distinction between a working and a debating parliament (cf Steffani, 1979b, pp 95 ff), or between arenas and transformative legislatures (cf Polsby, 1990). The German Bundestag, meanwhile, can be regarded as a working parliament that has developed internal structures and procedures that allow considerable influence on law-making. The parliamentary parties are strongly efficiency-minded, and the members have a self-understanding that puts strong emphasis on expertise and participation in the actual preparation of bills (cf Schüttemeyer 1998a, pp 311ff, 2003, pp 83ff). Other parliaments in the European Union (EU) seem to share at least the same philosophy. A survey of how they present themselves shows that they strongly emphasise the legislative function in their outside communication (cf Schüttemeyer and Siefken, 2008, p 488). While the legislative function is certainly important, it is indeed the elective function that plays the key role in parliamentary systems.Winfried Steffani (1979a) has shown that the possibility for a parliament to remove the government must be understood as the defining primary characteristic of a parliamentary democracy determining its principal logic. The parliamentary control function is often misunderstood by applying a strictly horizontal, dual understanding of the separation of powers, with parliament as a 162

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whole controlling the government. This is based on a simplified reception of Baron de Montesquieu’s (1748 [2011]) writings (cf Hübner and Oberreuter, 1977, p 63). Also, to say that in a parliamentary system the control function has been transferred to the opposition is short-sighted because it does not take into account that control is a complex construct with many different facets.While the parliamentary opposition follows a very visible way of control, members of the majority party use non-public channels which may be much more effective. From a system’s point of view, both the opposition and the majority exert control – but in very different ways and to very different ends (cf Hübner, 2000, p 209). Apart from giving or making laws, parliaments – or rather their members – are often making news (cf Cook, 1989). This is one important part of their communication function that includes much more than media work: parliaments are the central, institutionalised crystallisation point for political communication in modern democracies.They have to take in information from various sources, from individual citizens and organised interests, and process it in their decision-making. And they need to communicate and explain the decisions as part of a continuous feedback process. Instead of communication, some scholars use ‘representation’, but in itself this is such a complex concept that it is more appropriately understood as an overarching function that comprises all others (cf Schüttemeyer, 1998a, pp 22 ff). Based on this functional overview it is evident where parliamentary policy analysis is required and performed. • If members of parliament want to participate in actually producing bills, they need to understand the intricacies of the policies; and indeed, factual knowledge is not a bad precondition for the next step in the process, namely, finding majorities (or convincing one’s own group) to get the law passed. • If parliaments want to exercise their control function properly, they can do this two-fold: by installing trustworthy agents or by doing this and monitoring what they do (cf McCubbins and Schwarz, 1984).This obviously also calls for sufficient understanding of the policies in question. If deputies of the governing majority want to be taken seriously by their government and exert efficient internal control, they have to show expert knowledge; if the parties in opposition want to be taken seriously by the voters, they have to do the same. • The communicative function can probably be performed without original policy analysis, but it certainly helps to know about the issues if you want to talk about them. Hence, all functions of parliaments, except the elective, require knowledge and understanding of specific policies. A widely used model to structure policy processes is the policy cycle, developed on the basis of Harold Lasswell’s work (1956). A simple version comprises problem definition, agenda-setting, formulation, implementation, evaluation and termination of policy.2 Each of these steps has been the focus of in-depth studies and sometimes specialised research traditions in policy analysis. Relating the steps of the policy cycle to the parliamentary functions yields a fourby-five matrix that is helpful in illustrating how the functions of parliament play different roles in the policy cycle (see Table 12.1) .The elective function has no direct meaning in the policy process but is indirectly very important as it guarantees the

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delegation of policy-making authority – and responsibility – to an elected collective actor, the government. During problem definition, parliaments – or rather their aggregate actors, namely, the Fraktionen (parliamentary parties) – can play an important role among many others such as political parties, governments and ministries, the media, civil society, interest groups and so on. It can only be determined on a case-by-case basis who is more or less important in a concrete policy decision because external determinants and contingencies also play an important role in formulating a problem. When parliamentary actors take part in the problem definition stage, they act in their communicative function. Table 12.1: Parliamentary functions and the policy cycle Phases Problem definition

Functions

Election

Legislation

Control

X

Agenda-setting

X

Formulation

X

X

Implementation

X

Evaluation

X

Termination

Communication

X

X

There are many agendas to be set in the policy process. The relationship between the public agenda and the media agenda has long been a subject of intense study in media research that originally coined the phrase ‘agenda-setting’ (cf McCombs and Shaw, 1972). How the political agenda is set has been studied by John Kingdon (1995), who brought about an entirely new approach to understanding policy-making based on the ‘garbage can model’ (Cohen et al, 1972). Policy studies today often refer more generally to an imaginary agenda of a political system which can be understood as resulting from the media, public and political agenda. Setting the political system’s agenda is a process of communication, sometimes comprising a ‘negotiation for newsworthiness’ between media and political actors (Cook, 1998, p 102). Creating the parliamentary agenda, however, is part of the legislative instead of the communication function. Different from all other agendas mentioned, parliamentary agenda-setting is a formal process laid down in the rules of procedure of the Bundestag: it puts order to the problems to be dealt with by parliament and refers them to the relevant committees. The central goal during the formulation phase is to turn the many opinions, suggestions, interests, wishes and ideas around each problem into one distinct and if possible distinctive policy. In parliamentary democracies, parliaments as a whole are only relevant as an arena at the end of the legislative process, which is dominated by the government – but they are necessary because they provide formality, transparency and democratic responsibility for the decisions made. During the formulation phase not only the legislative function comes into play but also the control function. As stressed already, in a parliamentary system control by the majority parties is effectively

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performed in the interaction with government and its ministries. For various reasons, this is done mostly behind closed doors. Parliamentary control in the ex-post understanding becomes relevant during the implementation phase.To check if policies are in accordance with a government’s plan, if they have been implemented properly and whether they have brought the expected results is a task that is primarily taken on by the opposition parties. This control of implementation can lead to a real evaluation of policies – not necessarily, of course, in the formal sense of actually writing or commissioning an evaluation report, but often as the process of collecting feedback from reality (cf Bogumil and Jann, 2009, p 180). At the same time, during the evaluation phase the communication function finds new importance, especially for members of the majority parties. It is quite unusual for policies to be terminated – usually they are amended and changed, as the policy cycle model illustrates. In Germany, the so-called sunset legislation that expires after a while has recently been introduced in some of the Länder, but is very rare at the federal level (see Veit and Jantz, 2013, p 277). Should the termination phase occur, parliaments again have to fulfil their legislative function. Bringing these two approaches together shows that the functions of parliament play a varying role in the course of the policy cycle. Communication is predominant at the beginning, followed by the legislative function in the mid-phases and control during the late phases, while communication is again dominant when the cycle is completed.

Resources of parliamentary policy analysis As explained, the functions of legislation, control and communication require sound policy analysis. To achieve this, the Bundestag is equipped with various internal and external resources; some of them serve the parliament as a whole or sub-units such as parliamentary parties, and are laid down in the constitution, in laws and rules of procedure, and some are installed for the use of individual deputies or originate in their mandate (see Table 12.2). Table 12.2: Resources of parliamentary policy analysis Internal

External

Bundestag as a whole or its sub-units

Parliamentary committees Interpellation Committees of investigation

Individual members of parliament

Parliamentary services staff Parliamentary party staff Members of parliament staff

Study commissions Parliamentary hearings Regulatory impact assessment Court of Auditors Political parties Personal networks Constituencies

The focus of this chapter lies on external sources of policy analysis:3 formally institutionalised and clearly regulated are Enquete-Kommissionen (study commissions), Anhörungen (parliamentary hearings), Gesetzesfolgenabschätzung (regulatory impact assessment) and the Bundesrechnungshof (Federal Court of Auditors). Deputy-related and thus not regulated – but nonetheless important – sources of outside expertise can be found in the political parties, the personal networks of the members of parliament and their contacts in the constituencies. 165

Policy analysis in Germany

It is obvious that many of these resources serve various purposes at the same time: analysing policy is sometimes just a by-product of the pursuit of other goals, a situation not entirely unknown to modern democracies, which themselves have been called a by-product of the competitive form of choosing society’s leaders (cf Sartori, 1992, p 161). The resources of policy analysis mentioned above are not complete. First of all, in a parliamentary democracy the government is the first committee of parliament (as Bagehot, 1867 [1993], p 122, put it in his clear-sighted analysis of parliamentarism Westminster-style) – and thus all policy analysis performed or contracted by the government is, in effect, delegated by parliament, more precisely by the parliamentary majority carrying the government. But, as discussed elsewhere in this volume, all governmental channels of policy analysis are excluded here.The same goes, second, for the use of exceptional instruments of policy analysis: from time to time the Bundestag has set up groups other than study commissions, for instance, an independent advisory commission to develop suggestions for the remuneration of members of parliament in 2011. As with the expert commissions of the federal government (cf Siefken, 2007, p 66), their focus can be predominantly on policy advice, as in the above-mentioned case, or on negotiations between the relevant actors of a policy field, as for the joint commission of Bundestag and Bundesrat on the reform of federalism in Germany which was set up in 2003 and followed by another one in 2007. Knowledge about these groups is sparse and hard to generalise beyond the individual cases.

External expertise: the instruments of the Bundestag Defining problems and setting the agenda: study commissions The Enquete-Kommission was introduced into the German political system in the late 1960s as part of a minor reform of parliament. One of its intentions was to strengthen the parliament vis-à-vis the government by providing it with new tools of policy analysis. According to §56 of the rules of procedure of the Bundestag, a study commission can be installed on the request of a minority of 25 per cent of the members for ‘the preparation of decisions on wide-ranging and significant issues’. In recent years such commissions have dealt with topics such as ‘Growth, wellbeing and quality of life – paths to sustainable economic activity and social progress in the social market economy’ or ‘Internet and the digital society’ (both set up in 2010). Earlier, there were commissions on issues such as culture in Germany (2003–07), ethics and law in medicine (2003–05), sustainable energy supply (2000–02), globalisation of the world economy (1999–2002),‘civic activities’4 (1999–2002) and demographic change (1992–2002). Since their introduction in 1969 altogether 34 study commissions have been at work, with one to five each term. The current numbers seem to indicate that after initial reservations, study commissions were widely used from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, while recently they seem to have become less popular again, with only two commissions in the 15th, one in the 16th and two in the 17th Bundestag. Study commissions do take their time to study the issues. They usually work for several years and the number of commission meetings has ranged from 12 (‘Women and society’, 1974–76) to 131 (‘Protection of the earth’s atmosphere’, 1991–94) (cf 166

The German Bundestag and external expertise

Feldkamp, 2011, p 1070). Commissions are also subject to the parliamentary principle of discontinuity: at the end of each term – even if premature – they automatically expire but can be reinstalled by the newly elected parliament.Thus, the commission on demographic change – of which observers joked that it had practised its own subject of study (cf Altenhof, 2003, p 161) – was called in by three consecutive parliaments. A special trait of these advisory groups is that they are made up of external experts as well as members of parliament, the latter often in the majority. Experts are usually appointed both from academia and from organised interests. This particular setting allows for the inclusion of three perspectives into the commission’s deliberations: (1) academic experts’ scholarly view on the issues at stake; (2) core stakeholders’ interests; and (3) the perspective of the members of parliament on what is politically feasible. Study commissions are supported by civil servants in the Bundestag staff who organise the meetings, write protocols, sometimes conduct research and usually draft the final reports (cf Altenhof, 2003, p 238). Commissions have a variety of instruments at their disposal to organise their work: some set up sub-groups, most of them conduct hearings, others ask for written testimony from external experts and even contract out studies or reports. The composition, time frame and resources of the commissions look like a recipe for great success according to concepts of deliberative democracy: they could offer a forum for informed debate among the relevant groups in a policy field – independent experts, policy-makers, organised interests and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Experience shows, however, that they are far from practising an open ‘deliberative discourse’. Rather they follow the parliamentary logic of political conflict: the parties in parliament select the commissions’ members, policy positions are usually coordinated among them, even the seating order during meetings often follows party lines (cf Schenkel, 2001, p 112; Altenhof, 2003, pp 186, 298). Also, members of one party often form internal hierarchies according to parliamentary practice in other committees. In other words, they can easily be seen as just another battlefield of political conflict, and not as an instrument of policy analysis. At the end of a study commission there is usually a long report officially presented to the floor and subsequently published in the official records of proceedings. Most of these reports include clear policy suggestions, but often the lines of political conflict are obvious (cf Altenhof, 2003, p 297). One common strategy to reduce divergent opinions is to resort to more general statements and to formulate the smallest common denominator. It has been concluded that study commissions are neither able to prepare concrete policy decisions (cf Hampel, 1991, p 119) nor to generate new knowledge as highly creative policy innovators. Rather they are limited to summing up the state and perspectives on their respective policy issues and bringing them together as a starting point for further political discussion and negotiation (cf Altenhof, 2003, pp 299, 321, 324). Some authors have thus argued that the functions of these commissions are rather to be found in the areas of legitimation or communication than in substantial policy analysis or preparation of policy decisions (cf Braß, 1990, p 94; Hampel, 1991, p 121). Clearly, study commissions are to be located in the early phases of communication and agenda-setting in the policy cycle. By thoroughly investigating and discussing an issue they do perform an important step in policy analysis – even if it is just to formulate the smallest common denominator or a shared agreement about the disagreements between the relevant political actors. Measuring these commissions 167

Policy analysis in Germany

by the lack of clear policy prescriptions or the shortage of recommendations directly transformed into bills exhibits a naive understanding of the political process. Study commissions can play an important role, but they are rather at the starting point than the finish line of the legislative process. And indeed this was the intention when the instrument was introduced: to prepare decisions on broad and important issues, as the quoted §56 of the rules of procedure states. In their respective policy fields these commissions have a lasting influence on the discussion and progress – and often parliament takes up recommendations and will refer to them later. It is plausible to assume that the motive for installing a study commission is the hope for partisan advantage – be it on the side of the opposition with regard to public attention, or on the side of the majority expecting ‘dignified’ confirmation of their political stands.The fact that over the past 20 years only two study commissions have been initiated by one parliamentary party alone and all others by several or even all parties in the Bundestag across the majority/opposition divide speaks against this assumption and in favour of the view that a genuine policy orientation exists, if not prevails.

Listening to stakeholders and experts: parliamentary hearings Making sure that all (relevant) voices are heard and considered is an important task of parliaments in the process of law-making. One formal way of doing this is to conduct public parliamentary hearings. Inspired by practice in the US Congress (cf Loewenberg, 2006, p 103) they had already been introduced into the rules of the Bundestag in 1951. However, it was quite a while until they really took hold (see Figure 12.1). Their virtual absence in the first decades and their great expansion starting in the early 1980s can be attributed to several factors. The Bundestag had finished the build-up Figure 12.1: Number of hearings in the German Bundestag 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

Source: Authors’ composition; data: Schindler (1999, p 2123); Feldkamp (2010, p 11)

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The German Bundestag and external expertise

work and had coped with the enormous legislative load after the Second World War; it had mastered the first fundamental political crises and could afford to shift responsibility organisationally from the plenary assembly to the committees (cf Schüttemeyer, 1989, p 1150). Parliamentary committees and their sub-committees conduct most hearings as part of the legislative process – they are a favourite form of external policy advice, far more, for example, than contracting out reports or studies (cf Krevert, 1993, p 135). Not only parliamentary committees but also study commissions or committees of investigation frequently conduct hearings. However, over two thirds of the hearings have a legislative purpose and thus an ex-ante character. Parliamentary oversight in Germany is not performed much through hearings (cf Bräcklein, 2006, 318). To assess what role they play, their absolute number is less relevant. The share of laws in whose making they were conducted as a tool for parliamentary policy analysis is more interesting than the absolute number of conducted hearings (cf Schüttemeyer, 1989, 1150). Such an analysis also evens out the effects of the shortened election periods in 1983 and 2005. Since their introduction, this growth of the share of laws with hearings in the process has been stronger than their growth in number, which reached almost a third in the last election period (see Figure 12.2). Looking at the different committees shows clear differences in their practice of conducting public hearings. Between 1987 and 2009, the Finance Committee held hearings on 160 topics, followed by the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs (125). Next were the Committees on Internal Affairs (84), the Economy (83) and Legal Matters (82) (see Figure 12.3).This rank order is largely consistent with earlier findings based on the years from 1951 to 1983 when the highest number of hearings was held by those same four committees (cf Weßels, 1987, p 291). Compared to 25 years ago, however, the Finance Committee has moved from third place to top Figure 12.2: Share of laws with hearings in the German Bundestag 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Source: Authors’ composition; data: Schindler (1999, p 2123); Feldkamp (2010, p 11)

169

Policy analysis in Germany Figure 12.3: Number of topics in hearings of Bundestag committees, 1987–2009 Finance

160

Labor and social affairs

125

Internal affairs

84

Economy

83

Legal affairs

82

Family, women, seniors, youth

80

Research

70

Health

67

Agriculture

66

Traffic and infrastructure

64

Environment

61

Economic cooperation

60

Sports Foreign affairs Budget

28 22 16

Source: Authors’ composition; data: Schindler (1999, p 2124); Feldkamp (2011, pp 943-1031)

position. Noteworthy, too, is that the Committee on the Economy moved from rank 13 to rank 4. Weßels (1987, p 293) has hypothesised that the number of hearings held by a committee can be explained not only by the number of bills it processes but also by the nature of the topic – where a higher degree of conflict, complexity and reach is involved, more hearings are conducted. Putting this distribution into a policy context shows that the mirroring Ministries of Finance and of Labour and Social Affairs score high in the number of permanent advisory groups or temporary expert commissions (cf Siefken 2007, p 285). As for the people invited, an analysis of all hearings conducted in the 9th Bundestag (1980-83) shows that most of them were ‘experts in the sense that they are competent to articulate and represent the positions of certain interest groups’ while the number of ‘independent experts’ was very low (Weßels, 1987, p 293). Although recent and comprehensive studies on the use of public hearings in Germany are missing, it can at least be said that this is consistent with general findings on the role of policy advice in Central and Northern Europe: it has a strong corporatist orientation and tradition (cf Renn, 1995, p 152). So what are hearings? Are they an instrument of policy analysis? One reason to explain the strong growth in hearings is that they match the logic of parliamentary behaviour very well: contradicting views by different interest groups may be invited and members of parliament can submit them to thorough ‘crossexamination’ (Morkel, 1967, p 75). Conducting hearings is thus a very efficient way of bringing information from various stakeholders and experts together and testing them in a dialogue with the members of parliament. Most of the hearings are public events and thus simultaneously serve a number of other functions than policy advice, namely, the articulation and mobilisation of interests (cf Schüttemeyer, 1998b, p 246) as well as communication with society (cf Weßels, 1987, p 310); they may also offer 170

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members of parliament a good opportunity for the presentation of themselves (cf Backhaus-Maul, 1990, p 41). Nevertheless, hearings are foremost instruments of gathering information – even if geared at justifying existing positions – and are primarily used for legislative purposes with a clear policy focus. Realistically, they must be positioned rather late in the phase of policy formulation: they rarely generate new and surprising positions but certify what is there already, with a strong focus on the involved interest groups. In this context it should be taken into account that external expertise not only contains factual information and content-based knowledge, not least because there is not usually just one single expert position on a given issue; external consultancy is more or less intertwined with judgements on (political) feasibility, (societal) acceptance and democratic legitimacy – or gives ample room for such considerations. It is for such insights in particular that hearings have become an indispensable instrument for the Bundestag in fulfilling its legislative function.

Predicting consequences: technology assessment Robert Merton (1936) warned that purposive social action can also have unanticipated consequences. With respect to regulation and other forms of steering instruments, experience has it that such consequences can even counteract the initial purpose of a law. Again, it was the US Congress serving as an example when the Bundestag set up its own office of technology assessment after two decades of debate in 1990: the Büro für Technikfolgenabschätzung (TAB; Office of Technology Assessment). TAB was meant to establish a new form of policy advice bringing together the various positions of ‘technical feasibility, economic profitability and societal desirability’ (Petermann, 1994, p 83). Organisationally, TAB is not part of the Bundestag administration but an external research unit. Its work programme is determined in discussion with the Bundestag committee on education, research and technology assessment, which has steering obligations for TAB. Any committee of the Bundestag can commission TAB to carry out reports that will all be published. TAB’s website contains 111 studies since 1992, with topics ranging from ‘Multimedia – myths, opportunities and challenges’ in 1995 to ‘Synthetic biology’ (2012), from ‘Electronic petitions’ (2012) to ‘Status quo and perspectives of catalysing and enzyme technology’ (1997) (see TAB, 2012a). All in all, issues are far-ranging and diverse (see Figure 12.4). Undoubtedly, TAB provides policy analysis in the field of technology and surrounding areas. However, technology assessment as practised by the Bundestag is not regulatory impact assessment in a concrete legislative process, which - despite symbolic efforts to emphasise it - has seen no material progress in Germany (cf Veit 2010, p 235). Rather than in the late policy formulation phase,TAB reports are better located in the problem definition phase. Systematic empirical findings are lacking on how members of parliament make use of this tool and how they value it in carrying out their functions of control and legitimation. It can at least be stated that with five to six reports per year, the Bundestag is quite active in enhancing its policy knowledge through this instrument.TAB may thus be regarded as yet another component that puts parliament in a position to muster its own expertise.

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Policy analysis in Germany Figure 12.4: Topics of technology assessment studies by TAB, 1991–2009 Transportation and traffic Others

6 15

Biological and medical technology Information and communication Agriculture, nutrition Technology, society, innovation Energy, resources, environment

21

23 24 26 29

Source: Authors’ composition; data based on TAB, 2012b

Controlling implementation: the Court of Auditors The Bundesrechnungshof (Federal Court of Auditors) controls the efficiency of public spending. According to the German Constitution it reports directly to the two chambers of parliament and to the federal government (Article 114, Grundgesetz, GG), but is completely independent and under no hierarchical supervision. It is thus considered to be an institution supporting parliament that cannot be clearly located among the three branches (cf Steiger, 1989, p 790). Apart from the annual reports that usually receive some media coverage for ‘scandalous’ spending such as expensive elevators to be installed during renovations at the social insurance agency or the procurement of new benches for old army trucks (see Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2007). The work of the agency is mostly done outside the limelight and in the shadows of bureaucracy. These shadows extend to the scholarly study and understanding of this institution as was diagnosed over 30 years ago and still holds true today.They are ‘the stepchildren’ of political science research (cf Diederich et al, 1984; Seyfried, 2011a, p 537), and even though many relevant questions can be posed regarding their work and performance, most studies remain anecdotal and are often written by practitioners. Seyfried (2011b) has recently undertaken a first approach to systematically study the Courts of Auditors at the Länder level. He found some variation in independence and resources of the courts in the different Länder, but could not see any clear evidence for a relationship with their independence or influence. Neither could he find evidence of a particular use of court results by opposition parties versus the governing majority (cf Seyfried, 2011b, p 229). Apart from the above-mentioned reporting after the fact, members of the Court of Auditors are regularly present during meetings of the budget committee as advisers (cf Eickenboom, 1989, p 1191). Even earlier in the budget process, the court has to be informed by the ministries about their draft budgets. It also performs financial control 172

The German Bundestag and external expertise

over top secret activities of the secret service in place of the parliament.5 This shows that the Court of Auditors is no longer limited to ex-post control (cf Lohmar, 1975, p 115) but is moving backwards in the policy cycle by stressing its advice function. As to the importance of this source of external expertise it can again be said that it offers a considerable potential for parliamentarians to gain better general understanding as well as topical information on budgetary issues.To what extent and to what effect the members of parliament tap this source needs further empirical study.

External expertise: instruments of the individual member of parliament The members of the German Bundestag are comparatively well equipped with resources to hire staff as well as with support through their parliamentary parties and the services of the Bundestag as a whole (cf Chapter 11, this volume). Beyond these internal opportunities it can well be envisaged that deputies also use extraparliamentary sources for acquiring necessary policy expertise.They maintain contacts inside their party organisation and in their constituency and have established personal networks. Research on parliamentary representation has tackled these components as part of the deputies’ role orientations and linkage function (for example, Patzelt and Algasinger, 2001), the core questions usually being how well members of parliament are rooted in society, how they inform themselves about the opinions and interests of ‘their’ voters, how they transport these into the parliamentary process and how they communicate political decisions to the electorate (responsiveness and leadership). Moreover, such contacts and networks were addressed in the context of re-nomination, re-election and professionalisation of members of parliament (cf Borchert and Stolz, 2003; Schüttemeyer and Sturm, 2005). An ongoing research project (CITREP, Citizens and Representatives in France and Germany) is investigating the practice of representation in the constituencies. The observations conducted in Germany in 2011 and 2012 showed that members of parliament uphold numerous contacts with various organisations, most importantly with public agencies, their own local parties and private enterprises (see Figure 12.5). Notably, they spent 70 per cent of their time in the constituencies in nonparty events (cf Siefken, 2012, p 8), and during the events in the constituencies they strongly stressed gathering information rather than presenting their own positions (cf Schindler and Siefken 2011, p 15). Hence, when it comes to their grasp of issues in terms of citizens’ demands, empirical knowledge is available. We know very little, however, about the use of constituency contacts, party organisations and personal networks for the purpose of obtaining policy expertise. Sometimes the two dimensions go hand in hand: to learn about different interests may entail broader factual information on the subject in question. From contradicting subjective policy positions, a better objective understanding of the issue may be generated. In this vein, the finding that German members of parliament are well-rooted in society and in their parties (through leading positions in the organisations) and are actively engaged in all sorts of communication and networks can be taken as an indicator of their capacity to make well-informed decisions.

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Policy analysis in Germany Figure 12.5: Number of events attended by members of parliament in their constituencies

121 92 70 57

55

42

47 32

43

34 17

8

Note: Based on 618 observations at 64 German MPs in 2011 and 2012. Source: Siefken (2012, p 7); data: CITREP

With regard to goal-oriented seeking of specific expertise by individual members of parliament, only impressionistic evidence exists which can be drawn from deputies’ own statements in biographies and other accounts as well as from some research observations.The typical backbench members of parliament find their position in their parliamentary party – and further career chances – by specialising in a policy field. In their capacity as members of the respective Bundestag committee and the working group in their parliamentary party, they build up connections with organisations and individuals over time who are, likewise, active in this field and can be approached for advice. So in the above-mentioned project we found deputies who knew (the) relevant experts in their constituency, all over their federal state or even the republic, through former cooperation. However, whether such relationships exist and how close they are seems highly contingent. The policy field, the professional background of the members of parliament, their work style, their perception of representation and their role are but some of the factors that apparently influence their behaviour in this respect.6 But in their constituencies, they often also discuss issues beyond their immediate jurisdiction. Notably, the local political situation plays a very prominent role (see Figure 12.6). As for the role the party plays for the member of parliament in obtaining outside expertise, it seems plausible to state that contacting the corresponding working groups (at the federal level) of the party organisation primarily serves the linkage function with the party members usually interested amateurs. Sometimes, however, they have a relevant professional background from which members of parliament can profit 174

The German Bundestag and external expertise Figure 12.6: Share of issues discussed by members of parliament during events in constituencies

40% very large large 20%

0%

Note: n = 536 observations. The issues discussed with a very large or large share during the observed events are reported; coding was done on a Likert scale. Source: Siefken (2012, p 17)

when seeking policy advice or testing their positions for legislative decision-making. The federal system of Germany offers another route: the opposition parties in the Bundestag make use of expertise from those Land governments in which their party colleagues participate. Altogether a varied picture of the practice emerges: deputies often expand their policy expertise indirectly through the channels of party, constituency and personal networks. Direct acquisition of knowledge for specific legislative purposes also takes place and is sometimes institutionalised more formally. To quantify this and to assess its importance for the member of parliament compared to the intra-parliamentary resources of expertise, more systematic research is required.

External expertise as counterweight to ‘deparliamentarisation’ The German Bundestag commands a wide variety of resources to muster expertise for fulfilling its functions. Study commissions, hearings, the Office for Technology Assessment and the Court of Auditors provide instruments which aid a parliament and its members who are efficiency-minded and show no signs of succumbing to the (alleged) overwhelming expertise of the government and its agencies. This is true anyway for the opposition parties which must prove to the electorate that they 175

Policy analysis in Germany

can provide feasible alternatives, and hence need all the expertise they can muster in order to arouse serious public discourse. But it is also true for the members of the majority who, as explained earlier, apply their policy knowledge not as adversaries to the incumbent government and – given the logic of the parliamentary system – obviously not in public controversy. Undoubtedly – and systemically intended – inside the governmental majority the cabinet and the ministerial bureaucracy are the leading forces in the policy-making process. But in order to meet their government at eye level, to be included in the decision-making process and hence be able to exert serious internal control, the members of parliament of the majority have to prove that they command relevant knowledge on the subjects at stake. Whether the available instruments are used sufficiently, in terms of quality as well as quantity, cannot be answered with complete certainty due to lacking data.What can be said, however, is that the Bundestag and its members are not only focused on politics or even only on political communication, but have a clear impetus for policy. This is indeed a prerequisite to fulfil the legislative, control and communication function appropriately.The availability of external expertise is a strong weight for the German Bundestag; used cleverly it can counter all ‘deparliamentarisation talks’ and all attempts to marginalise the key institution of representative democracy.

Notes For a synoptical overview of the German literature on parliamentary catalogues, see Schindler (1999, pp 2834-47) and Marschall (2005, pp 139-43).

1

For an overview, see Jann and Wegrich (2009, p 80); in English, see Jann and Wegrich (2007).

2

3

See Chapter 11 of this book for a detailed discussion of the internal sources.

4

For an official translation of bürgerschaftliches Engagement, see Deutscher Bundestag (2012).

5

§10a and §74, Bundeshaushaltsordnung.

Data on the strength of involvement in networks (Patzelt and Algasinger, 2001, p 506) or on the frequency of contacts (Liepelt and Lietz, 2006) are not suitable to answer more precisely the question as to whether and how deputies obtain external expertise. 6

References Altenhof, R. (2003) Die Enquete-Kommissionen des Deutschen Bundestages, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Backhaus-Maul, H. (1990) ‘Die Organisation der Wissensvermittlung beim Deutschen Bundestag. Am Beispiel der Wissenschaftlichen Dienste’, in T. Petermann (ed) Das wohlberatene Parlament. Orte und Prozesse der Politikberatung beim Deutschen Bundestag, Berlin: Edition Sigma, pp 19-63. Bagehot, W. (1867 [1993]) The English constitution, London: Fontana. Blum, S. and Schubert, K. (2011) Politikfeldanalyse (2nd edn), Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. 176

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Bogumil, J. and Jann, W. (2009) Verwaltung und Verwaltungswissenschaft in Deutschland. Einführung in die Verwaltungswissenschaft,Wiesbaden:VSVerlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Borchert, J. and Stolz, K. (2003) ‘Die Bekämpfung der Unsicherheit: Politikerkarrieren und Karrierepolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, vol 44, no 2, pp 148-73. Bräcklein, S. (2006) Investigativer Parlamentarismus. Parlamentarische Untersuchungen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Braß, H. (1990) ‘Enquete-Kommissionen im Spannungsfeld von Politik,Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit’, in T. Petermann (ed) Das wohlberatene Parlament. Orte und Prozesse der Politikberatung beim Deutschen Bundestag, Berlin: Edition Sigma Bohn, pp 65-95. Cohen, M.D., March, J.G. and Olsen, J.P. (1972) ‘A garbage can model of organizational choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol 17, no 1, pp 1-25. Cook, T. (1989) Making laws and making news: Media strategies in the US House of Representatives, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Cook, T.E. (1998) Governing with the news: The news media as a political institution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Deutscher Bundestag (2012) Civic activities:Towards a civil society with a future (http:// webarchiv.bundestag.de/cgi/show.php?fileToLoad=111&id=1040). Diederich, N., Gilles, F.-O., Otto, G. and Weinert, R. (1984) ‘Die Institution Rechnungshof. Stiefkind der Sozialwissenschaften’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, vol 15, no 4, pp 479-94. Dye, T. (1976) Policy analysis: What governments do, why they do it, and what difference it makes, Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Eickenboom, P. (1989) ‘Haushaltsausschuß und Haushaltsverfahren’, in H. Schneider and W. Zeh (eds) Parlamentsrecht und Parlamentspraxis, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp 1183-220. Feldkamp, M. (2010) ‘Deutscher Bundestag 1990 bis 2009: Parlaments- und Wahlstatistik für die 12 bis 17 Wahlperiode’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, vol 41, no 1, pp 3-17. Feldkamp, M. (2011) Datenhandbuch zur Geschichte des Deutschen Bundestages 19902010, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Hampel, F. (1991) ‘Politikberatung in der Bundesrepublik. Überlegungen am Beispiel von Enquete-Kommissionen’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, vol 22, no 1, pp 111-33. Hübner, E. (2000) Parlament und Regierung, Munich: Bayerische Landeszentrale für politische Bildungsarbeit. Hübner, E. and Oberreuter, H. (1977) Parlament und Regierung. Ein Vergleich dreier Regierungssysteme, Munich: Ehrenwirth. Jann,W. and Wegrich, K. (2007) ‘Theories of the policy cycle‘, in F. Fischer, G.J. Miller and M.S. Sidney (eds) Handbook of public policy analysis: Theory, politics, and methods, Boca Raton, FL: Taylor & Francis, pp 43-62. Jann, W. and Wegrich, K. (2009) ‘Phasenmodelle und Politikprozesse: Der Policy Cycle’, in K. Schubert and N.C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp 75-115. Kingdon, J. (1995) Agendas, alternatives, and public policies, New York: HarperCollins College Publishers.

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Krevert, P. (1993) Funktionswandel der wissenschaftlichen Politikberatung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Entwicklungslinien, Probleme und Perspektiven im Kooperationsfeld von Politik, Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit, Münster: Lit Verlag. Kropp, S. and Ruschke, M. (2010) ‘Parlament und Verwaltung: in Rollenpartnerschaft vereint? Ein Plädoyer für dieVerknüpfung von Parlaments- undVerwaltungsforschung’, in Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, vol 41, no 3, pp 654-76. Lasswell, H. (1956) The decision process: Seven categories of functional analysis, College Park, MD: University of Maryland Press. Liepelt, K. and Lietz, H. (2006) Informelle Netzwerke in deutschen Parlamenten und ihre Bedeutung, Presentation at the conference ‘Soziale Netzwerke’, Cologne, 31 March –1 April (available online at www.socio.ethz.ch/modsim/tagungen/koeln06/ Liepelt_Lietz_koeln06.pdf). Lindblom, C.E. and Cohen, D.K. (1979) Usable knowledge: Social science and social problem solving, New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Loewenberg, G. (2006) ‘The influence of US congressional hearings on committee procedure in the German Bundestag: A case study of institutional diffusion’, in T. Power and N. Rae (eds) Exporting Congress? The influence of the US Congress on world legislatures, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp 102-18. Lohmar, U. (1975) Das Hohe Haus. Der Bundestag und die Verfassungswirklichkeit, Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. McCombs, M. and Shaw, D. (1972) ‘The agenda setting function of mass media’, Public Opinion Quarterly, vol 36, pp 176-87. McCubbins, M. and Schwartz,T. (1984) ‘Congressional oversight overlooked: Police patrols versus fire alarms’, American Journal of Political Science, vol 28, no 1, pp 165-79. Marschall, S. (2005) Parlamentarismus. Eine Einführung, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Merton, R. (1936) ‘The unanticipated consequences of purposive social action’, American Sociological Review, vol 1, no 6, pp 894-904. Mill, J.S. (1861) Considerations on representative government, London: Parker, Son and Bourn, West Strand. Montesquieu, C. (1748 [2011]) L’esprit des lois, Paris: Classiques Garnier. Morkel, A. (1967) Politik und Wissenschaft. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Beratung in der Politik, Hamburg: Wegner. Patzelt,W. and Algasinger, K. (2001) ‘Abgehobene Abgeordnete? Die gesellschaftliche Vernetzung der deutschen Volksvertreter’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, vol 32, no 3, pp 503-27. Petermann, T. (1994) ‘Das Büro für Technikfolgenabschätzung beim Deutschen Bundestag: Innovation oder Störfaktor?’, in A. Murswieck (ed) Regieren und Politikberatung, Opladen: Leske + Budrich, pp 79-99. Polsby, N.W. (1990) ‘Legislatures’, in P. Norton (ed) Legislatures, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 127-48. Renn, O. (1995) ‘Style of using scientific expertise.A comparative framework’, Science and Public Policy, vol 22, no 3, pp 147-56. Sartori, G. (1992) Demokratietheorie, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Schenkel, M. (2001) ‘Zur Kunst und Kultur der Kooperation in Enquête-Kommissionen’, in K. Sommermann (ed) Gremienwesen und staatliche Gemeinwohlverantwortung. Beiträge zu einem Forschungssymposium des Forschungsinstituts für öffentliche Verwaltung am 27 und 28 April 2000 in Speyer, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp 111-20.

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Schindler, P. (1999) Datenhandbuch zur Geschichte des Deutschen Bundestages 1949-1999, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Schindler, D. and Siefken, S. (2011) ‘“Going home”: Members of the German Bundestag working their constituencies’, Paper presented at the International Workshop ‘Changing Modes of Parliamentary Representation’, Prague, 14-15 October. Schneider, V. (2009) ‘Akteurkonstellationen und Netzwerke in der Politikentwicklung’, in K. Schubert and N.C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp 191-218. Schneider,V. and Janning, F. (2006) Politikfeldanalyse. Akteure, Diskurse und Netzwerke in der öffentlichen Politik, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Schüttemeyer, S. (1989) ‘Öffentliche Anhörungen’, in H. Schneider and W. Zeh (eds) Parlamentsrecht und Parlamentspraxis, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp 1145-59. Schüttemeyer, S. (1998a) Fraktionen im Deutschen Bundestag. Empirische Befunde und theoretische Folgerungen, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Schüttemeyer, S. (1998b) ‘Hearing’, in D. Nohlen and R.-O. Schultze (eds) Lexikon der Politik. Band 7. Politische Begriffe, Munich: Beck, p 246. Schüttemeyer, S. (2003) ‘Regierungssysteme’, in E. Jesse and R. Sturm (eds) Demokratien des 21. Jahrhunderts im Vergleich, Opladen: Leske + Budrich, pp 61-88. Schüttemeyer, S.S. (2009) ‘Deparliamentarisation: How severely is the German Bundestag affected?’, German Politics, vol 18, no 1, pp 1–11. Schüttemeyer, S. and Siefken, S. (2008) ‘Parlamente in der EU: Gesetzgebung und Repräsentation’, in O. Gabriel and S. Kropp (eds) Die EU-Staaten im Vergleich. Strukturen, Prozesse, Politikinhalte, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp 482-513. Schüttemeyer, S. and Sturm, R. (2005) ‘Der Kandidat – das (fast) unbekannte Wesen. Befunde und Überlegungen zur Aufstellung der Bewerber zum Deutschen Bundestag’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, vol 36, no 3, pp 539-53. Seyfried, M. (2011a) ‘Noch immer “Stiefkind der Sozialwissenschaften”? Ein Plädoyer für mehr politikwissenschaftliche Forschung über Rechnungshöfe’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, vol 42, no 3, pp 537-49. Seyfried, M. (2011b) Unabhängigkeit und Wirksamkeit von Landesrechnungshöfen. Eine empirisch-vergleichende Bestandsaufnahme,Wiesbaden:VSVerlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Siefken, S.T. (2007) Expertenkommissionen im politischen Prozess. Eine Bilanz zur rotgrünen Bundesregierung 1998–2005, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Siefken, S. (2012) ‘What MPs say and do. German members of parliament in their constituencies: Concepts and practice of representation’, Paper presented at the International Political Science Association XXII World Congress of Political Science, Madrid, 8-12 July. Steffani, W. (1979a) ‘Strukturtypen präsidentieller und parlamentarischer Regierungssysteme’, in W. Steffani (ed) Parlamentarische und präsidentielle Demokratie. Strukturelle Aspekte westlicher Demokratien, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 37-60. Steffani, W. (1979b) ‘Das präsidentielle System der USA und die parlamentarischen Systeme Großbritanniens und Deutschlands im Vergleich’, in W. Steffani (ed) Parlamentarische und präsidentielle Demokratie: Strukturelle Aspekte westlicher Demokratien, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 61-104. Steiger, H. (1989) ‘Kreationsaufgaben und Wahlverfahren’, in H. Schneider and W. Zeh (eds) Parlamentsrecht und Parlamentspraxis, Berlin:Walter de Gruyter, pp 773-93. 179

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Süddeutsche Zeitung (2007) ‘Milliarden verschwendet’, 22 November, p 7. TAB (2012a) Alle Untersuchungen, Berlin: Büro für Technikfolgen-Abschätzung beim Deutschen Bundestag (available online at: www.tab-beim-bundestag.de/de/ untersuchungen/alle-untersuchungen.html). TAB (2012b) Schwerpunkte der vom TAB bearbeiteten Themen (1991–2009), Berlin: Büro für Technikfolgen-Abschätzung beim Deutschen Bundestag. (available online at: www.tab-beim-bundestag.de/de/ueber-uns/themenfindung.html). Veit, S. (2010) Bessere Gesetze durch Folgenabschätzung?: Deutschland und Schweden im Vergleich, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Veit, S. and Jantz, B. (2013) ‘Sunset legislation: theoretical reflections and international experiences’ in Alemanno, A., den Butter, F., Nijsen, A. and Torriti, J. (eds) Better business regulation in a risk society, New York: Springer, pp 267-82. Weßels, B. (1987) ‘Kommunikationspotentiale zwischen Bundestag und Gesellschaft. Öffentliche Anhörungen, informelle Kontakte und innere Lobby in wirtschaftsund sozialpolitischen Parlamentsausschüssen’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, vol 18, no 2, pp 285-311. Wilson, W. (1892) Congressional government: A study in American politics, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

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From hand to mouth: parties and policy-making in Germany Timo Grunden

Policy-making as a challenge for political parties The policies of German parties – whether their programmes or their actual governmental action – are not the result of policy analysis, at least not if our understanding of policy analysis is a strategic process, equally taking place for and within parties, that is to say, a systematically developed policy concept based both on the analysis of societal problems and their causes, and the analysis of fundamental attitudes and expectations of important electoral groups. To perform such policy analysis, German parties would need think tank capacities, which they do not have or only rudimentarily have at their disposal. Parties are rarely policy producers who are able to assert intellectual property on their programmes or their legislative projects. Normally they act as service providers by politically collecting, negotiating and marketing policy concepts. This process takes place, however, neither systematically nor strategically, but in an erratic and increasingly contingent way – erratic for the reason that party policies are supplied by different, as well as divergent, sources, leading to contradictory goals. Furthermore, not every policy that publicly goes under the name of ‘party policy’ is actually a result of party intern processes of policy forming. That being the case, policies are always the object of conflict, transformed to consent in informal negotiations, beyond official committees of decision-making.The process of negotiation does not often end here.The policies simply leave the party intern arena and again become objects of negotiation between coalitions or between the national level and the Länder, following their own informal rules. Policy-making in parties is increasingly contingent for the reason that the periods of time in which parties have to take a stand on topics and occurring events, are getting shorter, while at the same time parties are less frequently using their traditional lines, socalled ‘party ideologies’, for orientation.The logic of media democracy entices governing elites to put back, or even give up, programmatic positions in favour of gains in the party competition. However, since even the observation of the electorate consists only of superficial public opinion research, and the deep structure of the German electorate is not analysed, such manoeuvres are rarely of strategic, or rather long-term, value. To avoid any misunderstanding, German parties are neither ‘catch-all parties’ (Kirchheimer, 1966), which are totally free of ideology, nor are they replaceable ‘electoral parties’ (Pannebianco, 1988). Furthermore, they are not, per se, incapable of acting strategically. But like all democratic parties, they create organisations whose constitutive structure inevitably prevents a strategic development of policies; they are ‘organised anarchies’, for which a minimum of contingency and improvisation 181

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in the process of developing policies is unavoidable, if not necessary. And still, the dosage of both ingredients today is higher compared to one or two decades ago. Programmatically the German parties do not live from sustainably worked fields and warehouses, but from hand to mouth. In the following we examine the characteristics of German party policies and the prevailing conditions of their origin. First we differentiate the functions and importance German parties attach, or have to attach, to policies as ‘organised anarchies’. Party policies not only serve different, in some parts, contradictory goals; they go through different arenas, each with its own logics of action, which we then systemise. We end the chapter with the question, under which conditions can German parties be capable of strategic action (including the strategic development of policies)?

Parties as organised anarchies In Germany, Article 21 of the German Basic Law bestows a constitutional rank on political parties:‘Political parties shall participate in the formation of the political will of the people.’1 This formulation sounds cautious, but the fact that it is mentioned gives parties and their political function particular importance in the political system. The representatives of parties in the German Bundestag (the national parliament) used Article 21 as an opportunity to promulgate a law on parties, instructing them to conduct the formation of political objectives ‘in all fields of public life’ (Political Party Act §1).2 Out of this all-embracing demand, further tasks and functions have been derived, which finally legitimate the more or less generous financing of parties, depending on the comparison (Nassmacher, 2009).3 Although the federal constitutional court relativised self-empowerment to the omnipresence of political parties and therewith restricted state financing, the highest German court confirmed the parties’ particular role in the process of democratic decision-making: It is the parties task to formulate political goals and to communicate them to the citizens. Moreover they shall be involved in recognising and naming problems, affecting the society such as individual citizens and finding adequate solutions. The feedback of state and people, being decisive for the political process of the formation of political objectives, is also the parties’ task. (Bundesverfassungsgericht 85, p 284)

Subsequently their core function is policy-making: they shall organise a process of combining the experiences, interests, norms and values of members and voters with the expertise of professional politicians (parliamentarians and members of government), such as their conversion to policies. Parties are meant to be instances of mediation between state and society, so-called ‘intermediary organisations’. Meanwhile, numerous critics refute the ability and willingness of parties to serve as a link between society and the state (Habermas, 1996, p 358). The critics on parties and their major arguments are as old as the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) itself (Grunden and Korte, 2011), and although sometimes justified, altogether they are excessive.4 However, the democratic function that is imposed on parties externally by the Constitution and constitutional jurisdiction is so demanding that disappointments are unavoidable. In addition, parties, as with all organisations, have their own interests 182

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that influence their policy-making. Altogether, it would not go far enough to reduce parties’ policies to one singular purpose, due to the fact that they have diverse interests. Now, the peculiarity of parties is their mentioned function as a link – as ‘intermediate organisations’ party organisations fray at their respective borders to the state and civil society. Richard Katz and Peter Mair (1993) describe these arenas of action as ‘three faces of party organisation’: first, the ‘party on the ground’ represents societal anchoring, while second, the ‘party in public office’ represents the holding in the state. Third, in between, the ‘party in central office’ symbolises the cohesion of an independent organisation. There might occasionally be formal or informal organised sub-groups. In short, democratic parties are fragmented, polyarchically organised and slightly conflicting (Jun, 2012, pp 12-16).These are certainly not the unique features of German parties, but they become strongly evident in the German context. The reasons for this also lie in the fact that the federal structure of the German political system is also reflected in the party organisation.We can find the ‘three faces of party organisation’ in 17 different variations in all parties represented in the German Bundestag. Next to – and below – the national level there exists an independent organisation of every party at the state level. The Landesverbände (federal associations) compete in state elections for governmental power, and most of them have their own congressional faction in the state parliaments. In between the Länder we can find considerable differences in view of economic structure, political culture and even in balance of power between parties. Accordingly, Landesverbände characterise themselves as advocates of regional interests and claim autonomy, both in strategic questions (for example, in the case of building regional coalitions) and for composing policies, which are not necessarily restricted to the regional level.The German conservatives are a special case of federal fragmentation. In the federal state of Bavaria we do not find a regional association of the Christian Democrats, but an independent party called the Christian Social Union (CSU). Claiming to be a ‘regional party with national preoccupation’, the CSU correspondingly competes in national elections. But they only compete in Bavaria and build a congressional faction with the Christian Democrats at federal level. Basically, the German conservatives have built a permanent coalition of two parties at national level, which requires special mechanisms of decision-making and regulation of conflicts (Kießling, 2004). By describing the federal structures of the party’s organisation, the fragmentation of German parties is not yet sufficiently characterised. Furthermore, they separate into a multitude of organised interest groups, such as Women’s,Youth, Industrial or Workers’ Associations, or else into ideological factions, which can be located on the left/right axis. These groups are organised, parallel to the three mentioned vertical levels of action of party organisations, at all federal levels (see Korte and Treibel, 2012). All mentioned regional sub-divisions, ideological factions and legislative and executive status groups are not only relatively independent, but also represent power bases with respective personnel interests and policy goals. Due to this distinctive high degree of decentralisation we can explain why German party researchers made a habit of using the model of ‘organised anarchies’ (Cohen et al, 1972), applying it as ‘loosely coupled anarchy’ (Wiesendahl, 1998, pp 219-49; 1999) to the organisational reality of parties. For the reason that they act differently in the context of state on the one hand, and society on the other hand, they consequently have to follow different, sometimes contradictory, goals.

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Different levels of action require different logics of action, and different goals require different consideration. Moreover, parties do not work as corporative actors, whose members can only be committed to a common goal by top-down decisions (Scharpf, 1997, pp 51-68). Hierarchical authority is a scarce good in every party (Grunden, 2013). Leaders of oppositional parties have to be even thriftier with it than their counterparts in the governing parties, which have, at least, several ways of disciplining and rewarding at their disposal: patronage, investment in infrastructure of regions and constituencies, support in regional election campaigns and so on. In general, representatives of parties in government and parliament (here we speak of the ‘party in public office’) give a minimum of stability to organised anarchies. They are in charge of higher technical expertise and of providing more information to other actors in their party. In the end, they are able to use their privileged access to media publicity in order to influence the formation of will in their parties by predetermination and by offering interpretation. The stabilising effect on party organisations leading from a ‘party in public office’ – strictly speaking, externally – however, is not always of the same intensity. At the end of the day governments and factions are no monoliths, but fragmented actors themselves, drawn by the same regional and ideological dividing lines as the whole party. Thus, to encounter the various centrifugal forces, permanently endangering the parties’ cohesion, there is a need for ‘soft’ governance mechanisms: negotiation and exchange deals, communication and symbolism, often the ‘non-intervention’ into ‘internal affairs’ of an organisational unit, hence, the simple endurance of conflicts and contradictions.

Party policy-making: arenas of action and conflicting objectives As with the political system, there is a ‘policy stream’ passing through parties, characterised by interests, demands, concepts and ideas, competing for recognition and realisation (Kingdon, 2003, pp 116-44). The policy stream has different sources: major influences have parliamentary factions, ‘allied’ interest groups and, in the case of a party in government, ministerial democracy. Internally, working groups (for example, groups of entrepreneurs or workers) formulate policy positions. Moreover, parties maintain small departments and divisions in order to give advice to the parties’ executives. However, they do not obtain personal and financial resources to produce reasonable policy analyses. Instead of giving advice, they manage the parties’ objectives. And parties receive scientific policy analyses primarily from two sources: foundations and commissions. • Foundations: to every party currently represented in parliament, there is an aligned political foundation. These ‘party-linked’ foundations support civic education and promote democratic organisations in developing states. For that reason they are financed by means of taxation. However, parties do not appreciate it if ‘their’ foundations carry out unsolicited policy analyses, suggesting a correction of present political objectives.The problem of politically linked foundations is their form of organisation; for one thing, they are formally independent organisations financed by the state, which are not allowed to interfere with party competition. For another thing, their executives are not at all independent, but appointed and recalled by

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the corresponding party.Their formal status prohibits political consulting, but the dependence of their executive hinders critical policy analyses. • Commissions: every now and then (and normally when in opposition) parties appoint advisory commissions for particular issues and policies. Academics and departmental politicians develop policy positions. By consulting academics, the parties’ executives hope not only to gain expertise; they also hope to gain media attention, that common party committees would not achieve. Academics are not, of course, chosen randomly, but are vetted beforehand as to whether they support general positions that are compatible with the party’s objectives. Scientific policy analyses are, as with the demands of interest groups or position papers of party committees, in the first instance, options (Rüb, 2009, p 355) that the party executives can make use of, or not. But what actually transforms policy options into party policies?5 How can we characterise the process of formation? We have already described the policy-making of German parties as erratic and contingent, considering an unsystematic process, the results of which are hard to foresee (externally). But, unsystematic does not mean irrational, and hard to foresee does not mean coincidentally. Party policies depend on objectives and conflicting objectives, of which some have priority in a certain moment. Moreover, they depend on the logics of action determining the arena they are negotiated in and finally, on the political actors’ availability of resources of action. Kaare Strøm (1990) assigns the diverse objectives of party organisations to three categories: policy-, vote- and office-seeking. With the background of the German political system and party system we reveal the importance of policy-making of each category in the respective arena of action. Nevertheless, we have to take into consideration that this concept of categories is based on a reduction of complexity, which can be appropriate in different contexts. It describes parties as homogeneous collective actors pursuing all three objectives with equal intensity. If we reflect on parties as anarchic organisations, those premises cannot be applied. We subsequently differentiate the objectives and function further.

Problem-solving: party policies and cleavages Political parties need societal problems – they define their right to exist. After all, German parties also developed from political-cultural or rather political-economic conflicts within society. Up until the 1960s they could derive their legitimacy from the socioeconomic interests of societal milieus (Mielke, 2001). Even nowadays these ‘cleavages’ basically mark the programmatic differences of the German party system (see Figure 13.1). For the current societal anchoring of parties, however, political-cultural moral concepts are at least as significant as concrete interests. In any case parties have to frequently renew their legitimacy (or rather, their ‘branding’).They use current events and topics discussed in society to integrate opinions into their party ideology. Parties define current societal changes to be problematic, if this can renew their legitimacy. If it does not fit or even jeopardises their legitimacy, on the other hand, they ignore or reject a problem. Of course, parties are not the only political actors to define problems. They often feel helpless in the face of the agenda-setting power of organised interests and the media. But even then, they need to obtain the precedence of interpretation of these problems. From conservative parties’ viewpoint, liberal political economy always 185

Policy analysis in Germany Figure 13.1: Parties and cleavages on the basis of electoral programmes for the national elections, 2009

Source: Adapted from Treibel (2010)

leads to social justice. In the case of green parties, environmental protection fights unemployment; and Social Democrats interpret social policies as a way of fighting criminality. And this is the case with German party competition. The standard model of the theory of party divergence subsequently assumes different moral and causal concepts not only to influence political programmes, but equally government and state activity (Schmidt, 1996). Usually, under equal conditions centre-left governments conduct a liberal social policy or rather orient towards the welfare state, while centre-right governments adjust towards market economy or rather traditionally oriented social policies. However, the last 13 years of government in Germany (2000–13) do not verify these theoretical assumptions: on the one hand, a Social Democratic government imposed tax reductions of historical volume, cut social benefits, introduced a partial privatisation of pensions insurance and introduced flexible labour markets. On the other hand, the governing Christian Democrats announced denuclearisation (a ‘left’ topic of identity) overnight, abolished compulsory military service, invested in state-run childcare, resisted tax reduction and are still willing to introduce minimum wages. Now we can use different theoretical approaches that can be integrated into the theory of party differentiation: veto players, contagious effects in competition between parties, policy learning, and so on. For the moment, there are three important factors in this context: first, all mentioned policies did not come out of strategic policy analysis, that is to say, a (communicative) connection between problem analysis, election analysis and the parties’ own moral concepts. Policies have been initiated within a short time, either because the pressure could get out of control (unemployment, national 186

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debt), or because opinion poll results indicate the need for action. Second, respective governments fell back on policy options that seemed to resemble the current ‘national mood’ or rather, the dominating interpretation of problems in the public discourse. Third, these policies could not be found in party programmes and therefore were not a result of the intra-party formation of political objectives. It was always about policies of a ‘party in government’, which had been presented to factions and parties only later. Taken on its own, this was not unusual. Problems arose because these governmental policies were not accessible to the demands and values of party members and voters. This political style did not benefit both big parties. Christian Democrats as well as Social Democrats suffered from severe losses in national and state elections (see Figure 13.2).And declining participation in elections weighed particularly heavy. Mobilising policy offers, which could be pointing the way, were missing. If parties break out of their traditional nexus of cleavages, interpretation of problems and policy-making, this will have consequences, and not only for the parties themselves. ‘God fulfils the wishes of those he wants to punish’ goes a Jewish saying, which is what the green and liberal parties are currently experiencing.The economic and social reforms under the Social Democrats withdrew the liberal agenda.The labour market and pensions insurance had been liberalised beyond the publicly acceptable level.There is consequently no more scope for tax reduction. Hence, liberals today are desperately seeking problems and topics they could be needed for. The Green Party, however awkwardly, has had to face how the Christian–Liberal coalition adopted their core topic of ‘denuclearisation’. As all German parties back the decision of denuclearisation, the interpretation of problems in the context of energy politics has also changed. It is no longer an ecological question, but a problem of economic and social politics, if electricity rates continue to rise. Indeed, voters accredit the Green Party only minor competences for these policies.

Cohesion-seeking: creating identity As demonstrated earlier, parties are exposed to excessive centrifugal forces, threatening their cohesion and existence. What is keeping them together as organised anarchies is the pragmatic, in the best case, moral, legitimation (Suchman, 1995, pp 578-83): convincing members that their party is the best representative of their interests and political values, which can also include perceptions on functionality of economy and society. Thus, policies are an instrument of cohesion-seeking: they stabilise the political-cultural identity of a party by connecting morality with societal problems and therewith bring them up to date and finally justify them. Both German major Volksparteien (people’s or catch-all parties), the Christian and Social Democrats, can be characterised by a relatively heterogenic structure of members, which results in problems as well as advantages for policy-making. The problem is that, besides conflicting interests of different social and demographic status groups, the distinct interpretations of common values may require the need for a costly search for consent. The advantage of a heterogenic structure of members is, however, that members do not ascribe the same priority to all policies. In this way it is possible to use different policies as subjects of intra-party negotiation.The major parties have to work as ‘machines of consensus’. The Social Democratic Party identity is based on the concept of ‘social justice’, and intra-party conflicts normally emerge around different conceptions as to

187

Policy analysis in Germany Figure 13.2: Percentage of votes for the political parties at the national elections, 1949–2009 60

50

40

CDU/CSU SPD

30

FDP Grüne

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10

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2002

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1990

1987

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what a ‘modern’ economic and social policy is. Labour unions play an important role in this context. Although their influence has declined during the last few years, they are still meaningful, due to a share of 40 per cent unionised members. In the context of social and financial policies, labour unions are generally partners of a party’s left wing. However, particular labour unions deputise for their branches’ interests. After all, jobs as well as negotiation on wages depend on the economic performance of companies (Grunden, 2012). The Christian Democrats refer to three lines of tradition: conservatism, liberalism and Christian social ethics.6 Despite involving potential conflicts, several alternatives of package solutions and deals are possible. Moreover, party leadership becomes flexible by using various explanations and options of interpretation.According to requirements and demoscopic appropriateness, policies are conservative, liberal or social (Zolleis, 2008). Up until the 1990s the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) used a system of conflict regulation based on proportional representation and concordance. Rarely were majority decisions taken, possibly defeating either the economic or the labour wing. By granting both movements veto power in the process of negotiation, controversies could be mediated (Zohlnhöfer, 1999). Nowadays, the Christian Democrats’ labour wing is not strong enough to claim veto power. Even the power of the economic wing is limited in the parties’ elections tactics. By the time opinion polls and media appreciated this, Angela Merkel distinguished herself as the German ‘Maggie Thatcher’. Only since the economic-political zeitgeist has appeared again from the left, she has not missed a chance to take away winning issues from the Social Democrats.

Individual office-seeking: currency for acquisition and maintenance of power For an understanding of the intra-party structures of conflict, we need to know about the loose connection between party base and professional politicians, as well as federal and ideological fragmentation.The ‘party on the ground’ only sporadically 188

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and indirectly evolves influence on the choice and action of national elites. Their relationship is similar to that between football fans and professional football teams: ‘eleven friends’ are in a leading position and prevail over the opponents together. But, similar to a professional football team, leading positions and permanent places are limited. Rivalry is unavoidable. Because the claim on the chair, top candidature or ministerial posts cannot be explained by personal ambition, policies have to serve as a cover. Power struggles can be decided on two levels: first, it is important to mobilise ‘power bases’ and ‘troops’ within the party. In that case policies serve as currency for trading in support of factions or federal subdivisions. Second, it is necessary to generate demoscopicly measurable popularity in the media through policy positions. This second way is generally more promising. Media publicity has become a sphere of communication between party members and internal party groups, a sphere where formation of party will takes place. As a result, journalists and commentators have a similar influence on decision-taking processes, while it has become harder to distinguish the party base from the general public. This applies more so for the selection of candidates and leaders, who have to prove their success in media publicity. To evaluate their leaders, party members use the criteria established by media publicity; parties are governed less by committees than by public leadership. Media presence and feedback become important factors of power. Gerhard Schröder and Peer Steinbrück turned into chancellor candidates for the Social Democrats as they knew how to publicly distinguish themselves from the ‘mainstream’ of the party. They were able to compensate for the missing intra-party support with their popularity. Incumbent chairs – particularly of opposition parties – cannot counteract the strategies of their rivalries if they are not able to spark hopes of election victories.They have to hold fragmented parties together, and more often act as policy brokers rather than policy entrepreneurs. In the medium term sitting chairpeople are only as strong as the opinion polls of their parties. This is also valid for chancellors, who normally preside over their party at the same time. As long as their popularity seems to guarantee the maintenance of power, parties are able to stand deviations from the parties’ programme. Due to the constitutional power of chancellors, they are able to survive demoscopic crises without having to fear revolts. What parties do not endure, however, is the combination of state election defeats, the threat of losing national power and policies that contradict the parties’ identity.

Collective office-seeking: building and managing coalitions Due to German proportional representation, an outright majority in parliament is unlikely. Between 1957 and 1961, the Christian Democrats only once reached an outright majority at national level. One-party governments are no exception at state level. However, they are getting rare here, too, since there are up to six parties competing for seats in parliament.The necessity of building coalitions implies that the option of participating in government not only depends on election results, but on options of coalition-building. Consequently parties cannot isolate themselves on the coalition market, and their policies must be adaptable to other parties’ programmes. If the election results permit it, coalition-building takes place inside political camps: on the one hand, Social Democrats and the Green Party; on the other, Christian Democrats and Liberals. In Eastern Germany the Linke (Socialists/Post-Communists) is a potential partner of the Social Democrats. Nevertheless, parties remain opponents, 189

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competing for voters in overlapping camps.This weighs all the more if election results force alliances beyond camp borders (Kropp, 2010).They therefore need to use joint time in government for a promising starting position in the upcoming elections. This means in effect that governing partners attempt to uphold a distinctive profile. Ideally the coalition’s performance is denoted by a moderate competition between the parties: every once in a while controllable conflicts are carried out in public and can be finished just the same in a controlled manner. On that account there is a need for informal rules and committees of decision-making. Political top players and professional politicians negotiate the main issues of legislation in ‘coalition committees’ before taking compulsory decisions in the executive and legislative branch. Coalitions make their decisions according to the principle of consensus.The smaller partners obtain veto power, so that it is impossible for them to get overruled.To avoid blockades in decision-making, political top players must be accredited with a relatively open negotiation mandate by their party or faction. In particular they have to be entitled to arrange package and exchange deals: concessions within one policy field are repaid with concessions in another policy field (see, for example, Miller and Müller, 2010). Conclusively, decisions must be taken that are politically useful for all parties involved and that can be characterised as fair distribution of ‘gains’ and ‘losses’ in policy-making. Not only the stability of coalitions and the prospects of parties in elections, but also the authority of their leaders, depend thereon. As far as they are able to regularly show successes, they can be sure about support and a leading position. To sum up, party policies are an instrument of collective office-seeking in the coalition market of the German multiparty system.Within a coalition they pass through a process of negotiation that has its own logic of action. The bigger the level of conflict both between and inside coalition parties, the harder it is to achieve such compromises, and policies are reduced to symbols. As a result, the unspoken subject of discussion is no longer a technical question, but the measure of independence and assertiveness of involved parties or rather, top players.

Vote-seeking: competitive party system and pressure to enter negotiation Similar to all other Western democracies, German parties must assert themselves on ‘complex voter markets’ (Mair et al, 1999).Traditional voter groups are still necessary in order to be successful in elections, but not sufficient any more.The ability to build coalitions between voters coming from different societal milieus and classes is crucial in acquiring and maintaining power. After all, groups of voters do have divergent and sometimes contradictory demands and interests. A courageous ideological profile is contestable and scares voters off instead of mobilising them. For these reasons German competition between parties is similar to Western European forms: parties give priority to those programmatic objectives that promise a maximum of electoral support. In distinct policy fields, being more or less neglected by their own programmatic identity, parties take over their competitors’ popular policy options to reduce chances of exposition and to diminish domestic policy frontiers. Far-reaching adjustments, including a revision of former core beliefs, are to be expected only if the status quo signifies heavy burdens in the election campaign or if, for example, labour market or debt crises result in a dramatic decline of output legitimation, while traditional policy receipts no longer offer solutions (Hicks and Swank, 1992). 190

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Since the 2000s there have been a variety of mutual ‘contagion effects’ between German parties. Social Democrats started to advocate Liberal positions in financial and economic policies at the end of the 1990s in order to compensate and, in the end, to fight the labour market and budget crisis. Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats have tried to represent Liberal socioeconomic, but at the same time, Social-Democratic family policy. Still, Christian Democrats have avoided addressing the debate on abortion and left the question of gay marriage to the constitutional court – a typical German form of ‘blame avoidance’ (Weaver, 1986). Since the election for parliament (Bundestag) ended with losses even for the CDU in 2005, all radical positions of economic liberalism have vanished from their programme. The interconnection of national competition between parties and the federal necessities of negotiation are peculiar to Germany. Almost every major reform, for example, in the case of financial or social policies, needs an outright majority in the Bundesrat, which is an independent constitutional organ actually acting as a second parliamentary chamber. Members of the Bundesrat are the federal states executives. If the governing parties do not have the majority in this organ, the opposition is able to compel compromises or eventually block the government. In the majority of cases the Bundesrat does not act as an entity of blockade and works as a representation of federal state interests. If, however, there are policies on the agenda of greater importance for the national party competition, parties use their policy positions as ‘weapons’. The Social Democrats blocked the tax reform of the Christian Democratic and Liberal government under Helmut Kohl in the 1990s in order to blame them for being incapable of acting (‘reform deadlock’ was assigned word of the year in 1997). In 2003 and 2004 Angela Merkel chose another strategy: she forced Gerhard Schröder and the Social Democrats to intensify labour market reforms, knowing well that this would alienate the Social Democrats even more from their voters.

Perspectives: strategy-making for organised anarchies For parties, policies not only constitute solutions of societal problems or ‘products’ for the voters’ market. They are an identity-building treasure, a currency used in intra-party conflicts, used to manoeuvre coalitions and federal negotiations and finally, ‘weapons’ in the competition between parties. On the other hand, they can be hazardous material, used to attack, endanger cohesion and threaten careers. Party policy-making is therefore the object of various considerations, sometimes tempting short-term tactics.Tactics are important, but without a strategy, an idea of long-term goals and the way of getting there, they do not have any value (Raschke and Tils, 2007). Parties live off policies, but this life is, nowadays, too often a life from hand to mouth. Policy-making is too often a result of short-term calculations. However, what may ease a victory today could cause undesirable effects in the future and endanger the election victory. But how can parties realise a strategic development of policies? It would, of course, be worthless to try to overcome their organised anarchy. But it is possible to strengthen the elements of organisation compared to those of anarchy.The erratic and contingent elements in policy-making can be much reduced (see Machnig, 2010, pp 24-35). First of all the strategic autism of parties must be overcome. Parties neither reflect their successes nor their defeats. Processes of learning are not organised and knowledge is not transferred. Structures and conditions for strategic learning are not installed, 191

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and therefore there are no structures and conditions leading to success. In the context of political strategy every actor is an autodidact. Their political work is normally determined by day-to-day events and therewith by volatile moods.These are, moreover, often mixed up with basic demands and attitudes of the voters. Questions of strategy are therefore first of all questions of structure and organisation. Parties have to establish think tank capacities, enabling a systematic connection between policies and election analysis. Contrary to the US or the UK, there is no such expertise in Germany. Scientific surveys, even those being realised on behalf of parties or foundations, get into the general policy stream and drift around several policy papers, without being utilised for decision-making processes. Organised anarchies need a strategic centre that connects and coordinates the significant centres of power of a polyarchic organised party (Raschke and Tils, 2007, pp 168-75).This strategic centre sets issues and determines priorities. Most of all, the strategic centre must transit the logics of arenas of action, anticipate political processes and interconnect both. In the end, the strategic centre must organise leadership.There is no strategy without organisation and no organisation without hierarchy.The whole trick is to stabilise party leaders and their authority, even if (strategic) success is not evident in the short term. One option is legitimation by plebiscite, following the example set by the US and French primary elections. Finally, questions of strategy are always questions concerning morality. Parties must position themselves on the left/right axis of social conflicts. Norms and values also signify knowledge of orientation in the context of open conflicts without prepared policy concepts. If parties want to have the prerogative of interpretation of social problems, they must debate values, not instruments. Communication needs a context of norms, a frame for the purpose of societal orientation, to communicate policies. German parties, especially the Christian and Social Democrats, were often not courageous enough to debate and decide on the general direction. This problem is connected to insecurity in respect of the complex markets of voters and new social problems. We can conclude that halting voters do not vote for halting parties.

Conclusion The policy-making of German parties passes through different arenas of action, each with distinct and sometimes contradictory rationalities. Factual issues are always connected to questions of power. For that reason German parties use policy analysis merely as an instrument of policy development, although not an especially important one. Scientific analyses are used only sporadically and unsystematically.Whether they can somehow be found in the parties’ objectives later will depend substantially on one criterion: policy analyses must be usable politically. This means that they have to serve collective and individual interests and not get lost in the erratic processes of decision-making of an anarchic organisation. Still, this criterion is rarely fulfilled. On the one hand, policy analyses concentrate on the factual dimension of problems and neglect the dimension of power. On the other hand, parties too often make decisions based on short-term calculations.There are missing organisational structures that make strategic policy-making possible: the connection of policy analysis with electoral analysis and aspects of communication.

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Notes The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany is available online in English at www. gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/basic_law_for_the_federal_republic_of_germany.pdf

1

The Political Parties Act is available online in English at www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/ documents/legal/politicalparties.pdf 2

For detailed information on party financing in Germany compare German Bundestag (2010). 3

4

For an overview of the scientific discussion on the German Parteienstaat, see Stöss (2001).

By party policies we understand the following: programmes and law projects, developed out of intra-party discussion or competition, negotiated between parties, for the reason that governing parties are responsible for them. 5

Conservatism: patriotism, anti-socialism, a Christian understanding of family and society, ‘law and order’; liberalism: market economy, anti-étatism; Christian social ethics: ‘social security’, poor relief, social security as civil insurance of status. 6

References Cohen, M.D., March, J.G. and Olson, J.P. (1972) ‘A garbage can model of organizational choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol 17, no 1, pp 1-25. German Bundestag (2010) State funding of political parties in Germany, www.bundestag. de/htdocs_e/bundestag/function/party_funding/party_funding_05.pdf. Grunden, T. (2012) ‘Die SPD: Zyklen der Organisationsgeschichte und Strukturmerkmale innerparteilicher Entscheidungsprozesse’, in K.-R. Korte and J. Treibel (eds) Wie entscheiden Parteien? Prozesse innerparteilicher Willensbildung in Deutschland, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp 93-119. Grunden, T. (2013) ‘Politikmanagement. Der personelle Faktor des Regierens am Beispiel der persönlichen Berater deutscher Regierungschefs’, in K.-R. Korte and T. Grunden (eds) Handbuch Regierungsforschung,Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp 377-85. Grunden,T. and Korte, K.-R. (2011) ‘Gesellschaftsberatung in der Parteiendemokratie. Herausforderungen, Risiken und Potenziale’, in Bertelsmann Stiftung (ed) Wie Politik von Bürgern lernen kann. Potenziale politikbezogener Gesellschaftsberatung, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, pp 62-96. Habermas, J. (1996) Between facts and norms: Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hicks, A. and Swank, D.H. (1992) ‘Politics, institutions, and welfare spending in industrialized democracies 1960-1982’, American Political Science Review, vol 86, pp 658-74. Jun, U. (2010) ‘Politische Parteien als fragmentierte Organisationen im Wandel: Eine Einführung’, in U. Jun and B. Höhne (ed) Parteien als fragmentierte Organisationen. Erfolgsbedingungen und Veränderungsprozesse, Opladen and Farmington Hills, MI:Verlag Barbara Budrich, pp 11-34. Katz, R.S. and Mair, P. (1993) ‘The evolution of party organizations in Europe: The three faces of party organizations’, American Review of Politics, vol 14, pp 593-617. 193

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Kießling, A. (2004) Die CSU. Machterhalt und Machterneuerung, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Kingdon, J.W. (2003) Agendas, alternatives, and public policies (2nd edn), New York: Longman. Kirchheimer, O. (1966) ‘The transformation of Western European party systems’, in J. LaPalombara and M.Weiner (eds) Political parties and political development, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp 177-200. Korte, K.-R. and Treibel, J. (eds) (2012) Wie entscheiden Parteien? Prozesse innerparteilicher Willensbildung in Deutschland, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Kropp, S. (2010) ‘The ubiquity and strategic complexity of grand coalition in the German federal system’, in K. Dyson and T. Saalfeld (eds) ‘Grand coalition as systemic transformation? The German experience’, German Politics, vol 19, Special Issue, pp 286-311. Machnig, M. (2010) Vermessungen. Politik neu orientieren, Berlin:Vorwärts-Verlag. Mair, P., Müller,W.C. and Plasser, F. (eds) (1999) Parteien auf komplexen Wählermärkten. Reaktionsstrategien politischer Parteien in Westeuropa,Vienna: Signum Verlag. Mielke, G. (2001) ‘Gesellschaftliche Konflikte und ihre Repräsentation im deutschen Parteiensystem. Anmerkungen zum Cleavage-Modell von Lipset und Rokkan’, in U. Eith and G. Mielke (eds) Gesellschaftliche Konflikte und Parteiensysteme. Länder- und Regionalstudien, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 77-95. Miller, B. and Müller, W.C. (2010) ‘Managing grand coalitions: Germany 2005-09’, in K. Dyson and T. Saalfeld (eds) ‘Grand coalition as systemic transformation? The German experience’, German Politics, vol 19, Special Issue, pp 332-52. Nassmacher, K.-H. (2009) The funding of party competition: Political finance in 25 democracies, Baden-Baden: Nomos. Pannebianco,A. (1988) Political parties: Organization and power, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raschke, J. and Tils, R. (2007) Politische Strategie. Eine Grundlegung, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Rüb, F.W. (2009) ‘Multiple Streams Ansatz. Grundlagen, Probleme und Kritik’, in K. Schubert and N.C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0 (2nd edn), Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, pp 348-76. Scharpf, F.W. (1997) Games real actors play:Actor-centered institutionalism in policy research, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Schmidt, M.G. (1996) ‘When parties matter: A review of the possibilities and limits of partisan influence on public policy’, European Journal of Political Research, vol 30, pp 155-83. Stöss, R. (2001) ‘Parteienstaat oder Parteiendemokratie’, in O.W. Gabriel, O. Niedermayer and R. Stöss (eds) Parteiendemokratie in Deutschland, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, pp 13-36. Strøm, K. (1990) ‘A behavioral theory of competitive political parties’, American Journal of Political Science, vol 34, pp 565-98. Suchman, M.C. (1995) ‘Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches’, Academy of Management Review, vol 20, pp 571-610. Treibel, J. (2010) ‘Was stand zur Wahl 2009? Grundsatzprogramme, Wahlprogramme und der Koalitionsvertrag imVergleich’, in K.-R. Korte (ed) Die Bundestagswahl 2009. Analysen der Wahl-, Parteien-, Kommunikations- und Regierungsforschung, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp 89-116. 194

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Weaver, K. (1986) ‘The politics of blame avoidance’, Journal of Public Policy, vol 6, pp 371-98. Wiesendahl, E. (1998) Parteien in Perspektive. Theoretische Ansichten der Organisationswirklichkeit politischer Parteien, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Wiesendahl, E. (1999) ‘Changing party organisations in Germany: How to deal with uncertainty and organized anarchy?’, German Politics, vol 8, pp 108-25. Zohlnhöfer, R. (1999) ‘Institutions, the CDU, and policy change: Explaining German economic policy in the 1980s’, German Politics, vol 8, pp 141-60. Zolleis, U. (2008) Die CDU. Das politische Leitbild im Wandel der Zeit, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

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fourteen

Policy analysis by trade unions and business associations in Germany Wolfgang Schroeder and Samuel Greef

This chapter explores the policy-related activities of German trade unions and business associations. It looks at the different structural and organisational levels on which these actors themselves create policy analyses or commission studies and reviews. It also takes up the question as to how capable they are of generating the necessary knowledge to act as strategic actors.

Introduction Trade unions and employers’ and trade associations1 are fundamental components of the German model of industrial relations. Within the scope of free collective bargaining, the social partners decisively negotiate the material working conditions, and in their function as political actors, they try to influence governmental decisions. Their influence thereby reaches considerably beyond labour market policy, into the areas of educational, social and economic policy. Trade unions and business associations are strategic actors, with their own resources, which they can deploy depending on objectives, situations and challenges. They are also reliant on knowledge, data and arguments in order to legitimise their public action and to assert their objectives.They are involved in agenda-setting, policy formulation and implementation of policies. Due to established access to parties, ministries and to the governmental system, they are indirectly able to influence the labour market, employment, educational and sociopolitical processes. In the past, leading trade unionists were occasionally also involved in policy-making processes as ministers. Up until now, they were also mostly able to maintain their capacity of codetermination and influence in the case of changing government majorities, and sometimes even to expand it (see Esser, 2003). Furthermore, corporatist arrangements in the continental European welfare state model have granted even a partially direct influence on individual policy areas. Thus, the social partners have succeeded in contributing decisively to shaping the state’s labour market policy in tripartite constellations (Schroeder and Weßels, 2003, 2010, p 5; Schroeder and Keudel, 2008, p 61). It is therefore not surprising that the trade unions are appreciated for their important contribution to the welfare state and the democratic development of Germany (Schroeder and Weßels, 2003, p 12). In some cases, they have also succeeded in averting (legislative) reforms as a veto power. So, with this in mind, the trade unions, employers’ and trade associations can be identified at least as an implicit, partially also as an explicit, part of the political system. They take a constitutive role in Rhenish capitalism2 (see Speth, 2010a, pp 260, 275). Although their sphere of influence has been considerably diminished, it has not completely disappeared. The frame, action and influence conditions to which the social partners are subject have strongly changed since the 197

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1980s. And last but not least, corporatist arrangements have become less important. Normalised continuous contact with government decision-makers has become lost within the dwindling corporatist structures (Speth, 2010a, p 261). For this reason, other influencing instruments, such as lobbying, have become more important.At the same time, the actors have to re-balance their orientation in the tense relationship between the ‘logic of influence’ and the ‘logic of membership’. Here, too, trade unions such as employers’ associations are facing various challenges. Economic, social and societal structural changes have considerably weakened both sides in their organisational and conflict capacity. At the same time, their political influence potential, as well as their capacity to act and their assertiveness, has decreased. As strategic actors, the social partners are reliant on responding to these environmental changes. In order to persist, they must find appropriate responses to the different challenges. In the course of this, it is not only material and human resources that condition their strategy capability. Strategic approach and the right strategy choice also depend on the ability to generate the necessary knowledge for a reasoned decision. Only by systematised insights, data and arguments can the instruments for the assertion of interests be constantly adapted to changing framework conditions, own interests legitimised, claims supported and interpretations proved. The necessity and dependence of the actors on policy analyses thus also result from incorporation into the political system. One of the social partners’ key problems arising from this corporatist involvement is their ambivalent orientation in the area of tension between the ‘logic of membership’ and the ‘logic of influence’. Systematic tensions between their role as membership organisation and their capability for action and integration at the corporatist level leads to a continuous need for information in order to be able to align their orientation between the two poles. This chapter examines the activities, resources and structures of the German trade unions and business associations in order to generate the necessary knowledge for their strategy capability by means of policy research. Following a look at the current state of research, the development of the social partners’ influence on the political system is analysed. The next section outlines the basic structural levels and actors by which the trade unions and employers’ associations carry out policy analyses. The conclusion seizes the importance of the transfer of knowledge and findings between academic and application-orientated policy analysis for the actors in industrial relations.

State of research Research and studies in the field of industrial relations have a long tradition in the various scientific disciplines in Germany. However, scientific research at the actors’ level has, for a long time, been predominantly limited to the trade unions. An indication of this is the fact that between 1946 and 2012 altogether 813 dissertations that focused on trade unions were published in Germany, whereas only 92 dissertations about employers’ associations were written in the same period (Schroeder and Keudel, 2008, pp 10ff).3 It is also evident that, since the end of the Second World War, the interest in this policy field and its actors has been pronounced to varying degrees.There have been divergent economic phases in the scientific processing of industrial relations. More than half of all the dissertations on trade unions were written between 1972 and 1992, and twice as many as during the 20 years before or thereafter. 198

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Various economic phases are also apparent in the case of thematic research foci within industrial relations. Until well into the 1980s central monographs were issued that comprehensively dealt with the role and function of trade unions and their embeddedness in Germany’s political system. By contrast, the focus during the last few decades has predominantly been on studies on individual sub-areas, crises and change processes in industrial relations (for example, on the membership crisis or the decentralisation of the pay scale system). There have been two remarkable developments regarding research in the last few years. On the one hand, further actors are increasingly being included in the canon of investigation. In addition to the DGB (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, Confederation of German Trade Unions), for instance, the employers’ and trade associations (see, for instance, Helfen, 2006; Schroeder and Weßels, 2010; Behrens, 2011), as well as the newly appeared small occupational trade unions (see, for example, Keller, 2008; Dribbusch, 2010; Schroeder et al, 2011; Greef, 2012), increasingly became the focus of interest. On the other hand, policy research based on empirical data is increasingly being carried out (Schroeder and Keudel, 2008, p 11). Papers on the role of trade unions and employers’ associations as political actors exist mainly with regard to individual policy areas. For example, Paster (2010) took a look at employers’ work and Schulze (2012) at the work of trade unions in social policy. Töller and Böcher (2010) took into consideration environmental policy and influence by trade associations. Nevertheless, a distinct research bias regarding the three functions of trade unions has become obvious (Neumann, 1978). While solidarity and labour market functions have attracted widespread scientific research interest, investigation deficits concerning their function as political association has become obvious. This is exacerbated by the fact that studies that concentrate on structures and resources of the actors with an inside perspective and that establish a relation to capability for action and strategies are rare (Schroeder and Keudel, 2008, p 89). Nevertheless, the subject of lobbying/political communication of employers’ and trade associations has occasionally been covered (Ulrich, 2006; Schmedes, 2008; Speth, 2010b). On the employers’ side, the Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM, New Social Market Economy Initiative; see Chapter 16, this volume) has received some scientific attention (Nuernbergk, 2006; Speth and Leif, 2006; Höfer, 2010). However, there are no specific studies on the activities of trade unions and business associations within the area of their own policy analyses and the resources used thereby. As in other areas as well, the social partners’ policy research is characterised by the dualism of fundamental research (especially at universities and independent research institutes) and applied (controlled or internal association, respectively) research. Consequently, the problem arising for the state of research is that a large part of the studies that are realised by the actors themselves are intended for internal use only, and are therefore not available. Single investigations which – at least marginally – deal with the subject from the employers’ side are available for the subject areas of trade union transfer of knowledge (Kluge, 1996), the action of trade unions in the knowledge society (Roßmanith, 2003) and the work of the Cooperation Centres University–Trade Unions (Kooperationsstellen Hochschule-Gewerkschaften) (Färber et al, 2003). We conducted a study on the policy-related communication of trade unions and employers’ associations available, covering the period of the grand coalition from 2005–09 (Schroeder, 2010).4 The analysis shows significant differences regarding addressees5 and content (see Table 14.1). 199

Policy analysis in Germany Table 14.1: Press releases and referred policy areas (%) IG Metall

DGB

BDA

Gesamtmetall

Total

Labour market/training Collective bargaining policy Tax, financial and economic policy Education Pensions Health Minimum wages Family Other

23.1 (61) 44.0 (116) 8.0 (21) 1.5 (4) 6.0 (16) 3.0 (8) 2.3 (6) 1.5 (4) 10.6 (28)

31.7 (226) 7.4 (53) 22.2 (158) 4.5 (32) 5.6 (40) 5.6 (40) 6.3 (45) 2.0 (14) 14.7 (105)

32.5 (114) 10.3 (36) 11.7 (41) 17.4 (61) 4.3 (15) 6.8 (24) 4.8 (17) 3.1 (11) 9.1 (32)

28.5 (20) 50.0 (35) 4.3 (3) 12.9 (9) 2.9 (2) – 1.4 (1) – –

30.1 (421) 17.2 (240) 16.0 (223) 7.6 (106) 5.2 (73) 5.2 (72) 4.9 (69) 2.1 (29) 11.7 (165)

Total

100 (264) 100 (713)

100 (351)

100 (70)

100 (1,398)

Note: Absolute figures in brackets.

The umbrella associations act more strongly as political actors in the case of overlapping issues (labour market, tax, financial and economic policy), and thereby address themselves mainly to the federal government. By contrast, their member associations deal with their direct negotiation partner more often and thus, as regards content, concentrate on the issues relevant to their members and within their own competence (in particular, collective bargaining policy).

Changing role of trade unions and employers’ associations within the policy process There are various reasons why trade unions and employers’ associations have lost influence in the political system.6 As background to their assertion crisis, the membership and embeddedness crises are briefly described as follows.

Membership crisis Since the 1980s the DGB sectoral trade unions have been struggling with a continuous decline in membership. Since German reunification, their membership has almost halved, from 12 million to 6 million in 2013. This development has taken place in the presence of a changing labour market to which the trade unions’ membership strategy has not or has insufficiently been adjusted so far. Employment in the productive industrial sector has declined strongly, whereas new forms of work beyond the normal employment contract have increased within the services sector. With this development, labour market and trade union membership structure have decoupled themselves. Women, young people, ‘precarious’ employees, temporary workers and employees are under-represented (cf Biebeler and Lesch, 2007, p 134). The membership crisis has weakened not only trade union assertiveness in labour disputes, bit its representativeness has decreased and with the decreasing number of members, the membership fees have run out and thereby the funds to finance services. The employers’ associations are also struggling with a decreasing membership retention and heterogeneous interests (Behrens and Helfen, 2009, p 6). In altered 200

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industry structures and competitive conditions, traditional differences of interest between small and large companies, suppliers and end producers are exacerbated. Considering these in the aggregation and articulation of interests becomes increasingly difficult for business associations (Schroeder, 2007, p 202). This applies in particular to the acceptance of the industry-wide multi-employer agreement.While individual medium-sized and larger employers have left employers’ associations (‘association flight’), many new, small companies, particularly in Eastern Germany, have stayed away from them a priori (‘association avoidance’) (Schroeder, 2007, pp 210ff; Schroeder and Silvia, 2003). The employers’ associations responded to this by flexibilising the form of membership. So, they introduced OT memberships (ohne Tarifbindung, without collective bargaining coverage) or OT associations. Both allow companies to become a member without falling within the scope of an association collective agreement.With this strategy, the employers’ associations were able to stop the decline in membership, but at the same time, gave up their core task of a collective bargaining policy (Schroeder, 2007, pp 213ff; Haipeter, 2010, p 217). Instead, selective offers such as consulting and services have become more important. Hence, not only the distinction between employers’ and trade associations has broken up, but employers’ associations have also exposed themselves to new competition, for example, with private consultancies. There has also been a decline in membership in trade associations, although this is lower than in the case of employers’ associations. The coordination and formulation of macro-economic interests has become more difficult, particularly due to growing competition.A comprehensive pluralisation and specialisation of the representation of interests can be found particularly in new industries such as the telecommunications sector. But also in the pharmaceutical industry, the number of trade associations has increased, from one to seven (Lang and Schneider, 2007, p 223ff; Bührer, 2010, p 59). However, increasing competition does not just occur between collective organisations; it is reflected above all in the fact that large companies transfer the representation of their interests to public relations (PR) agencies, law firms and advertising agencies, or they even act as lobbyists themselves (Speth, 2010a, pp 268ff, p 275). On the other side of this specialisation in the representation of interests stands the effort for unified representation at top level by the BDI (Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie, Federation of German Industries).

Embeddedness crisis Apart from the membership crisis, the trade unions have been affected by the political embeddedness crisis, along with a narrowing of their institutionally set channels of influence. This crisis concerns the entire range of trade union inclusions and access to the political system.With the end of the privileged partnership between the DGB trade unions and the SPD (Social Democratic Party), personnel connections between the organisations have become weaker (Schroeder, 2008; Schroeder and Weßels, 2003, p 15). An indication of this is the decline in the number of unionised representatives; Hassel, 2006). In the 17th German Bundestag, elected in 2009, only 26.5 per cent of the representatives were unionised (DGB) compared with 48.6 per cent in the 1970s (Schindler, 1999; Deutscher Bundestag, 2010). The trade unions must now focus on changing, topic-related and negotiation-necessitating coalitions with the SPD, the 201

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Left Party, the Green Party and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). In the 17th German Bundestag only 5.3 per cent of the representatives had a full-time or voluntary function within the DGB trade unions.7 Full-time and voluntary representatives from business organisations have achieved an even weaker representation in the Bundestag, with only 2.4 per cent8 (Rudzio, 2011, p 85). In return, there has been a higher frequency of contacts between business associations and representatives. In 2003, 39 per cent of the representatives stated having had at least once a month contact with the DGB or its trade unions.Twentytwo per cent had at least once a month contact with the BDA (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände, Confederation of German Employers’ Associations) and 27 per cent with the BDI (business associations) (Weßels, 2003, p 27). These data are confirmed by a study from 2010, in which, for example, 46 per cent of the representatives mentioned monthly contacts with business associations and 19 per cent even weekly contacts (Best et al, 2011, p 21). In a longer-term time perspective, however, despite these high numbers, a weakening interconnection between parties and trade associations is apparent (Speth, 2010a, p 273). The same applies to the institutional involvement of the trade unions and the employers’ associations with the political system. Participation in the Committee for Labour and Social Affairs, for example, is fluctuating but relatively stable. From 1972 to 2002 the proportion of unionised committee members reached around 54 per cent (SPD: 95-80 per cent, CDU/CSU [Christian Social Union]: 40-30 per cent). The proportion of members in employers’ or trade associations fell slightly, from 20 to 15 per cent (CDU) (Trampusch, 2004, pp 24, 26). By contrast, tripartite arrangements as a characteristic of the corporatist ‘model Germany’ turned out, in the end, to be no longer functioning. Even the initially successful involvement of the social partners into a corporatist income policy by ‘concerted action’ (from 1966 to 1977) finally collapsed under its conflicts of interest9 (Kaiser, 2006, pp 198ff, 234ff). The last two attempts initiated by the trade unions to install tripartite alliances both failed, under a Christian-Democratic government (Alliance for Jobs and Prevention of Plant Closures, 1995, under Chancellor Kohl) and immediately afterwards under a Social-Democratic government (Alliance for Jobs, Training and Competitiveness, 1998, under Chancellor Schröder) (Streeck and Hassel, 2003, pp 108, 122; Kaiser, 2006, pp 385ff, 400ff). Last but not least, the failure has to be attributed to arising organisational difficulties because of the concerted action of trade unions and their weakened obligation ability as well as that of employers (Kaiser, 2006, p 446). The basic consensus that: … all alliance participants have advantages due to the coordinated behaviour and a policy built upon it[…]. However, […] those began to wane, as it was no longer possible to oblige the participants to meet the jointly concluded agreements themselves. (Wolf, 2000, p 675; authors’ translation)

With the failing of the tripartite arrangements, part of the corporatist, privileged access of the social partners to economic and labour market policy has dwindled (exceptions are, for instance, the still present involvement in social insurance; see Trampusch, 2000; Döring and Koch, 2003). Therefore, in many cases, they are only able to use the same channels of influence as other associations. In this process they must extend their lobbying activities (Schroeder and Keudel, 2008, p 61). Despite 202

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various structural problems, the social partners still play an important role in many areas, especially in labour market policy. It is mainly historically grown structures of institutional involvement which, contrary to the decline of power resources, still open up the potential for assertion in the sense of a path dependency for both actors. However, the longer-term changes refer to a shift of this power arrangement in favour of the state.

Structure of policy-related activities Business associations and trade unions need to legitimise their demands if they are to have a chance of asserting them in the political process. They are therefore permanently searching for argumentative resources in order to substantiate their own interests by data or expertise. As a central resource of legitimacy, the trade unions refer to the common good orientation of their action. In particular, they do not consider themselves as being a self-serving, partial interest representation of employees. Rather they: … claim a conceptually creative role in society and they know that, for this purpose, their ideas have to be well-founded and of a practical quality. To this end, they have to draw on science and research. (Kluge, 1996, p 38; authors’ translation)

In the contested public space, business associations do not explicitly refer to a common good orientation; rather, they emphasise their macro-economic responsibility. However, in order to achieve their social and primarily economic objectives, they also argue on the basis of scientific studies. The supply of argumentation aids that the social partners use originates from various sources. Three main dimensions are described in the following: academic fundamental research; targeted research carried out by the actors themselves; and controlled research carried out via project funding and consultancy contracts.

Fundamental research At many German universities research is conducted on industrial relations, their actors and their strategies. These research activities are supported not only by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), but also by trade unions and business associations.This includes in particular third party funding from the actors described below. In addition, relations between the social partners and universities may also affect the research orientation. These include, for instance, endowed professorships on the employers’ side, or cooperation centres on the side of the trade unions.Thus, due to the Cooperation Centres University–Trade Unions (Kooperationsstellen Hochschule-Gewerkschaften) from the Hans Böckler Foundation, about 20 regional placement agencies have been created since the 1980s, which fulfil hinge and bridging functions and are associated with the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Kooperationsstellen (BAG, Federal Association of Cooperation Centres) (nd).They have been set up to ensure that scientific issues and third party-funded research do not focus solely on economic interests but equally consider the interests of the employees. In addition, they are also supposed to establish a relationship with the target group 203

Policy analysis in Germany

of academics in order to link together scientific research and expertise with trade union problems (Roßmanith, 2003, pp 256ff). In doing so, the focus is on interlinked research and cooperative knowledge management – research in dialogue – instead of transfer of academic knowledge (Fricke, 2003, p 32). On the other hand, there are differing life worlds (university/science and trade unions/working world), different languages and cultures as well as different objectives between trade unionists and scientists (Roßmanith, 2003, p 260).This makes it difficult to cooperatively formulate research questions, to carry out projects and to transfer scientific results into practice. In addition to the university research, mention must also be made of independent research institutes that collect and analyse labour market and economic data, which are useful for the trade unions and business associations. An important, quantitative study carried out at regular intervals is the establishment panel of the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB, Institute for Labour Market and Vocational Research), a research institution of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit (Federal Employment Agency).The Institute’s mission lies in the impact analysis of labour market and social legislation instruments and services. Other institutes that provide studies and analyses are, for example, the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB, Research Centre Berlin), the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW, German Institute for Economic Research) and also the Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung (MPIfG, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies) (see also Chapters 16 and 17, this volume). This also shows that at universities and independent research institutes, the policyadvising function plays only a minor role (Janning and Toens, 2008, p 12; Blum and Schubert, 2011, p 27). A consultancy orientation dominates, on the other hand, in research controlled by the social partners.10

Targeted research With regard to the contractor and practical relevance in the area of targeted research, three categories must be distinguished. First, the associations – in particular the umbrella associations, but also large member associations – can carry out their own analyses with their own full-time staff, although there is a focus on contract research. Second, the conducting of analyses is awarded to association-related institutions or to third parties by association-related foundations. Finally, consulting assignments and departmental research forms the third area.The following shows which actors on the sides of the trade unions and employers’ associations provide policy-related analyses in these three areas, and outlines their level of resources and contents.

Own analyses by the associations The dominant organisations on the employers’ side are the DGB and the eight industrial trade unions affiliated to it. The DGB has not taken a leading role in collective bargaining policy or in its political function as an umbrella association. However, as a central association at federal and state level it does have significance (Hassel, 2003) – its task lies in political representation. The DGB is both part of the legislative process and a policy-maker (Schulze, 2010, p 109). For instance, it has more than 13 specialist departments that become active in various policy areas with expertise, policy papers but also with expert opinions and position papers on draft laws 204

Policy analysis by trade unions and business associations

(DGB, nd). However, as an umbrella association, the DGB is becoming increasingly dependent on the preferences of the large individual trade unions, ver.di and IG Metall. In addition, the financial curtailing of the DGB, especially after reunification, has led to its withdrawal from the area.11 The question thus arises as to which role the DGB will still play in the future as a political actor in relation to individual trade unions. Within their policy departments, individual trade unions have their own strategy centres whose political interest representation is also supported or complemented by individual staff or specialist departments (for example, the collective bargaining department).12 The different size of the individual trade unions is also mirrored in the resources available at this level. An important task for which these internal capacities are used is to evaluate existing scientific results. These evaluations serve as argumentation material for trade union policy (Kluge, 1996, p 78). Full-time union officials dealing with policy analyses can be assigned to three different groups. Company practitioners with many years of trade union socialisation represent the first group.13 As autodidacts with a wide range of operational experience, they have a keen sense for implementation issues. With their process, conflict and interface competence, they take on the function of ‘social engineering’. In the second group are academically educated generalists (political and social scientists and sociologists). They contribute cultural, analytical competences and are also often responsible for the policy of ideas. Lawyers and economists represent the third group.With their legal and economic expertise, they play an important role not only in terms of political consulting but also, with their legal advice, they create a selective benefit incentive for membership (Schroeder and Silvia, 2003, p 259). The organisations on the employers’ side are characterised by a functional division of tasks. In addition to the chambers of trade, industry and commerce,14 a dual structure of employers’ and trade associations has emerged.15 The employers’ associations represent the pay scale and sociopolitical interests of their members.The associations organised according to expertise and locality primarily act as collective bargaining actors and, in this function, conclude collective agreements with the trade unions. On the other hand, they make hardly any comments on social policy issues (Paster, 2010, p 343). More than 750 associations are affiliated to the BDA (Silvia, 2010, p 171). This central association appears mainly as a labour market and sociopolitical actor in order to represent the unified position of the employers’ side. The BDA represents entrepreneurial social and societal policy towards the political system, trade unions and the public (Schroeder, 2007, p 204). Although it coordinates the wage policy, it is not a collective bargaining partner. A similar structure can be found in trade associations. The industry-specific associations operate as an economic interest representation, but they also define legal and technical standards. More than 500 trade associations are affiliated to the BDI (Schroeder, 2007, p 172). The central association is predominantly responsible for political lobbying. The BDI regards itself as a provider of practically relevant policy advice concerning economic issues (BDI, nd). For several decades and in contrast to the trade unions, it was almost only academics from the field of law who worked full-time in the business associations.16 Only since the 1990s have social and economic scientists also played a more important role besides those still dominating the expert elite (Schroeder and Silvia, 2003, p 259). BDA and BDI in particular, therefore, must be considered on the collective employers’ side for the area of policy research. Both associations comment on 205

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issues concerning social and collective bargaining policy, labour law, labour market, education, personnel and societal policy including European and international social policy (Schroeder and Silvia, 2003; BDA, nda). Accordingly, in the case of significant economic issues, a joint positioning of the central associations and coordination between them takes place as far as the subject is indisputable (Burgmer, 1999, pp 173f). While employers’ associations mention labour, social and educational policy as a matter of priority, trade associations refer to economic policy and general lobby work (Helfen, 2006, p 7). However, the actual allocation of powers, which assigns the subject areas of labour market, social and collective bargaining policy to the BDA and the areas of tax, environmental, energy and innovation policy to the BDI, is often breached (Behrens, 2010, p 154). The heterogeneity of interests mirrored here does not have to be negative. Heterogeneous associations are more likely to be heard and receive attention by political decision-makers than straight employers’ associations (Behrens and Helfen, 2009, p 20). Nevertheless, the membership development of business associations indicates that they are coming up against limits with their traditional methods of political influence. Large companies can, due to their higher level of resources, develop their own strategies and represent their interests directly by means of their own press and strategy departments (Speth, 2010b, pp 220ff, p 223). They make greater use of that or engage third parties, such as the media, advertising and public affairs agencies or law firms to represent their interests. Generating policy analyses by external service providers plays an important role at the collective actors’ level for trade unions as well as business associations.

Research on behalf of foundations and association-related institutions In the area of employee-orientated research, the Hans Böckler Foundation (HBS) is of key importance. In 2011, HBS had a total of 175 employees and an overall budget of €59.9 million.17 However, concerning expenditure (besides personnel and material expenses, which amounted to 31 per cent of the total expenditure), the larger share of 49.8 per cent was invested in the support of studies. Another 13 per cent was spent on codetermination funding which is intended to support the work of supervisory works and staff councils. Research funding was shared out between HBS third party funding, with a share of 18.3 per cent of the total expenditure and HBS’s own two institutes (WSI, Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut [Institute of Economic and Social Research] and IMK, Institut für Makroökonomie und Konjunkturforschung [Macroeconomic Policy Institute]) with around 19 per cent (HBS, 2012, pp 10f).The research funding of HBS is presently concentrated on six priority areas: structural change - innovation and employment; changing codetermination; changing gainful employment; future of the welfare state; education in and for the working world; history of trade unions (HBS, 2011, p 32). In 2011, 80 new research projects were authorised, so that the foundation is currently supporting around 170 projects (HBS, 2012, p 32). Many of these projects provide scientific support for trade union policies (Roßmanith, 2003, p 160). In the third party project funding, HBS cooperates with individual scientists, universities or research associations: This classifies trade unions as users of research results for their own benefit. This involves not only the use of existing results but also the deliberately 206

Policy analysis by trade unions and business associations formulated demand.[…] They also steer the process of knowledge creation and use. (Kluge, 1996, p 34; authors’ translation)

Thus, in addition to third party contract research, the foundation itself is also active in research. WSI is directly integrated into HBS as a research department. Although it is a trade union-owned institute, it traditionally emphasises scientific autonomy (Kluge, 1996, p 78). Its budget amounted to €6.3 million in 2011 (HBS, 2012, p 11). Its mission is to ‘scientifically analyse the social and economic situation of workers and their families in professional and life settings and to evaluate and develop political design proposals’ (WSI, nd). From the beginning, its work stood in a tense relationship between freedom of research and interests policy (Hensche, 2006, pp 14ff;Tenfelde, 2006, p 1).WSI was already established in Cologne in 1946 under the name Economics Institute (WWI, Wirtschafts-Wissenschaftliches Institut) as a trade union research and planning institute (Tenfelde, 2006). It was aimed at giving the economic and trade union work a sound scientific base and meeting political demand for consultancy on a scientific basis (Markmann and Spieker, 1986, p 8; Tenfelde, 2006, p 6). The three main areas in the empirical, static research of WSI deal with the development of remuneration structures (salary breakdown database) and collective bargaining policy (collective bargaining archive) as well as the regular works council representatives’ survey. In all three areas, it provides important empirical databases. In addition, the research activities include social and labour market policy.WSI’s work is characterised by the dualism of common good-orientated, statutorily determined freedom of research on the one hand, and interests-policy contract research on the other (Tenfelde, 2006, p 11). Furthermore, with its orientation on worker interests and trade union policies, WSI is part of the ‘pressure group’ DGB. It therefore also uses lobbying instruments (Markmann and Spieker, 1986, p 16). In the area of empirical research, for example, it stands out not least because of its methodological and professional reliability (Hensche, 2006, p 28). HBS’s second research department of, IMK, deals with economical and economic policy issues. It cooperates with WSI (see also Chapter 16, this volume) and originated from its macroeconomics department in 2005 (Schäfer and Seifert, 2006, p 9). Its budget amounted to €4.4 million in 2011 (HBS, 2012, p 11). With expert opinions, expertise and recommendations for action, it is active in economic policy consultation in various ways, at both federal and state level (IMK, nd). Policy analyses are provided in different ways. In 2010, for example, a WSI project dealt with social insurance. In addition to a critical reflection on the effects of recent reforms, it aimed to develop its own reform concepts and options. A similar project existed on the situation of provision for old age. Similarly, WSI and IMK were involved in a DGB reform commission on the health service reform agreed by the federal government in 2010. Its purpose was to create a ‘solidarity-based healthcare system of the future’ as an alternative draft on the planned reform (HBS, 2011, p 23f). Due to the current financial crisis, IMK is concerned with the analysis and investigation of the consequences of the crisis and, not least, with the development of stabilising measures. In this way, it is responding to a high demand on sound analyses and economic policy consulting (HBS, 2011, p 28). Besides HBS, individual trade unions also have foundations with their own research budget. Among them is, in particular, Otto-Brenner-Stiftung (OBS, Otto Brenner Foundation), established in 1972 by IG Metall. In 2010, €324,000 was invested in 35 207

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research projects, €351,000 in events and €65,000 in publications (OBS, 2011, p 88). It places a special emphasis on labour law, and this is reflected by the foundationowned Hugo Sinzheimer Institute for Labour Law (HSI), founded in 2010. However, OBS is not only concerned with industry-specific issues; it also wants to bring social and sociopolitical concepts into the discussion as well as provide answers to specific questions (OBS, nd), for example, with the study ‘A new model for the welfare state’ (Lessenich and Möhring-Hesse, 2004). In 2010, OBS funds were doubled by IG Metall’s management board resolution. In this way, the trade union reacted to activities within the employers’ community, in particular to the establishment of the Zentrum für Arbeitsbeziehungen und Arbeitsrecht (ZAAR, Centre for Labour Relations and Labour Law) at LMU Munich. ZAAR was established by the Foundation for Labour Relations and Labour Law (StAR, Stiftung für Arbeitsbeziehungen und Arbeitsrecht) under Volker Rieble. The endowment fund of €55 million came from the National Chemical Employers’ Association and the Baden-Württemberg metal industry (Kramer, 2011). Representatives of these employers’ and trade associations occupy the seats in the foundation board and the foundation board of trustees (ZAAR, 2009, p 7). Moreover, business associations use their own organisational structures to generate policy analyses. The Walter Raymond Foundation is directly affiliated with BDA. It was established in 1959 as a legally dependent institute and is subordinate to BDA’s management board. It works on social and economic issues in discussion meetings as well as on its own publications and acts as a mediator between politics, economy and science (BDA, ndb). In addition, on the employers’ side, the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW, Institute of the German Economy in Cologne), existing since 1973, has a clear position as a private economics institute (IW, nd). It is the successor institution of the German Institute of Industries (DI, Deutsches Industrie-Institut), established in 1951 by BDI and BDA, which was, until its renaming in 1973, in terms of content, predominantly orientated to the industrial sector (Simon, 1976, pp 139f). Today IW is active in both the field of research and in academic teaching. Its main supporters are BDA and BDI, but it is financed by individual member associations. Its budget amounted to DM 15 million in 1990 (about €7.5 million, excluding the publishing section). It is a research institute but also speaks out scientifically on behalf of the economy (Berger, 2004, p 135). It has more than 300 employees, among them 116 scientific researchers. It is divided into the two scientific priority areas, educational and labour market policy, as well as economic and social policy. In 2010/11, 107 publications were published in the first priority area and 57 expert opinions and project processed; in the second priority area, 102 publications and 32 expert opinions and projects (IW, 2011, pp 7, 10f). There are three research groups overall dealing with the topics of economic situation, market and state as well as microdata (IW, nd). It generates studies and expert opinions as well as short analyses and position papers. In addition to the themes of content is the study of opponents.Thus, current assessments and data on the development of the trade unions are published quarterly in Gewerkschaftsspiegel. Communicative campaigning is also used by individual employers’ associations. One such campaign worth mentioning is the INSM, a neoliberal think tank, founded in 2000 and financed by Gesamtmetall. In the case of INSM, external organisational structures instead of their own association structures were built up with the assistance of the advertising agency Scholz & Friends. INSM operates in a professional way 208

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in accordance with the demands of the media society. In addition to traditional PR activities, it launches studies, often supported by expertise from business consultancies or science. It provides ideas for the implementation of policy reforms, and tries to influence political decisions, primarily by addressing the populace (Nuernbergk, 2006, pp 159, 168). Its annual budget amounted to €7.01 million after tax in 2011; financing was secured in 2009 for another five-year term (Gesamtmetall, 2011). It pursues long-term objectives and only indirectly, political influence. Instead, it is more about promoting a change in values and recognition of the market economy, neoliberal positions in society as well as codetermining the political and social discourse. The issues having the greatest importance for economic development should be brought into the focus of the public debate (Höfer, 2010, p 400), and for this purpose, INSM appears as PR actor and communicator, but does not perform its own research (Speth and Leif, 2006, pp 303, 312ff; Speth, 2010b, pp 228ff). However, it relies on expertise and scientifically sound research to reach its objectives (Höfer, 2010, p 401). It therefore orders additional expert opinions or studies, and IW predominantly carries out this scientific consulting. However, orders for expert opinions are occasionally also assigned to other institutes. In order to strengthen its political agenda-setting potential, INSM moved to Berlin in 2010 (Gesamtmetall, 2011, 2012).

Contract research and expertise by third parties The third area is represented by policy analyses that are generated on behalf of the actors by third parties and thereby have a direct relation to the development of the organisations, their functions, objectives and instruments. This expertise, located in the area of consulting, finds its application in the fields of collective bargaining policy and working conditions, for example, by the works councils. As part of their codetermination rights, these have, for example, the possibility of commissioning alternative, socially acceptable concepts in case of restructuring on company costs. A further important area of research that is directly integrated into the policy process is departmental research, for which the federal government takes responsibility. As a form of contract research, the governmental client determines the consultancy demand and thereby the field and object of research (Barlösius, 2010, pp 379, 381). The departmental research meets the demand for scientific expertise on governmental action predominantly by the ministries (see Chapter 7, this volume). It primarily serves three purposes:‘Conducting of scientific research, policy consulting and information procurement as well as regulation and testing tasks’ (Barlösius, 2010, p 377). In most cases, the departmental research institutions are organised as independent public law institutions, but also, however, as federal authorities, associations, foundations or GmbH (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, limited liability company). For trade unions and employers’ associations, the institutes that deal predominantly with labour and vocational policy are particularly relevant. In the Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BiBB, Federal Institute for Vocational Education), the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB, Institute for Labour Market and Vocational Research) and the Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin (BAuA, Federal Institute for Occupational Safety), representatives of both social partners are directly integrated (Barlösius, 2010, pp 385, 387).Thus, both at federal and Länder levels, policy consulting is carried out in the form of corporatist structures.18 For the social partners, relevant 209

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research contracts are assigned in the departmental research to both on equal terms. Due to the direct policy relation, less fundamental research but much more practice- and problem-orientated political consulting takes place. It therefore has to be considered that the reason for performance and the use of the scientific work lie solely with the client (ministries). However, in terms of performance, the actors can refer to scientific freedom (Döhler, 2007, p 189).

Conclusion Despite their opposing position in the arena of negotiation, trade unions and business associations in Germany have large contact areas.The social and conflict partnership is based on a system of communicating pipes that connect both sides.The way in which this contra- and cross-reference (conflict partnership) of both actors is organised does not solely affect the fit of their policy-related behaviour. Owing to the structure of the ‘German model’ of industrial relations, this organisation also determines if and how economic growth and social integration constellations fit together. Nonetheless, the process-orientated behaviour and thereby the (political) demands of trade unions and business associations in particular in the policy areas differ from each other.These positions are often apparently even antagonistic, for instance, in the case of reform objectives in the codetermination policy. As a result, trade unions and business associations alike must act as strategic actors, in order to assert their interests in contested spheres of influence. For this, the social partners are reliant on knowledge resources.Therefore, the main question is, how are they capable of generating the necessary knowledge to act as strategic actors? The collective actors have professionalised structures organised according to the division of labour that they use in order to generate the strategy-relevant knowledge. As in other areas as well, they thereby refer to both external academic and internal applicationorientated research and consulting which requires a transfer of knowledge and findings between the different arenas. In this sense, the academic research is reliant on input from practitioners in order to filter out practice-relevant research desiderata. However, practitioners on the sides of the trade unions and business associations are reliant, to a much greater degree, on an external transfer of knowledge.Various change, transition and transformation processes affect the collective actors. In order to successfully cope with them and to maintain their strategy capability, comprehensive analyses are needed. Only in this way can options for action and possible perspectives be identified and evaluated. Strategic actors require knowledge for the strategy choice, as a resource of legitimacy, that is, in order to substantiate their own interests and interpretations by proof, data and arguments. The trade unions, as organisations of discourse, are therefore in demand – particularly due to their aspiration to be relevant actors in society as a whole. But the employers’ associations, which, in terms of addressing issues and attempts to influence, concentrate less on the public but rather on the decisionmakers, are also reliant on knowledge resources for this. In a comprehensive manner, the necessary breadth of knowledge and argumentation cannot be managed by the two actors alone.Therefore, the basis for a broad knowledge and strategy capability can only be an institutionalised transfer of knowledge that continually requires renewal.

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Notes 1

Employers’ and trade associations are subsumedunder the term ‘business associations’.

Some characteristics of the Rhenish capitalism are: coordinated social market economy, social partnership between employers and trade unions, and far-reaching labour laws. 2

Based on an evaluation of the dissertations listed, according to their year of publication, in the German National Library’s online catalogue (http://dispatch.opac.ddb.de) under the keywords ‘trade union(s)’,‘business association(s)’ and ‘BDA (Confederation of German Employers’ Associations)’. Double entries were removed. 3

Based on an evaluation of 1,570 press releases from the DGB and its member union IG Metall as well as of the Confederation of German Employers’ Association (BDA) and its member association Gesamtmetall.

4

Directly addressed were, for example, the federal government, the opposition (employers’ associations/trade unions), parties/representatives/parliament, European Union (EU) institutions, entrepreneurs/companies, state governments, Federal Employment Agency/ health insurance funds and the courts. 5

The crisis symptoms of the trade unions are termed as membership, embeddedness, assertion and opponent crisis.

6

These were predominantly representatives of the Left Party (21.1 per cent) and the SPD (10.3 per cent). 7

These were, overall, 5.4 per cent of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and 3.8 per cent of the CDU/CSU representatives. In addition, there were 1.3 per cent of all representatives who were in organisations representing medium-sized companies (1.7 per cent CDU/ CSU and 2.2 per cent FDP).

8

The trade unions terminated the cooperation as the employers’ associations brought an action against the new Codetermination Act at the Federal Constitutional Court in 1976 (Wolf, 2000, p 671). 9

However, it is restricted in the field of foundations. Issued contract research must be carried out under the aspect of non-profit status, and may therefore not give the impression of a direct advantage for the client. 10

Nevertheless, the DGB has again started with organisational reform decided in 2010 for the rebuilding of voluntary organised city and district associations (DGB, 2012; Köpke, 2012). 11

The concept of ‘Alliance for Jobs’ from 1990, for example, was developed in the policy department of IG Metall under chair Klaus Zwickel, presented to the public at the trade union conference in autumn 1995 and with this, was brought into the political process (Wolf, 2000, p 671). 12

211

Policy analysis in Germany They have achieved their position with ‘hard slog’,‘through a combination of professional experience in a particular industry and demonstrated voluntary commitment at company and local level’ (Prott, 2003, p 229). 13

The chambers are characterised by locally specific actor constellations with compulsory membership, which in particular determine the vocational education and training standards and are responsible for quality assurance (Schroeder and Weßels, 2010, p 13).

14

At state level, there are also mixed associations (integrated associations) that have the function of both employers’ associations and trade associations (Behrens, 2010, p 153). 15

This had an historical background. When joining the employers’ association, the ownership structures of employers are relativised by depriving them of specific powers (for instance, to negotiate and conclude collective agreements). The notaries (lawyers) who hold the rights conferred on them in trust, also had, not least, confidence-building characters. 16

HBS is endowed by supervisory board incentive compensations that the employee representatives contribute to the foundation, individual and institutional donations as well as public funds from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (appropriated for grants) (HBS, nd).The share of promotional contributions on the revenue amounted to 55.5 per cent in 2011; the share of federal government funds amounted to 34.9 per cent in 2012 (HBS, 2012, p 11). 17

In the same way, for example, representatives of towns and cities and of the central associations of voluntary welfare work are also corporately integrated into research institutes that are relevant for them (policy areas of youth welfare, social work) (Barlösius, 2010, p 387).

18

References BAG (Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Kooperationsstellen) (ed) (nd) Über uns (www. kooperationsstellen.de). Barlösius, E. (2010) ‘Ressortforschung’, in D. Simon, A. Knie and S. Hornbostel (eds) Handbuch Wissenschaftspolitik, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 377-89. BDA (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände) (ed) (nda) Aufgaben der BDA (www.arbeitgeber.de). BDA (ed) (ndb) Walter-Raymond-Stiftung – Diskussion gesellschaftlicher Fragen fördern (www.bda-online.de). BDI (Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie eV) (ed) (nd) Über uns (www.bdi.eu). Behrens, M. (2010) ‘Strukturen und Interessenvertretung in den Verbänden der Wirtschaft’, in W. Schroeder and B. Weßels (eds) Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland,Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 148-68. Behrens, M. (2011) Das Paradox der Arbeitgeberverbände. Von der Schwierigkeit, durchsetzungsstarke Unternehmensinteressen kollektiv zu vertreten, Berlin: Edition Sigma. Behrens, M. and Helfen, M. (2009) ‘Innerverbandliche Heterogenität und die Vertretungswirklichkeit deutscher Arbeitgeberverbände’, Industrielle Beziehungen, vol 16, no 1, pp 5-24. 212

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Hassel, A. (2006) ‘Die Erosion der gewerkschaftlichen Lobbymacht’, in T. Leif and R. Speth (eds) Die fünfte Gewalt. Lobbyismus in Deutschland,Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp 188-98. HBS (Hans Böckler Foundation) (ed) (2011) Jahresbericht 2010, Düsseldorf: HBS. HBS (ed) (2012) Jahresbericht 2011, Düsseldorf: HBS. HBS (ed) (nd) Die Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (www.boeckler.de). Helfen, M. (2006) Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland 2006 – Zur Leistungsfähigkeit der politischen Organisationen der privaten Wirtschaft, Aachen: Lehrstuhl für Internationales Management. Hensche D. (2006) ‘Wissenschaft, Politik, Ideologie’, in C. Schäfer and H. Seifert (eds) Kein bisschen leise: 60 Jahre WSI,Hamburg:Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, pp 13-32. Höfer, M.A. (2010) ‘Externalisierung von Reformkommunikation: die Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft’, in O. Hoffjann and R. Stahl (eds) Handbuch Verbandskommunikation, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 399-406. IMK (Institut für Makroökonomie und Konjunkturforschung) (ed) (nd) Das IMK (www.boeckler.de). IW (Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft) (eds) (2011) Geschäftsbericht 2010/11, Cologne: IW. IW (eds) (nd) Das Institut (www.iwkoeln.de). Janning, F. and Toens, K. (2008) ‘Einleitung’, in F. Janning and K.Toens (eds) Die Zukunft der Policy-Forschung.Theorien, Methoden,Anwendungen,Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 7-20. Kaiser, C. (2006) Korporatismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Eine politikfelderübergreifende Übersicht, Marburg: Metropolis-Verlag. Keller, B. (2008) ‘Berufsverbände, Tar ifautonomie und das System der Interessenvertretung’, Leviathan, vol 36, no 3, pp 364-90. Kluge, N. (1996) Konfigurationen gewerkschaftlichen Forschungstransfers, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Köpke, R. (2012) ‘DGB-Organisationsreform: Aktiv vor Ort’, Einblick, no 6. Kramer, B. (2011) ‘Abhängig beschäftigt’, taz.die Tageszeitung, 2 July. Lang, A. and Schneider, V. (2007) ‘Wirtschaftsverbände. Verbandspolitik im Spannungsfeld divergierender Interessen und hierarchischer Integration’, in T. von Winter and U.Willems (eds) Interessenverbände in Deutschland,Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 221-43. Lessenich S. and Möhring-Hesse M. (2004) Ein neues Leitbild für den Sozialstaat. Eine Expertise im Auftrag der Otto Brenner Stiftung und auf Initiative ihres wissenschaftlichen Gesprächskreises, Berlin: Otto Brenner Stiftung. Markmann, H. and Spieker, W. (1986) ‘Vorwort’, in H. Markmann and W. Spieker (eds) Wissenschaft für Arbeitnehmer und Gewerkschaften. Die Veröffentlichungen des WWI/ WSI des DGB von 1946-1985, Cologne: Bund Verlag, pp 7-18. Neumann, F.L. (1978) ‘Die Gewerkschaften in der Demokratie und in der Diktatur’, in A. Söllner (eds) Wirtschaft, Staat, Demokratie. Aufsätze 1930-1954, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, pp 145-222. Nuernbergk, C. (2006) ‘Die PR-Kampagne der Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft und ihr Erfolg in den Medien. Erste Ergebnisse einer Evaluationsstudie’, in U. Röttger (eds) PR-Kampagnen. Über die Inszenierung von Öffentlichkeit (3rd edn), Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 159-77. OBS (Otto Brenner Stiftung) (eds) (2011) Geschäftsberichte der Otto Brenner Stiftung. Juli 2007-Mai 2011, Frankfurt: OBS. 214

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OBS (ed) (nd) Das Leitbild der Otto Brenner Stiftung (www.otto-brenner-stiftung.de). Paster,T. (2010) ‘Die Rolle der Arbeitgeber in der Sozialpolitik’, in W. Schroeder and B.Weßels (eds) Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland,Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp 342-62. Prott, J. (2003) ‘Funktionäre in den Gewerkschaften’, in W. Schroeder and B. Weßels (eds) Die Gewerkschaften in Politik und Gesellschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Wiesbaden:WestdeutscherVerlag, pp 223-242. Roßmanith, B. (2003) Sozialinnovatives Wissen in der Wissensgesellschaft, Munich and Mering: Rainer Hampp Verlag. Rudzio, W. (2011) Das politische System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (8th edn), Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Schäfer, C. and Seifert, H. (2006) ‘Vorwort’, in C. Schäfer and H. Seifert (eds) Kein bisschen leise: 60 Jahre WSI, Hamburg:VSA, pp 9-10. Schindler, P. (1999) Datenhandbuch zur Geschichte des Deutschen Bundestages 1949 bis 1999, Baden Baden: Nomos. Schmedes, H.-J. (2008) Wirtschafts- und Verbraucherschutzverbände im Mehrebenensystem: Lobbyingaktivitäten britischer, deutscher und europäischer Verbände,Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Schroeder, W. (2007) ‘Arbeitgeberverbände’, in T. von Winter and U. Willems (eds) Interessenverbände in Deutschland, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 197-220. Schroeder W. (2008) ‘Sozialdemokratie und Gewerkschaften: Wandel einer privilegierten Partnerschaft’, in D. Sack and U. Thöle (eds) Soziale Demokratie, die Stadt und das randständige Ich. Dialoge zwischen politischer Theorie und Lebenswelt, Kassel: Kassel University Press, pp 83-104. Schroeder,W. (2010) ‘Große Koalition und Sozialpartnerschaft:Von der Konfrontation über die Normalisierung hin zur wechselseitigen Stützung in der Weltwirtschaftskrise’, in R. Zohlnhöfer (eds) Die zweite Große Koalition,Wiesbaden:VSVerlag, pp 180-202. Schroeder, W. and Keudel, D. (2008) Strategische Akteure in drei Welten. Die deutschen Gewerkschaften im Spiegel der neueren Forschung, Düsseldorf: Hans Böckler Foundation. Schroeder, W. and Silvia, S. J. (2003) ‘Gewerkschaften und Arbeitgeberverbände’, in W. Schroeder and B. Weßels (eds) Die Gewerkschaften in Politik und Gesellschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 244-70. Schroeder,W. and Weßels, B. (eds) (2003) Die Gewerkschaften in Politik und Gesellschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Ein Handbuch, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Schroeder,W. and Weßels, B. (eds) (2010) Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland. Ein Handbuch, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Schroeder, W., Kalass,V. and Greef, S. (2011) Berufsgewerkschaften in der Offensive.Vom Wandel des deutschen Gewerkschaftsmodells, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Schulze, M. (2010) ‘From Policymaking to Policytaking? Der politische Arbeitskampf des Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes am Beispiel des Wandels zum aktivierenden Sozialstaat’, in G. Schweiger and B. Brandl (eds) Der Kampf um Arbeit. Dimensionen und Perspektiven, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 145-80. Schulze, M. (2012) Gewerkschaften im Umbau des Sozialstaats, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Silvia S. (2010) ‘Mitgliederentwicklung und Organisationsstärke der Arbeitgeberverbände, Wirtschaftsverbände und Industrie- und Handelskammern’, in W. Schroeder and B. Weßels (eds) Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland,Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 169-82. Simon,W. (1976) Macht und Herrschaft der Unternehmerverbände BDI, BDA und DIHT, Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein. 215

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Speth, R. (2010a) ‘Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Politik und Gesellschaft’, in W. Schroeder and B. Weßels (eds) Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 260-79. Speth, R. (2010b) ‘Grenzen der politischen Kommunikation von Unternehmensverbänden’, in W. Schroeder and B.Weßels (eds) Handbuch Arbeitgeberund Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 220-33. Speth, R. and Leif, T. (2006) ‘Lobbying und PR am Beispiel der Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft’, in T. Leif and R. Speth (eds) Die fünfte Gewalt. Lobbyismus in Deutschland, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 302-16. Streeck, W. and Hassel, A. (2003) ‘The crumbling pillars of social partnership’, West Euro Politics, vol 26, no 4, pp 101-24. Tenfelde, K. (2006) Gewerkschaften,Wissenschaft, Mitbestimmung. 60 Jahre WSI.Von der Forschungsstelle für Wirtschaftspolitik des ADGB bis zum WSI in der Hans Böckler-Stiftung – Stationen und Funktionen eines gewerkschaftlichen Think tanks (www.boeckler.de). Töller, A.E. and Böcher, M. (2010) ‘Wirtschaftverbände in der Umweltpolitik’, in W. Schroeder and B. Weßels (eds) Handbuch Arbeitgeber- und Wirtschaftsverbände in Deutschland, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 363-94. Trampusch, C. (2000) Arbeitsmarkt, Gewerkschaften und Arbeitgeber, Göttingen: GeorgAugust Universität. Trampusch, C. (2004) Von Verbänden zu Parteien: Der Elitenwandel in der Sozialpolitik, Cologne: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. Ulrich, C. (2006) Lobbyingaktivitäten der Industrie – eine Analyse der Basler Konvention, Berlin: Logos. Wolf, M. (2000) ‘Von der “Konzertierten Aktion” zum “Bündnis für Arbeit”’, Utopie kreativ, no 117, pp 669-80. WSI (Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut) (ed) (nd) Das Institut (www. boeckler.de). ZAAR (Zentrum für Arbeitsbeziehungen und Arbeitsrecht) (ed) (2009) ZAARTätigkeitsbericht 2009, Munich: ZAAR.

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fifteen

Public interest groups and policy analysis: a push for evidence-based policy-making? Christoph Strünck

Introduction Can public interest groups exert substantial influence in policy areas? Yes, they can. Any policy expert, business representative or journalist will state that public interest groups have gained much political clout since the 1990s. Public interest groups generally represent broad interests, often acting on behalf of the environment, taxpayers or consumers; such groups previously lacked the incentive and capacities for self-organisation. ‘Going public’ is a widely used strategy to compensate for a lack of resources or membership base, yet this strategy often involves in-depth analysis of policies. How are German public interest groups able to gather information, knowledge and skills to grasp respective policies and to develop strategies? And how are they able to make up for the huge capacities that government agencies, political parties and special interest groups have built up in Germany? Public interest groups in Germany have a more obscure reputation compared to trade unions, employers’ associations or other well-established special interest groups (Sebaldt and Straßner, 2004). Traditionally, public interests have been dealt with by state and government agencies, with parties and pressure groups in charge of representing special interests. It was not until civil courts opened up to citizens’ claims against companies during the 1970s that enforcing public interests became a public interest group business. This is why this chapter picks environmental policy as one example. It shows the growing capacities for policy analysis in the hands of public interest groups. Following the role model of special interest groups, German environmental groups have managed to create their own turf, to ‘capture’ agencies and to establish close relations with mass media. The example of consumer policy is different, by contrast, with capacities for policy analysis still limited because of a murky political environment. German consumer organisations do not feature stable government relations because issues are cross-cutting, and they do not have a strong membership base because government substantially funds them. However, both environmental and consumer groups have increasingly relied on policy analysis, and creating and championing policy instruments is one of their common endeavours. Does policy analysis help? This chapter aims to show how public interest groups use policy analysis, how they create policy knowledge on their own and how they feed policy analysis to politics. The main argument holds that public interest groups rely on a mix of policy evidence 217

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and public framing that serves their needs. Yet German political science and other disciplines provide a form of policy analysis that rarely meets these needs.

Public interest groups as emerging policy actors in Germany In (West) Germany and in unified Germany it has been political parties dominating the policy cycle. Party government in Germany has monopolised policy formulation and policy-making.This is why, for a long time, US-style think tanks have never played a significant role. Policy-making capacities have rested with government agencies and party organisations, lobbied by special interest groups. Despite strong party government there have always been prominent public interest groups in German politics representing general interests.There is no single definition of public interest groups (Sorauf, 1957); they are considered ‘an organizational entity that purports to represent very broad, diffuse, non-commercial interests which traditionally have received little explicit or direct representation in the processes by which agencies, courts, and legislatures make public policy’ (Schuck, 1977, p 133). Drawing on Mancur Olson’s (2000) seminal work The logic of collective action, the definition used by Jeffrey Berry emphasises the collective good when stating that, ‘a public interest group is one that seeks a collective good, the achievement of which will not selectively and materially benefit the membership or activists of the organization’ (Berry, 1978, p 385). For the purpose of this chapter, Berry’s definition is misguiding, however. Even some special interest groups such as employers’ associations or trade unions achieve results that also benefit non-members. But neither employers’ associations nor trade unions represent general or diffuse interests. I stick here with a definition of professionalised groups representing general interests, which excludes social movements. There is a categorical overlap between public interest groups and advocacy groups that represent the ‘weak interests’ of peculiar groups or general causes in society (Barry and Rees, 1964). I use the term ‘public interest group’ to include advocacy, but concentrate on policies where interests are primarily general and diffuse, namely, environmental and consumer policy. How have public interest groups gained influence in Germany? Theoretically, groups representing general interests face a massive dilemma of free-riding, following Mancur Olson (2000).A classic solution lies with political entrepreneurs acting on their own. How has the dilemma of free-riding been dealt with in Germany? There have been social movements sparked both by political entrepreneurs and by organisations subsidised by government funding. Most German public interest groups are far from having institutional capacities, such as Citizens’ Congress Watch, the US Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause or the Sierra Club in the US.Yet there are also some groups that have resembled public interest groups in a US style from the very beginning. One example is the Bund der Steuerzahler (Federation of Taxpayers). It gets private funding from companies and individuals and operates its own research institute. Whether it represents taxpayers in general or just those who are better off is left to further scrutiny – the cleavage of taxpayers versus the state has never really shaped German politics, contrary to the US or other European countries such as Denmark. There is another type of public interest group that is rather unique among Western welfare states: Germany’s Wohlfahrtsverbände (welfare associations) provide social services such as healthcare, long-term care or support for poor and young people 218

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(Schmid, 1996). These welfare associations are both service providers and advocacy groups. They have established their own capacities of policy analysis, concentrating on social policy. Whenever issues such as welfare, pensions reform or labour market policy are at stake, welfare associations bring in their own data and arguments. Welfare associations enjoy generous tax exemptions, and German law yields them considerable privileges. Due to austerity measures and fashions of new public management (NPM), however, welfare associations primarily defend their position in non-profit markets, neglecting advocacy (Heinze et al, 1997). In this chapter I focus on public interest groups that stick with lobbying. I compare environmental groups and consumer groups, which began from very different angles. Although consumer policy or consumer protection is older than environmental policy, the latter is more integrated and established – the 1980s and 1990s provided several windows of opportunity for environmental groups to create their own exclusive policy arena. In contrast, consumer policy has always been scattered across different ministries and departments: justice, economics, agriculture, social affairs and health. ‘Iron triangles’ or dense policy networks have not emerged contrary to policy areas such as environmental policy (Janning, 2011).And consumer groups are predominantly service providers because they spend most of their revenue on advising individual consumers. Thanks to the growing awareness of consumer detriment, tasks of lobbying, suing and framing have become more important (Micklitz and Stadler, 2006). Additionally, general advice is provided through channels of mass media, although media effects have been much more salient in environmental policy. Venues and awareness have increased dramatically for environmental groups. Environmental issues have attracted a diverse mix of traditional conservationists, religious groups, nationalist movements and NIMBY groups (‘not in my backyard’). From the 1960s and 1970s onwards, this outlook radically changed. Social movements gathered momentum and they picked ecological problems as the new challenge to capitalism. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Greenpeace turned this into a visible fight of citizens versus companies. Greenpeace Germany has emerged as a leading international force, up until today. Yet the overall membership base of environmental groups is impressive: the four biggest organisations accounted for approximately 1.4 million members at the beginning of the 21st century (Amm, 2007). This is much less than the trade unions feature, but is strikingly more than consumer groups can claim. Environmental policy in Germany was transformed by two major developments: the rise of the Green Party in the 1980s and the launch of a new Ministry of Environmental Affairs after the nuclear plant in Chernobyl melted down in 1986 (Feindt, 2008). A growing social movement has pushed government to act. Also, new legislation has opened up space for litigation and court orders. Subsequently, spin-offs from social movements have turned into professional lobby groups, using framing as a tool to turn around public debates on issues such as nuclear energy, waste management or renewable energy (Wiesenthal and Ferris, 1993). Most stories about the notorious German Angst stem from this period.This is why environmental policy has been much more influenced by public interest groups than other policies. Contrary to consumer policy, salient conflicts have made the use of frames an attractive tool. In consumer policy public interest groups were supposed to mobilise the purchasing power of consumers. After the Second World War ‘consumer advisory centres’ 219

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(Verbraucherzentralen) boasted household devices in order to get housewives interested in convenient technologies (Schissler, 2001). They were not supposed to lobby for regulation in the first place. This has changed since the decentralised consumer advisory centres merged with grass-roots consumer groups (Verbraucherinitiativen) and set up a new federal peak organisation in the 1990s, which was supposed to centralise strategies of lobbying and litigation. However, some regional consumer advisory centres were big enough to pursue their own political and legal tactics (Müller, 2008). Still, regional and local consumer advisory centres are at the core of consumer policy in Germany. Their institutional members include tenants’ organisations, trade unions and charity organisations, with the bulk of their revenue stemming from federal, regional and local governments. The state ensures that asymmetries of information can be narrowed by advising consumers and by providing neutral information (Strünck, 2008). It was this approach that gave birth to another public interest body, the Stiftung Warentest (Product Test Foundation). By and large, there has never been a core and salient conflict driving consumer policy in Germany. This is different from the US, where consumer advocates such as Ralph Nader publicly blamed industry for misleading consumers. For example, in Unsafe at any speed (published 1965) Ralph Nader highlighted poor safety standards of US cars. Nader’s approach was fuelled by the US system of adversarial legalism and tort law that does not exist in Germany (Kagan, 2001). For a long time German consumer organisations focused on advising consumers, not on lobbying. Thus, policy analysis was not a prominent tool to be used. When large consumer markets such as telecommunications and energy were liberalised, this stance changed (Reisch and Micklitz, 2006). Consumer detriment followed new benefits and new markets were not as transparent as the prospect of competition had promised. A new federal umbrella organisation subsequently took shape and went on to lobby for consumer protection. The current chair of the consumers’ federal organisation has commented, however, that consumer policy is mostly scandal-driven. In his view, a strategic and evidencebased approach is missing. Thus consumer organisations are trying to build up capacities of policy research and policy analysis. Now that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2010) has crafted a consumer policy toolkit, policy analysis is gaining importance. The differences between environmental policy and consumer policy in Germany are striking, however. They reveal that policy structure and saliency of conflicts yield different opportunities for policy analysts in public interest groups.

Resources and restrictions of policy analysis: core differences between environmental and consumer groups In which way has policy analysis turned into a tool in the hands of German public interest groups? Environmental movements have long since relied on scientific evidence to prove negative impacts of human and corporate behaviour on the environment. This is also true for Germany, but the venues are different. In the US there is a vast array of public interest research groups; most sprung from colleges, and some are heavily funded, such as public health foundations (Dryzek and Hernes, 220

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2003). In Germany policy analysis – as this book maintains – has been facing a split between academic research and applied analysis (see, for example, Chapters 1 and 16, this volume). Environmental groups could not easily gain access to technical knowledge at universities and research institutions. There was no tradition of donating to alternative science, as can be witnessed in the US. Thus, new research organisations such as Oeko-Institut Freiburg were set up to enlarge the knowledge base of environmental groups (Sarkar, 1993). Most resources were directed at critically assessing the impact of nuclear energy. Some groups did manage to integrate policy knowledge from the very beginning, however.A good example is the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz (BUND, Federation of Environment and Conservationism). It was founded in 1975 when environmental legislation picked up speed in Germany (Leonhard, 1986). It attracted experts from law, engineering and the natural sciences who served as experts before courts when federal and state environmental laws were at stake. Thus, BUND has built up knowledge that has equally affected legislation and enforcement. It was not until the spectacular rise of pressure groups such as Greenpeace and Robin Wood that BUND also turned to professional campaigning. As for resources, BUND clearly lags behind. In 2002 its annual budget amounted to €13.6 million, with 40 professionals on the payroll – in 2003 Greenpeace Germany had €38.9 million at its disposal, with 175 professionals (Amm, 2007). Over time a general network of ‘counterintelligence’ has developed.The more the government engaged in regulation, the more attractive research on environmental issues became at universities. Until today a reasonable realm of ‘environmental science’ has been set up at universities and other research institutions, some of them concentrating on basic research, others pursuing practical ‘policy analysis’. The story of consumer policy is quite different. Consumer research is scattered across academic areas and institutions. Most of all, it is marketing science conducting consumer research (Ahlert et al, 2006), serving the needs of companies, not consumer organisations. There has not been a dynamic of ‘counterintelligence’. The main reason for this is the cross-cutting nature of consumer policy.The launch of a new Ministry of Environmental Affairs gave a big boost to environmental policy and environmental groups.As for consumer policy, it was not until 1999 that consumer protection was visibly integrated into the well-established Ministry of Agriculture. Still, consumer protection remains dwarfed by agricultural policy.Accordingly, research funding by the state primarily goes to agricultural research (Feindt, 2008). Second, data and information are officially gathered in environmental policy in Germany. Companies and government agencies are obliged to provide regular information on manifold aspects.This is a solid source of science, and public interest groups also benefit. But what about data and information that is accessible to consumer groups? Companies are not required to publish consumer complaints. Semi-public consumer advisory boards receive many consumer complaints, but they lack the resources to run systematic surveys. Third, regulatory agencies such as the Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungen (Bafin, Financial Services Agency) do not consider themselves consumer protection agencies. This stands in sharp contrast to the US where agencies see consumers as their main stakeholders. German government agencies derive their mandate from competition policy that focuses on market structure and companies, not consumer behaviour.

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Thus, regulatory agencies may collect data, but this information is not an official source for consumer groups. To sum up, conditions for policy research and applied policy analysis vary greatly when it comes to environmental and consumer groups in Germany, but what is policy analysis needed for?

What kind of policy analysis? Breaking the boundary of academia German public interest groups suffer from a deep rift between academic and applied versions of policy analysis. They cannot just collaborate with universities because academic concepts are not tailored to the needs of politics and political communication.What kind of policy analysis do public interest groups seek and need? Even in social sciences, different understandings of policy analysis exist: • the use of reason and evidence to select the best policy among a number of alternatives to address a particular policy problem; • an applied social science that uses multiple research methods, in argumentation and debate contexts, to create, estimate critically and communicate knowledge that is relevant to the policies; • a way of ‘speaking truth to power’; • a process through which one identifies and evaluates alternative policies or programmes that are intended to lessen or resolve social, economic or physical problems. Whatever the definition, policy analysis is supposed to deliver more rational methods to assess and implement policy programmes and to provide practical solutions. Whenever special or public interest groups resort to policy analysis, they strive to beef up their arguments. So it is not about the academic analysis of policy cycles and the distributive character of policy programmes.What public interest groups are interested in is designing tools and instruments. For a long time environmental groups were seen as protest movements in Germany. The more most of them turned into lobby groups, the stronger was the need to develop policy tools and policy expertise on their own. In the meantime groups such as Greenpeace Germany have been invited on to government agency advisory boards that regulate energy markets. From protesting policy to providing policy proposals marks the history of most German environmental groups. Policy instruments such as carbon tax, cap and trade schemes or thresholds for emissions need empirical and theoretical backing. In German academia, policy analysis is a realm of political science. However, when talking about policy instruments, it is mostly economists or legal scholars who provide the expertise. In this perspective applied policy analysis is much more about ways to regulation, backed up by evidence about policy instruments. It is important to public interest groups to conduct or delegate policy analysis because German environmental policy is closely connected with the courts, where evidence is an important tool of litigation (Greve, 1989). This is different from consumer policy in Germany, where there is no major countervailing power such as environmental groups. Consumer groups have scarce resources so policy research is also rare.What kind of policy analysis do they provide? Through consumer complaints consumer groups can collect data and information. 222

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This is the only independent empirical source at hand and it is not exploited systematically. So the effects of policy instruments can only be predicted based on average or common behaviour of consumers. This is why the quest for evidence-based policy-making has started among German consumer groups. The image of ‘rational consumers’ is popular in German politics (Strünck, 2011b) – agencies and non-profit organisations just have to provide transparency and consumers will be able to choose what they need. In the meantime behavioural economics has cast doubt on this notion of consumer behaviour (Reisch and Oehler, 2009). This fringe school of thought in economics has inspired the call for evidence-based policy-making. Yet evidence-based policy making is a double-edged sword for public interest groups. It may undermine the position of special interest groups and professions, but it may also end up backfiring.

More evidence needed? The ambiguous case of evidence-based policy-making Of course, policy analysis in the hands of public interest group is not bi-partisan. However, it is also public interest groups that support a stronger approach towards ‘evidence-based policy’. This approach definitely comes with the need for applied policy analysis. Traditionally, German government agencies built up their capacities to outline and evaluate policies. Party government and well-established relations with interest groups left no room for external policy analysis. As long as public budgets worked well, evidence of policy solutions was neglected. When budgets became tighter and austerity measures took shape, evidence-based policy-making became more attractive. Also, a new debate on user-oriented policies has encouraged law-makers to gather more evidence. What kind of ‘evidence’ can be provided by policy analysis? There are four sets of indicators: • • • •

Process: assessing efficiency when policy instruments are planned and implemented Output: assessing quantity and quality of instruments provided Impact: assessing positive handling of instruments by users Outcome: assessing all real effects of policy instruments

Methodologically, measuring policy instruments is contentious in all four categories. If governments ignore these problems, evidence-based policy-making can cover up interest groups’ politics and feed pseudo-objectivity. Thus, evidence-based policymaking and policy analysis do not automatically support the cause of public interest groups. Evidence-based policy-making simply means that claimed effects of measures and instruments have to be backed up by empirical evidence. Given the controversial nature of empirical methods, this approach does not guarantee objectivity. But it claims to be more rational and transparent, which helps to safeguard against vested interests. So public interest groups such as patient groups support institutions that pursue approaches of evidence-based policy (Kuhlmann and Burau, 2008). One example for ambiguity is the Institut für Qualität und Wirtschaftlichkeit im Gesundheitswesen (IQWiG, Institute of Quality and Efficiency in Healthcare). It is a 223

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government body without rule-making capacities, and its analysis and surveys are part of corporatist rule-making in the German healthcare system. Patient and consumer groups are on its supervisory board and appreciate the new organisation.Yet it is not quite clear whether what it does is in line with the interests of its patients. Critics claim that its creed is traditional and that its management endorses the medical profession. Supporters state that it is the medical profession that is critically evaluated by quantitative evidence. The limits of evidence-based policy-making are particularly clear in environmental policy. Although science-based methods are generally applied, the cause-and-effect nexus is often contentious and controversial. When health hazards are tackled or new thresholds have to be agreed on a strictly science-based approach, this does not provide sufficient legitimacy. Generally, evidence-based policy might be at odds with other approaches often subscribed to by public interest groups. This is especially true for the precautionary principle. Its common-sense definition says ‘better safe than sorry’.A lack of necessary data to conduct evidence-based analysis does not simply mean the government should not act on behalf of the environment or consumers. Alleged effects and anecdotal evidence might do. The precautionary principle is a policy tool that has profoundly shaped German policy (Strünck, 2005). It is also a tool of framing that puts policy research in perspective.When public interest groups go public – which is their most effective strategy – they use policy research as a tool of framing.

Policy analysis or policy framing? Strategies of political communication by public interest groups One major tool of public interest groups to influence policies is public framing of discourses. This argument is common ground in the social sciences literature (Rein, 2009; Schön and Rein, 1994), although things are different in Germany. Public interest groups in fields such as environmental policy or consumer policy are part of Germany’s ‘legalistic culture’ when it comes to regulating the public good. Civil law has long since empowered citizen groups to sue companies and government agencies (van Waarden and Drahos, 2002). Also, some public interest groups are substantially funded by the state. This is the case with consumer organisations such as consumer advisory centres. Yet protests and public blaming figure prominently in German environmental policy. Social movements and public interest groups have applied frames to a vast range of topics. There are more value-oriented frames such as the ‘saving nature’ story; this frame does not depend on evidence or policy analysis because it appeals to norms and moral obligations. Another frame – the ‘health risk’ frame – is much more linked to actual or potential impact on consumers. There is an intriguing example that reveals the main differences between environmental and consumer groups in Germany: the case of genetically modified (GM) food. Environmental groups like Greenpeace successfully used the ‘health risk’ frame: most Germans are anxious about GM for this very reason. Contrary to Greenpeace, consumer groups concentrated on the ‘choice’ frame.They insisted that consumers should be able to trace ingredients and pick GM-free stuff. Thus, they urged transparency. 224

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Comparing those two frames shows strengths and weaknesses of political communication by public interest groups. Sticking with the ‘health risk’ frame did not require broad evidence or policy analysis; rather it reflected the precautionary principle and fuelled a policy of zero tolerance (Strünck, 2005). However, public interest groups like Greenpeace were able to refer to indicators of impact. They showed that the majority opposed policies that championed GM food. Of course, this was kind of a circular argument: indicators captured a mood that had already been influenced by Greenpeace’s strategy of political communication. If consumers reject GM food at large, a frame of ‘choice’ does not really stick.Thus, most German consumers turn to environmental groups for advice. The case of GM food also shows that boundaries between public interest groups are blurred.This may usually lead to issue coalitions (Hojnacki, 1997), but if groups use different messages, it is difficult to align their frames. Also, environmental groups can claim to be advocacy groups that defend ‘nature’s interests’.With German consumer groups it is different.They lack mass membership and the credibility of grass-roots organisation. In the end, consumers have to decide what to do. Business groups are easily able to blame consumer groups for being ‘paternalistic’, but they also apply the ‘choice’ frame. By doing so they state that consumers should decide on their own. Picking the right frame can be crucial for public interest groups. The ongoing debate on energy in Germany is a telling example. Before the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, companies had managed to prolong their license to run nuclear plants. The frame used was the ‘zero emission’ frame: attention was shifted from nuclear risks to carbon-free provision of energy by nuclear plants. Energy companies had embarked on the debate over climate change. In their view nuclear plants were indispensable in fighting climate change. This message stuck until the disaster in Japan turned the debate around. Interestingly, the well-established ‘risk’ frame was linked to a renewed ‘inefficiency’ frame. Environmental groups maintained that no nuclear plant would ever yield profits if all costs were internalised.This well-known argument received much more attention since the economic impact of the catastrophe was telling. The ‘window of opportunity’ rendered environmental groups much more influential and it forged new links between groups. In the wake of the nuclear disaster in Japan the conservative German government was the first in Europe in years to relinquish nuclear energy. Ironically, consumer groups are facing a dilemma due to this development. The exit option might come with a huge price tag for consumers. Should they support ‘safe and clean’ energy sources in the name of consumers? Or should they focus on low energy prices? The broad and diffuse interests of consumers create problems of political communication to consumer groups. Another disadvantage is the highly decentralised consumer detriment when it comes to common problems of market performance. In environmental policy alleged damage is usually great and can be traced back to single companies. In consumer policy damage to single consumers may be small.This is why single consumers barely take serious steps against companies: the damage is lower than the expected costs of suing. But the overall performance of markets will be weak (Micklitz and Stadler, 2006). This is to the disadvantage of all consumers. Thus, there is no simple way to build a successful frame, contrary to environmental policy: the ‘David versus Goliath’ story works much better than in consumer policy (Lietzmann, 2002). 225

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Public awareness may be an important factor regarding the influence of public interest groups, but once the debate is spun, groups must deliver arguments. Put in practical terms, policy analysis is the backbone of successful framing. On the other hand, framing by public interest groups is part of policy and political streams that can be analysed through the lenses of policy analysis. The political streams approach assumes that political preferences are not given, but created in streams (Kingdon, 2011). Successful framing by public interest groups can create or change the policy preferences of other actors.The political streams approach also assumes that time management of awareness is crucial, given that bounded rationality and restrictions of time shape politics in general. Framing bridges policy and politics streams. The argumentative turn in policy analysis sheds new light on ‘policy analysts’ within public interest groups. Following this distinctive perspective it is ‘policy analysts’ who write and present ‘policy stories’ themselves, providing plots for parallel processing developments (Fischer and Forester, 1993). In a strict sense, policy analysis is no more a tool of ‘problem-solving’. Instead, it combines data, information and arguments to make the case for a cause. As Majone (1989) puts it, ‘policy analysts’ have become less technocratic and more lawyer-like. For advocacy groups in environmental or consumer policy, this is a matching job description. As for public interest groups, they are able to combine advocacy with their creed of having a non-partisan cause.Thus,‘biased’ policy analysis by public interest groups maintains credibility in public opinion and media. German public interest groups are quite often part of discourse coalitions striving to deliver a common message for different cases. Thus, policy analysis in the hands of public interest groups is rather management of messages than systematic research. And given the peculiar status of policy analysis in Germany, public interest groups face distinctive challenges.

Facing the different worlds of German policy analysis: the limited use of political science to public interest groups Being advocacy groups, German environmental or consumer groups seek the empirical underpinnings of arguments. But to whom do they turn? In Germany practical policy analysis is less likely to be carried out by political scientists than by economists or legal scholars. They are the ones who usually flesh out policy instruments and craft policy solutions. What they do not take into account are questions of legitimacy or power (Strünck, 2011a); there is a popular resentment among German politicians that academic advisers are, well, too ‘academic’. Yet political scientists have not really managed to fill that gap. This is because ‘their’ policy analysis is much less focused on instruments than on policy cycles and programmes. Astonishingly, they do not seem to care much about ways to create legitimacy and major support.That ‘problem’ is delegated to politics.This is a striking difference to the US where think tanks deliver policy instruments that appeal to groups and come with arguments of legitimacy. What does this imply for public interest groups in Germany? They use framing and discourse coalitions as the main tools of applied policy analysis. But even the smartest and savviest narrative does not deliver when the media, public opinion and 226

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not least politicians do not see broad legitimacy in it. One common way to provide legitimacy is to conduct polls, which is what special interest groups frequently use to crank up their claims. Additionally, maintaining jobs and income is the most popular argument to bolster legitimacy. Economic groups are able to resort to many economics experts to underline their points. Policy analysis from economics features figures and telling data. What public interest groups need is empirical policy analysis that translates into ‘easy-to-grasp messages’. There is an example from consumer policy. The ongoing crisis has once more highlighted the confusion most consumers face when buying financial services. Some economists and behavioural scientists in Germany ran polls and tested short brochures with standardised data on risk profiles (Kohlert and Oehler, 2009).They advised consumer groups to coin the phrase ‘package insert for financial services’, evoking risks connected with pharmaceuticals.This term fitted neatly with the notion of ‘financial health of consumers’ (Oehler and Kohlert, 2009). It was developed to make the case of a safe and standardised ‘basis provision’ of financial services meeting the needs of ‘vulnerable’ consumers. This example shows that policy analysis within the boundaries of political science does not fit the actual needs of public interest groups. Designing policy instruments and policy messages is, by definition, an interdisciplinary approach. Bridging political science, economics and other social and behavioural sciences is not easy in Germany’s fragmented academic system. But both environmental and consumer groups depend on that kind of problem-based policy analysis. It is not that these groups do not have access to practical policy analysis, but political science does not contribute much to it. Is this a problem? Maybe it is a problem for political science as an academic discipline. However, in this respect ‘German exceptionalism’ is not necessarily a benefit, but rather a burden (Schubert and Bandelow, 2009). The dimension of power and power relations has long since been neglected in German political science (Mayntz, 2002). Instead, questions of governance and policy networks have towered above all. To public interest groups this might also be a problem. Whenever they aim to frame public discourse, aspects of power and politics pop up: where are the partners for issue coalitions, how do frames appeal to party constituencies and how do they fit in government action in general? These are dimensions neither economists nor legal scholars address in their policy analysis. From a practical perspective, if German public interest groups enlarge the spectrum of representation, they need countervailing capacities of policy analysis. Vital pluralism takes vital public interest groups with competitive resources. Environmental groups have taken advantage of mass media coverage and government institutions (Rossteutscher, 2005). In consumer policy public interest groups are lagging behind. The German dualism in policy analysis keeps pluralism from unfolding its potential. There might be some lessons to be learned from other countries. What kind of policy analysis matters most to German public interest groups? Is it a more ‘rational’ approach in general, maybe evidence-based policy-making in particular? Given the limits of science in pluralist interest intermediation and the contentious stance of objectivity, this could be naive. It is not so much about ‘rationalising politics’, but about ‘framing policy instruments’. Any policy analyst working for or within public interest groups has to gather evidence guided by a frame, which will create legitimacy. The ‘argumentative turn’ has not yet reached German 227

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policy analysis in a practical way – policy analysis and public interest groups still ride on different tracks through Germany.

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Lietzmann, H.J. (2002) ‘Nichtregierungsorganizationen als Gemeinwohlakteure’, in G. Schuppert and F. Neidhardt (eds) Gemeinwohl – Auf der Suche nach Substanz, WZB-Jahrbuch, Berlin: Edition Sigma, pp 297-314. Majone, G. (1989) Evidence, argument and persuasion in the policy process, New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Mayntz, R. (2002) Akteure, Mechanismen, Modelle: Zur Theoriefähigkeit makro-sozialer Analysen, Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus Verlag. Micklitz, H.-W. and Stadler, A. (2006) ‘The development of collective legal actions in Europe, especially in German civil procedure’, European Business Law Review, vol 17, no 5, p 1473. Müller, E. (2008) ‘Current state and prospects of consumer policy: An introductory essay’, German Policy Studies, vol 4, no 1, pp 7-44. OECD (2010): Consumer Policy Toolkit, Paris Oehler, A. and Kohlert, D. (2009) ‘Financial advice giving and taking – Where are the market’s self-healing powers and a functioning legal framework when we need them?’, Journal of Consumer Policy, vol 32, no 2, pp 91-116. Olson, M. (2000) The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups, Harvard Economic Studies, No 124, 18th edn, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rein, M. (2009) ‘Reframing problematic policies’, The Oxford handbook of political science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 965-80. Reisch, L.A. and Micklitz, H.-W. (2006) ‘Consumers and deregulation of the electricity market in Germany’, Journal of Consumer Policy, vol 29, no 4, pp 399-415. Reisch, L.A. and Oehler, A. (2009) ‘Behavioral economics: eine neue Grundlage für die Verbraucherpolitik?’, Vierteljahreshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung, 3/2009, pp 30-43. Rossteutscher, S. (2005) Democracy and the role of associations: Political, organizational, and social contexts, Routledge/ECPR Studies in European Political Science, No 38, London and New York: Routledge. Sarkar, S. (1993) Green-alternative politics in West Germany, Tokyo: United Nations University Press. Schissler, H. (2001) The miracle years: A cultural history of West Germany, 1949-1968, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schmid, J. (1996) Wohlfahrtsverbände in modernen Wohlfahrtsstaaten. Soziale Dienste in historisch-vergleichender Perspektive, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Schön, D.A. and Rein, M. (1994) Frame reflection:Toward the resolution of intractable policy controversies, New York: Basic Books. Schubert, K. and Bandelow, N.C. (2009) ‘Politikfeldanalyse: Dimensionen und Fragestellungen’, in K. Schubert and N.C. Bandelow (eds) Lehrbuch der Politikfeldanalyse 2.0 (2nd edn), Munich: Oldenbourg, pp 1-22. Schuck, P.H. (1977) ‘Public interest groups and the policy process’, Public Administration Review, vol 37, no 2, pp 132-40. Sebaldt, M. and Strassner, A. (2004) Verbände in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Eine Einführung, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Sorauf, F.J. (1957) ‘The public interest reconsidered’, The Journal of Politics, vol 19, no 4, pp 616-39. Strünck, C. (2005) ‘Mix-up: Models of governance and framing opportunities in US and EU consumer policy’. Journal of Consumer Policy, vol 28, no 2, pp 203-30.

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Strünck, C. (2008) ‘Claiming consumers’ rights. Patterns and limits of adversarial legalism in European consumer protection’, German Policy Studies, vol 4, no 1, pp 167-92. Strünck, C. (2011a) ‘Gibt es ein Recht auf Gemeinwohl? Öffentliche und allgemeine Interessen im Blickwinkel von Rechtswissenschaft und Politikwissenschaft’, in N.C. Bandelow and S. Hegelich (eds) Pluralismus – Strategien – Entscheidungen,Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp 84-97. Strünck, C. (2011b) ‘Versagt die Verbraucherpolitik?’, Wirtschaftsdienst, vol 91, no 3, pp 155-68. Waarden, F. van and Drahos, M. (2002) ‘Courts and (epistemic) communities in the convergence of competition policies’, Journal of European Public Policy, vol 9, no 6, pp 913-34. Wiesenthal, H. and Ferris, J. (1993) Realism in green politics: Social movements and ecological reform in Germany, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

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Think tanks: bridging beltway and ivory tower? Sven Jochem

Introduction1 Think tanks are a ‘growth industry’ in Germany, at least since the 1990s. Partly due to German unification, think tanks became more clearly visible in the public debate. In this respect, Germany followed an international trend (McGann, 2011, p 16), albeit with some delay – ‘(t)hink tanks have a “virus-like” quality’ (Stone, 2004, p 15) in Germany and the rest of the world. This chapter presents an overview of the development of German think tanks and analyses how they conduct policy analyses, how they try to influence the public debate and crucial decision-making and, finally, how successful they have been.A special analytical focus rests on the supposed dualism between academic policy analyses and policy analyses conducted by think tanks. In recent times, in Germany, as in other parts of the world, the contours of think tanks have blurred. While early research stated that think tanks were ‘universities without students’ (Weaver, 1989, p 564), the increase in the number of advisory agencies has created difficulties in differentiating think tanks from other organisations providing policy analyses (or policy briefings), trying to influence policy-making or pushing forward specific policy interests in the process of democratic decisionmaking. Hence, think tank is a ‘slippery term’ (Stone, 2004, p 2). One prominent clarification notes that they are ‘privately or publicly financed, application-oriented research institutes, whose main function it is to provide scientifically founded, often inter-disciplinary analyses and comments on a broad field of relevant political issues and propositions’ (Thunert, 1999, p 10). Such a definition implies that they provide independent scientific analyses for policymakers, meaning that they independently mediate between the ‘ivory tower’ and the ‘real world of politics’ (the beltway), an assumption that must be questioned. Think tanks provide policy analyses to the public, but at the same time they have become more and more active entrepreneurs in policy communities. Furthermore, they act from self-interest in ‘empire-building’, in defending their influence in the policy community vis-à-vis competitors on the political market, and sometimes vis-à-vis the dynamics of the political debate in a broader sense. In this respect, policy analyses conducted by German ‘universities without students’ sometimes fulfil academic standards, but also serve as instruments to gain power and influence in the process of policy formulation and decision-making (cf Stone, 2007). Contemporary research is divided between advocacy, academic and missionoriented think tanks (cf Weaver, 1999). As Sharon Stone argues, these boundaries between the different ‘policy institutes’ are more or less blurred. She assumes a 231

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process of convergence in the worldwide development of think tanks (Stone, 2007). Nevertheless, in this chapter the differentiation between (originally) academic and (originally) advocacy think tanks serves as a conceptual framework. Additionally, think tanks are further differentiated in respect of how much they depend on public or private funding (see Table 16.1). Table 16.1: Conceptual differentiation of think tanks and case studies State Funding

Market

Advocacy think tanks –

Academic think tanks Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB, Social Science Research Centre Berlin) Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft Bertelsmann Stiftung (Bertelsmann Foundation) (INSM, employers) Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut (WSI, Institute of Social and Economic Research, trade unions)

Think tanks – as well as other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – strategically adapt to those requirements the political system implies for successful political action (‘political opportunities’). The German consensual democracy provides a multitude of ‘veto points’ (Immergut, 1992) in the decision-making process. Think tanks – as well as other interest organisations – therefore have a multitude of opportunities to influence the political debate, or specific political actors at these ‘points of uncertainty’ (Immergut, 1992) in the German policy-making process. From an institutional point of view, the fragmented political system in Germany is therefore a fertile ground for think tanks. The need for academic advice in policy-making recently expanded, not only because of the increasing complexity of policy-making in the European Union (EU), but also because of the soaring needs for justification of policy decisions in an era of multilayered ‘media democracy’.The locus of the political debate has increasingly shifted from the parliament to general public debate. Additionally, the opportunity to immediately gather information from the internet has challenged members of parliament to motivate their decisions on a solid, meaning (more or less) scientific, ground. Furthermore, the occurrence of ‘new public management’ (NPM) methods itself has opened the doors for think tanks to enter the inner circles of public administration in Germany (cf Färber et al, 2011). Taken together, it is not only the institutional structure of the political system in Germany that has fostered think tanks, but also the changing nature of the policy-making process, implying numerous opportunities for think tank activities. This chapter shows how think tanks have entered the core of academically informed policy advice since the 1990s (cf Jochem and Vatter, 2006).The main argument is that the dualism between academic and applied policy analyses could be overcome by some think tanks. Some other think tanks, however, have changed their strategy towards directly influencing the public debate, thereby successfully employing new media on the internet. It is difficult to explain why think thanks are following different strategies, but it seems plausible to argue that the closer think tanks are coupled with the academic community, and the more they depend on public funding, the more 232

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it seems to be taken for granted that policy advice is academically substantiated. The privately funded Bertelsmann Foundation is a somehow contradictory case in this respect, as the scientific foundation of policy analyses is relatively high despite its formal separation from genuinely academic institutions. German employers, in contrast, decided to directly influence public opinion in order to get their interests observed in public debate, a decision that weakened the academic profile of the policy analyses but increased the impact on public debate. In the following, a short overview is provided of the development of German think tanks, and their policy analyses. This is followed by an in-depth analysis of four case studies of think tanks that have been prominently encouraged in the contemporary policy-making process:WZB (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin), Bertelsmann Foundation, WSI (Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut) and INSM (Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft). In each, their organisational as well as financial developments are reported. Additionally, it is shown how they have tried to influence the public debate with their policy analyses. The last section concludes and discusses open research questions.

An overview of the landscape of German think tanks Think tanks in Germany provide policy analyses, influence the public debate and are an essential part of the domestic policy community, although they differ in the degree of how far they have fulfilled these functions in German politics. The number of think tanks has increased significantly since the 1990s. Although it is difficult to gather exact data on this issue, several contributions in the literature provide estimates. Thunert argues that there are over 1,000 think tanks in a broad sense (2006, p 186). In a narrow sense of the term, he estimates the number of think tanks as between 70 and 100. A private internet-based report about think tanks in Germany and Europe, the ‘Think Tank Directory’, counts about 130 think tanks currently observable in Germany.2 Other estimations provided by Speth confirm the number of 130 think tanks (Speth, 2010, p 395). From a comparative point of view, the density of think tanks in Germany is very high. A comparative report on think tanks worldwide ranks Germany in fifth place. The US, China, India and the UK are listed in first place. For 2010, the report estimated that there were about 191 think tanks in Germany.3 Regardless of how many think tanks are exactly observable in German politics, the major conclusion is that there are (at least) many, and that the number is still increasing. The legal status of think tanks in Germany differs from case to case. Immediately after the Second World War most were organised as branches of academic institutions or of political institutions (from parties or interest organisations). Judicially, the form of a registered association (Eingetragener Verein, e.V.) was dominant, as well as charitable associations. The share of public funding in these early think tanks was extraordinarily high. In most recent history, German law has alleviated the creation of foundations (and made them an interesting organisational form with regard to taxation). Accordingly, an increasing number of privately financed foundations has entered the political landscape in Germany (Welzel, 2006; Speth, 2010). In the literature, the conceptual distinction between academic and advocacy think tanks is applied. One academic think tank created directly by the government is, for example, the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP, German Institute for International 233

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and Security Affairs, since 1962), financed almost entirely by the German chancellery.4 The SWP may be considered as a ‘child of the Cold War’, as the government aspired to improve knowledge in foreign relations in these times (Zunker, 2006). This think tank is very influential in foreign policy, peace research and global governance. In the beginning it was deliberately located in Munich, far away from the then centre of German politics in Bonn. In 2001, however, it moved to Berlin in order to simplify a political exchange with decision-makers. The largest group of academic think tanks are, however, Leibniz institutes (see also Chapter 17, this volume).The Leibniz Gesellschaft (Leibniz Association) serves as an umbrella organisation for different research institutes. Due to Germany’s federal nature, in the 1960s the federation and the federal states agreed to coordinate research investment. Since the 1970s specific research institutes have been co-financed by the respective federal state in which they are located and the federation (mostly on a 50-50 norm). One crucial aspect is that their research is dedicated to providing knowledge and advice in the interests of the public (‘theoria cum praxi: science for the benefit and good of humankind’, as stated on the website).5 The Leibniz Association currently incorporates 86 research institutes, covering the whole range of possible scientific research. The budget for 2010 was, in total, €1.380 million. The Leibniz institutes dominate the ground of academic think tanks. In economics, the most influential think tanks are, for example, the ifo Institute,6 the DIW7 or the Kiel Institute for the World Economy,8 to mention only a few. Other Leibniz research institutes cover social sciences in a broad sense (as, for example, the WZB; see below) or mathematics, life sciences and educational research.9 Their evaluation process is very challenging, with all the institutes committed to applying the principles of good scientific practice. This goal is regularly evaluated through external evaluation processes. Further examples of genuinely state-financed academic think tanks are the Max Planck research institutes (see Chapter 17 this volume). The share of public funding is currently 80 per cent, and the total budget in 2011 was €1.400 million. The Max Planck Society has a dominant focus on natural sciences, although it also includes social science research institutes as well as research institutes in humanities or jurisprudence.10 Think tanks with public funding dominate the section of academic think tanks, but academic think tanks with private funding are becoming increasingly important.The major example for the latter branch of think tanks is the Bertelsmann Foundation (see below). Another example is the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (German Council on Foreign Relations),11 or the Gemeinnützige Hertie Stifung (Hertie Foundation),12 to mention, again, only a few. The other category is advocacy thinks tanks. This implies that their core function, that is, to be independent ‘universities without students’, is, to a certain extent, limited because of their explicit connection with political actors. In Germany, the foundations of the major political parties dominate this branch. Because of the ‘semi-public’ status of parties in Germany, the party foundations are mainly financed with state transfers. They not only provide policy analyses in specific areas but also financial aid to students, and they run specific establishments worldwide in order to foster democracy or to intensify international collaboration. The most prominent party foundations are the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation (FES, founded in 1925) of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation (KAS, founded in 1964) of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Hanns-Seidel Foundation (founded in 1967) of 234

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the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (founded in 1958) of the FDP (Free Democratic Party) and the Heinrich Böll Foundation (founded in 1996) of the Green Party. The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation belongs to the Left Party and was the last to be founded, in 1998. Thunert estimates that approximately 20 per cent of all activities (and of the total budget) of these political foundations cover think tank activities (policy analyses); the remaining activities are targeted, according to him, at other activities such as international collaboration and networking (Thunert, 2006, p 194). Other important advocacy think tanks are linked to specific interest groups. Traditionally, trade union think tanks also play an important role. These were founded in order to counteract mainstream economic research. In Germany, the most important think tank in this respect (see below) is the WSI of the German Trade Union Federation. Employers and employers’ federations also foster think tanks. German employers’ federations have usually had their own advocacy think tanks, focusing mainly on economic policy-making.13 However, since 2000 German employers in the manufacturing industries have pushed forward a new kind of think tank, the Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM, see below). More recently, smaller think tanks have emerged in German politics, which, to a certain extent, transcend these classical categories of contemporary think tanks. Some were founded by politicians in order to push forward specific policy solutions – for example, the Institut für Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (IWG, Institute for the Economy and Society), founded by the CDU politician Kurt Biedenkopf and the economist Meinhard Miegel in 1977, and which at the beginning focused mainly on pensions policies.14 Another example is the Institut solidarische Moderne (ISM), founded by the former SPD leader in Hessen (Andrea Ypsilanti), a Green Party member of the European Parliament (Sven Giegold) and Katja Kipping, a member of the German Bundestag for the Left Party. The ISM has been interpreted as an organised attempt to intensify the programmatic cooperation between the SPD, the Green Party as well as the Left Party, and to prepare a red-red-green coalition in Germany in the long run.15 Another recently observable trend is establishing think tanks with a rather narrow academic perspective. One example to mention here is the Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit (IZA, Research Institute on the Future of Labour), financed through the Deutsche Post Foundation and project-related funding. It is associated with the Economics Department at the University of Bonn, and provides highstandard economic analyses, policy advice and international networking of advanced economic research.16 Policy-making is the art of coalition-building and networking. In this respect, German think tanks provide resources for policy networking and information exchange. The ‘market of ideas’ is permanently fostered by think tanks. One example of such networking is the close cooperation between the Bertelsmann Foundation and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies regarding the German Bündnis für Arbeit (Alliance for Jobs) (see Chapter 10, this volume). In order to provide policy analyses and to combine economic advice with decisionmakers, both think tanks were directly integrated into the reform movements for the German social pact – that, in fact, failed in the end (cf Schroeder, 2003; Siegel, 2003). Another example is the collaboration of (again) the Bertelsmann Foundation and the Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung (CHE, Centre for Higher Education) in education reforms. Combined policy analyses and policy advice paved the way for 235

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the so-called Excellenzinitiative under the red-green government, the promotion of high-performance universities (Speth, 2010, p 400). Beyond networking, think tank activities are also directed towards new media – think tanks systematically try to use social networks in order to influence public debate. A comparative study analysing the visibility of think tanks in web-based social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and so on, concluded that the Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM) is dominant in this respect. Perhaps surprisingly, the think tanks of the political parties followed closely behind, with FES ranking in second place. The Bertelsmann Foundation, for some observers one of the most influential think tanks in Germany (McGann, 2011, p 25; Schuler, 2010), ranked only sixth, ISM seventh. As a common trend, the visibility of all think tanks covered in this internet analysis has significantly increased.17 German think tanks are a growth sector. Not only is their number steadily increasing, but their organisational patterns as well as their strategies are changing. Think tanks with public funding and high-standard academic profiles dominated in the 1990s. Since the beginning of the new century new think tanks have been founded and privately funded think tanks – very often foundations – have increasingly and successfully entered the ‘market for ideas’.

Academic think tanks, mainly financed by the state: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB) The establishment of Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB, Social Science Research Centre Berlin) was highly controversial. In 1969, 15 members of the German Bundestag, from the CDU/CSU as well as the SPD, agreed to improve academic policy advice in Germany – and to strengthen Berlin as a centre for academic research activities. The intention was to attract leading experts worldwide to join WZB. During the process of establishing WZB, leading academics from the Berlin universities argued to a very great extent against WZB – many feared the loss of scientific autonomy, as WZB was originally founded as a GmbH, a privately organised limited liability company. These critics feared privatisation of academic research in Berlin and a loss of academic independence.18 Today, WZB is a well-established research institute and an influential think tank, densely embedded into the networks of international academic research and policy advice in Germany. WZB was originally founded in several separate institutes at different locations. In 1988 they were all literally brought together under one roof. And while WZB was founded as a private company, today it is a public company financed by federal government (75 per cent) and the federal state of Berlin (25 per cent). In 2010 WZB received €13.9 million in allowances from public sources and was able to fundraise an additional €3.3 million from other sources (Allmendinger, 2011, p 11). It has been organisationally reformed during the last two decades. While in the past ecological issues and issues of comparative society studies dominated, today the range of issues is broader. In official statements, its focus is on all relevant issues reflecting the problems of modern societies and democracies (Antal and Kocka, 2009). In 2010 346 academics worked in WZB, albeit most of them, we can assume, not as full-time employees. It is difficult to measure the exact magnitude of WZB, but it seems justified to assume

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that it is currently one of the greatest socioscientific research institutes in Europe (Harmsen, 2009). WZB is a pure research think tank.The standards of academic research are met by projects, and its interconnectedness to the rest of the academic world is encompassing and intense. It is worth mentioning that women are highly represented in WZB, at least when considering the positions of research directors.19 It is a member institute of the Leibniz-Gesellschaft (see above), and is therefore regularly evaluated by external reviewers. In the last evaluation from 2011 the external reviewers emphasised WZB’s ‘extraordinary strength of performance’. All the research units were graded ‘excellent or very good’. And the external evaluation further emphasised that not only was its research qualitatively very good, but also the transfer of knowledge into the public debate; its policy advice to political decision-makers was graded as outstanding.20 Today WZB is one of the most influential academic think tanks in Germany. It covers a broad range of issues and provides plenty of information and data – both for the interested public and for political decision-makers. In this respect, the dualism between academic research and think tank advice is, to a great extent, outdated. And WZB is one of the most impressive success stories of the political attempts to strengthen Berlin as a centre for academic research activities.

Academic think tanks – privately financed: Bertelsmann Foundation In Germany, the most prominent think tank with private funding and academic research ambitions is, perhaps, the Bertelsmann Foundation.21 And it is perhaps the most prominent example for being intensively criticised in public debate (Wernicke and Bultmann, 2007; Schuler, 2010). As early as 1977 Reinhard Mohn founded the Bertelsmann Foundation. He took over the Bertelsmann Corporation immediately after the Second World War and developed it into one of the leading media enterprises worldwide. One of the first policy domains covered by the Bertelsmann Foundation was training issues and the practices of leading experts in the economic as well as the political world. Furthermore, the health service and social policy issues in general were investigated. Mohn’s incentive was to provide new policy solutions in a globalised and increasingly complex world (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2007, p 1). The decision of the Foundation in 1983 to invest in the first private university in Germany, the University Witten/ Herdecke, was intensively discussed in public debate. More and more, the Bertelsmann Foundation captured education issues, thereby not only providing policy analysis but also financial aid, for example, to the small public library in Gütersloh in 1982, where the Bertelsmann Foundation has its headquarters.22 Today, the Bertelsmann Foundation covers a broad range of issues, inducing a multitude of research projects. Its total budget in 2010 was €60.3 million; 316 employees worked in its headquarters at the end of 2010 (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2011, pp 88-91). One of its prominent methods for preparing policy analyses is to acquire academic knowledge. For example, the Sustainable Governance Indicator is carried out by several academics worldwide. This indicator tries to make the quality of democratic governance comparable.23 Another academic research project is looking at the degree of democratic transformation worldwide. In this respect, the aim of the Bertelsmann 237

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Transformation Index (BTI) is to document the success and failure of different roads to democracy.24 As in its first research project, the Bertelsmann Foundation acquires academic country surveys. Further examples employing the same academic approach are studies trying to analyse policy reactions to the global financial crisis since 200825 or the state of social justice in advanced welfare states (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2010). It is noteworthy that, regarding the latter examples, the Foundation takes up academic research contributions and further develops the empirical as well as methodological research on the issues.26 Besides the above-mentioned projects, the Foundation invests in such issues as good daycare facilities for children or the future of civil society in a broad sense (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2011). These strategies generally enable high academic standards in policy analyses. Because the Foundation successfully acquires academics and brings worldwide policy information together, such studies reflect high academic standards. Therefore, the Bertelsmann Foundation is a prominent example for a privately financed think tank that has successfully overcome the dualism of policy analyses in Germany. Critics argue, however, that it still pursues policy goals from the Bertelsmann Corporation or the inner circle of the Bertelsmann Foundation (Schuler, 2010). It is, however, questionable whether the multitude of policy analyses conducted by the Foundation simply mirror the personal policy preferences of leadership of the Foundation. Nevertheless, it has a liberal, market-oriented general alignment, which does not hinder policy analyses meeting rather high academic standards. As a consequence, these analyses are, to a great extent, reflected in the academic literature.

Advocacy think tanks – classical pattern: Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut (WSI) The Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut (WSI, Institute of Economic and Social Research) may be seen as the counterpart of the INSM, albeit it is still a classical think tank connected with the German trade union movement. It was founded in 1946 as WWI (Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Institut) by the trade unions in German, and was an attempt to continue a tradition from the Weimar Republic, when the trade unions already had their own economic research institute. In 1972, WWI was renamed WSI, and as late as 1995, it was incorporated into Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (HBS). The Deutscher Gerwerkschaftsbund (DGB, Confederation of German Trade Unions) established it in 1977, incorporating several institutes and smaller foundations from the whole trade union movement. Today, HBS is financed through donations from members of the trade union movement who are board members in German stock companies, through general donations and by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Public funding, however, is dedicated to programmes of scholarships provided by HBS. In 2009/10, HBS received €18.3 million from the Federal Ministry and additionally spent €6.4 million on various scholarship programmes. Hence, public funding does not cover the whole effort of the Foundation. In 2009/10 WSI was financed by the Foundation with €5.5 million, a sum that comes up to 18.4 per cent of the total budget of HBS (2011, pp 10-11). WSI is mainly active in labour market issues. In its self-description, as a research institute it is dedicated to the academic analysis of issues of practical relevance to 238

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industrial relations in Germany and Europe. In this respect, it covers a wide range of different issues relevant for labour market dynamics. Social policies, the development of the German wage-bargaining system or developments of management practices in times of economic globalisation are also addressed.27 Some research aspects are important data sources for further academic research, such as, for example, wage monitoring in Germany,28 the development of minimal wages in Europe29 or the broad range of analyses dedicated to uncover the political, economical and social foundations of the new ‘German job miracle’ during the financial crisis. WSI not only provides academic advice to political decision-makers; it also tries to transfer academic information to volunteers, members of work councils or other people active in the trade union movement or in wage bargaining. In contrast to INSM (see below), the main think tank of the German employers, the WSI, is a classical think tank with only modest ambitions to improve public relations (PR) strategies. Its main focus is on collecting data relevant to labour market dynamics, providing them to the public and investing in academic research connected to labour market issues in Germany and Europe. It therefore pays particular attention to improving information for people interested in labour market issues; unlike INSM, its aim is not to change the political preferences of the whole German public. WSI is a rather small think tank. However, its academic employees are dedicated to academic research practices.The dualism between academic and think tank analysis is, in this range, rather narrow. In this sense,WSI provides academic research that belongs to issues that are important for the trade union movement in Germany.

Advocacy think tanks – recent innovation: Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM) The Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM, Initiative for a New Social Market Economy) was founded officially in 2000 and classifies a ‘new’ or ‘modern’ kind of think tank (Speth, 2004, 2006). In December 1999 Gesamtmetall (German Employers’ Association for Manufacturing) founded a PR agency (berolino.pr GmbH) in order to re-establish a market-orientated way of thinking with the help of PR strategies. INSM is financed by Gesamtmetall and other employers’ organisations – which is not mentioned in official records. In 2010 INSM had a budget of €10 million, hence it is financially very well developed (Speth, 2004, p 3). In 2010 it moved its headquarters from Cologne to Berlin in order to be closer to the centre of German politics. The overall ambition of INSM is to ‘reflate’ the spirit of Ludwig Erhard in economic policy-making. Ludwig Erhard, the ‘spiritus rector’ of the German Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) after the Second World War, demanded ‘wealth for all’ (Wohlstand für alle), a slogan INSM changed to ‘opportunities for all’. Its goals are to advocate competition, personal responsibility as well as the chance for all individuals to participate in the economic sphere (Gesamtmetall, 2011, pp 84-5). In concrete terms, it focuses on economic, employment and education policies. As mentioned above, its ideas are highly visible in classical media (Speth, 2004, 2006) as well as in social networks on the internet.30 Its organisation is very efficient.The small headquarters is occupied by several ad hoc working groups, which are often experts in PR and media coverage.Academic policy advice is provided by the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW, Cologne Institute for 239

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Economic Research), the academic branch of the German Employers’ Association.31 From time to time, external academic professionals provide further policy analyses and policy information. One special linkage is that between INSM and the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach (IfD), one of the leading public opinion research institutes in Germany.32 Policy analyses fulfil academic standards to a certain extent, but INSM’s main characteristic is to combine academic policy analyses with a broad range of PR strategies. In this respect, it provides a large network of people from political as well as academic life. These ‘ambassadors’ are linked in an unspecified way to the INSM network; it is not always clear to what extent these ‘ambassadors’, for example, take up INSM’s standpoint in public debates or if they are arguing as politicians or scientists. Professor Hans Tietmeyer, a former president of the German Central Bank (Bundesbank), serves as a chair of this network.33 Given its new strategy, it is difficult to assess the efficiency of the INSM. To a great extent it aims at changing public debate and influencing the preferences of the public in general. It avoids criticising trade unions, for example, in a direct way. In contrast, the public is targeted via old and new media. In this respect, it simulates the strategies of new social movements (Speth, 2004). However, it should be noted that this is only a simulation, given the financial investment and the hierarchically organised headquarters of the INSM. It is highly visible in the public debate, devoted to combining academic policy analyses with public relations instruments; accordingly, the academic foundation of some of the programmes seems to be of second order relevance for the INSM.

Conclusion The aim of this chapter was to show how think tanks in Germany have changed their strategies and policy analysis during the most recent history. While think tanks are commonly understood as ‘universities without students’ (Weaver, 1989, p 564), contemporary research argues that some (advocacy) think tanks have changed their strategies in favour of PR networking, lobbying and an attempt to influence the public debate in general. It is therefore a widespread argument in the literature that think tanks have gradually changed into ‘do-tanks’ (Braml, 2006; Speth, 2006, 2010; Stone, 2007). This generalisation about think tanks worldwide holds true only to a limited extent for the four think tanks analysed in depth in this chapter.34 Think tanks conduct policy analysis in different ways and with different degrees of academic substantiation. In a nutshell, there seems to be a trade-off: the more think tanks try to influence public opinion and work as PR agencies, the weaker appears the academic robustness of the analyses provided. But there is no automatism in this development – and this development is not dependent on the source of funding. In the literature, the Bertelsmann Foundation is criticised for its assumed overwhelming influence on the public debate (Schuler, 2010). But in recent years it has intensified the academic foundation of policy analyses, despite being market-driven. In contrast, INSM moved as an advocatory think tank in the direction of a ‘do-tank’, undermining, to a certain extent, the quality of academic policy analyses. Hence, the academic foundation of policy analyses conducted by contemporary think tanks does not depend on the sources of funding, but on crucial decisions made in the headquarters of the respective think tanks. 240

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Think tanks that are mainly publicly financed, such as WZB, still meet the academic requirements of academic policy research.The same may be stated for the small WSI, the advocatory think tank of German trade unions. Both still strive for academic clarity in their policy analyses. Hence, taking all four strategies together, there is no automatism that think tanks mutate to ‘do-tanks’ in Germany, regardless of the funding sources. Of course, all think tanks want to provide policy advice – and all think tanks want to be heard in the political process. But only the INSM obviously changed its strategy, from being less a provider of academic information into being more an actor in the public debate (Speth, 2004, 2006). It is difficult to assess the impact of these different think tank strategies. Comparative assessments do provide some evidence in favour of the thesis that ‘new strategies’, that is, a more PR-orientated manifestation of think tank activities, are better heard in the public and in the decision-making process. But there seems to be no clear evidence that ‘old strategies’ of think tanks are less influential. WZB seems to be a special case here; its pure academic stance does not hinder its reputation as a policy adviser. And even the Bertelsmann Foundation has enhanced its academic substantiation of policy analyses in recent years and is still rather ‘old fashioned’ where public relations are considered. Hence, how great might the impact of think tank strategies be? How might the substantiation of conducted policy analyses influence the impact of think tanks? And, finally, how can they, under these different circumstances, ‘sell’ policy advice to the public and the decision-makers? These questions are difficult to answer empirically.What can be said, however, is that all think tanks adapt to the openness of the decision-making process in Germany, the increase of lobbying strategies and the growing importance of new media that provide new frames and opportunities for political competition. Therefore, the dualism between academic and ‘non-academic’ policy analyses is contingent. However, the situation in the US may provide a warning signal. There, alienation between ‘the beltway and the ivory tower’ increased very recently (Avey et al, 2012). As the academic world increasingly favours quantitative research strategies, and departments in the US ‘became enamoured of game and rational-choice theory’ (Heilbrunn, 2010), decision-makers in Washington DC face growing problems in understanding and/or using this kind of academic expertise. Under these circumstances, the imperative of academic success undermines a common language between the academic and ‘non-academic’ world of policy analyses – and both groups are aware of this (Avey et al, 2012). Hence, under these circumstances, ‘policymakers should avoid academics like the plague’, as Heilbrunn (2010) pointed out harshly. In Germany, such a situation is not observable – or at least not yet.

Notes The author would like to thank Patrick Simm for his marvellous research assistance! The usual disclaimer applies. 1

The ‘Think Tank Directory’ is provided on the internet by Daniel Florian (www. thinktankdirectory.org).

2

The following data refer to McGann (2011).This report is based on email surveys; hence, these data should be interpreted very cautiously.

3

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For further information, see www.swp-berlin.org/en/about-swp.html

5

For further information, see www.wgl.de

6

See www.cesifo-group.de/portal/page/portal/ifoHome

7

See www.diw.de/en

8

See www.ifw-kiel.de/kiel-institute-for-the-world-economy/view?set_language=en

For a comprehensive overview, see the list of institutes on the Leibniz Association’s website with further links to the respective institutes, at www.wgl.de/?nid=ers&nidap=&print=0

9

10

See www.mpg.de/en

11

See https://dgap.org/en

12

See www.ghst.de/english/hertie-foundation/overview

The counterpart of the WSI is the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW), the economic research think tank of German employers’ organisations (www.iwkoeln.de/en).

13

In 2007 the IWG was reorganised. Today it is fused with the Denkwerk Zukunft – Stiftung kulturelle Erneuerung [Denkwerk Zukunft – Foundation for Cultural Renewal] (www. denkwerkzukunft.de/index.php/englishdocuments), and is mainly financed through donations from industry as well as by private donations. 14

15

See www.solidarische-moderne.de (only in German).

16

See www.iza.org/en/webcontent/index_html

The survey was conducted by pluragraph.de, an agency for non-commercial social media benchmarking in the German-speaking countries (https://pluragraph.de). The report is available at www.thinktankdirectory.org/blog/2011/11/22/think-tank-socialmedia-charts

17

In a press meeting held on the establishment of WZB, critics threw stink bombs. And in many forms, academics in West Berlin feared a private challenge in the public landscape of universities. One postulation of the critics in 1969 was to ‘crush the WZB’ (Zerquetscht das WZB) (cf Harmsen, 2009). 18

19

See the information provided at www.wzb.eu/en/about-the-wzb/organization

See WZB’s press release (25 November 2011) (www.wzb.eu/en/press-release/excellentgrades-for-the-wzb) or the evaluation report (www.wzb.eu/sites/default/files/u6/ wzb_-_senatsstellungnahme_24-11-2011_mit_anlagen.pdf) (only in German).

20

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Think tanks McGann (2011) ranks Transparency International higher than the Bertelsmann Foundation. However, the Bertelsmann Foundation covers a broad range of political issues which is why it is examined here.

21

See the ‘timeline’ of the Bertelsmann Foundation, available at www.bertelsmann-stiftung. de/cps/rde/xchg/SID-6020433E-94B04EFC/bst_engl/hs.xsl/2088_9614.htm

22

The results as well as methodological considerations are available on the internet at www.sgi-network.org 23

The results as well as methodological considerations are available on the internet at www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de/en/bti 24

25

See www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de/en/crisis

The BTI takes up important aspects of the research on ‘defective democracies’ (Merkel et al, 2003, 2006) or of the research on social justice (see again, Merkel, 2002). 26

27

For further information, see www.boeckler.de/index_wsi.htm

See Tarifarchiv (www.boeckler.de/index_wsi_tarifarchiv.htm).As an attempt to use new media, the WSI (and the German trade unions) launched an internet-based empirical project to monitor the wage developments of different jobs in different regions of Germany (www.lohnspiegel.de/main).

28

29

See www.boeckler.de/wsi-tarifarchiv_7052.htm

See the report conducted by pluragraph.de at www.thinktankdirectory.org/ blog/2011/11/22/think-tank-social-media-charts

30

The Cologne Institute for Economic Research provides several policy analyses; see www.iwkoeln.de

31

32

See www.ifd-allensbach.de

33

See the information on INSM’s homepage at www.insm.de/en/The-INSM.html

In this respect, Stone’s argument goes even further as she points out that, ‘The brand name [think tanks] has been so widely used that its meaning is becoming opaque’ (Stone, 2007, p 262). A question that goes beyond the ambition of this chapter is whether we should avoid the category of think tanks in political science altogether.

34

References Allmendinger, J. (2011) WSI-Ber ic ht 2010, Berlin: Wir tschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut.

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Antal, A.B. and Kocka, J. (2009) ‘Immer einen Schritt voraus. Geschichte des WZB’, Der Tagesspiegel (www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/geschichte-des-wzb-immer-einenschritt-voraus/1468448.html). Avey, P.C., Desch, M.C., Maliniak, D., Long, J.D., Peterson, S. and Tierney, M.J. (2012) ‘The beltway vs the ivory tower’, Foreign Policy, January/February (online version). Bertelsmann Stiftung (2007) Satzung der Bertelsmann Stiftung (www.bertelsmannstiftung.de/bst/de/media/xcms_bst_dms_23917_23918_2.pdf). Bertelsmann Stiftung (2010) Soziale Gerechtigkeit in der OECD ­– Wo steht Deutschland, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann. Bertelsmann Stiftung (2011) Die Bertelsmann Stiftung auf einen Blick. 2011. Menschen bewegen. Zukunft gestalten, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung. Braml, J. (2006) ‘Wissenschaftliche Politikberatung durch Think Tanks’, in S. Falk, D. Rehfeld, A. Römmele and M. Thunert (eds) Handbuch Politikberatung, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp 255-67. Färber, G., Salm, M. and Zeitz, D. (2011) ‘Renaissance wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung? Eine Neubewertung wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung aufgrund veränderter Rahmenbedingungen und ihre Konsequenzen für die Akteure’, Zeitschrift für Politikberatung, vol 4, no 1, pp 3-13. Gesamtmetall (2011) Geschäftsbericht 2010/2011, Berlin: Gesamtmetall. Harmsen, T. (2009) ‘Am Anfang flogen Stinkbomben. Einst befehdet, heute international anerkannt: Das Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin wird vierzig Jahre alt’, Berliner Zeitung (www.berliner-zeitung.de/archiv/einst-befehdet--heuteinternational-anerkannt--das-wissenschaftszentrum-berlin-wird-vierzig-jahre-altam-anfang-flogen-stinkbomben,10810590,10620318.html). HBS (Hans Böckler Stiftung) (2011) Jahresbericht 2010, Düsseldorf: HBS (www. boeckler.de/HB1101rz.pdf). Heilbrun, J. (2010) ‘Policymakers should avoid academics like the plague’, The National Interest (online version). Immergut, E.M. (1992) Health politics: Interests and institutions in Western Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jochem, S. andVatter,A. (eds) (2006) ‘Think tanks’ (special issue), German Policy Studies/ Politikfeldanalyse, vol 3, no 2, pp 139-381. McGann, J.G. (2011) The global ‘go-to think tanks’: The leading public policy research organizations in the world,The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, International Relations Program, University of Pennsylvania (www.gotothinktank.com). Merkel, W. (2002) ‘Social justice and the three worlds of welfare capitalism’, Archives Européennes de Sociologie, vol 43, no 1, pp 59-91. Merkel, W., Puhle, H.-J., Croissant, A., Eicher, C. and Thierry, P. (2003) Defekte Demokratien.Theorien und Probleme, Band 1, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Merkel, W., Puhle, H.-J., Croissant, A. and Thierry, P. (2006) Defekte Demokratien. Regionalanalysen, Band 2, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Schroeder,W. (2003) ‘Modell Deutschland und das Bündnis für Arbeit’, in S. Jochem and N. A. Siegel (eds) Konzertierung, Verhandlungsdemokratie und Reformpolitik im Wohlfahrtsstaat. Das Modell Deutschland im Vergleich, Opladen: Leske + Budrich, pp 107-47. Schuler,T. (2010) Bertelsmannrepublik Deutschland. Eine Stiftung macht Politik, Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus Verlag.

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Siegel, N.A. (2003) ‘Die politische Ökonomie der Konzertierung in Deutschland: Das Beispiel Bündnis für Arbeit’, in S. Jochem and N.A. Siegel (eds) Konzertierung, Verhandlungsdemokratie und Reformpolitik im Wohlfahrtsstaat. Das Modell Deutschland im Vergleich, Opladen: Leske + Budrich, pp 148-93. Speth, R. (2004) Die politischen Strategien der Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft, Düsseldorf: Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (www.boeckler.de/pdf/fof_insm_ studie_09_2004.pdf). Speth, R. (2006) ‘Advokatorische Think Tanks und die Politisierung des Marktplatzes der Ideen’, betrifft: Bürgergesellschaft 24, Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Speth, R. (2010) ‘Stiftungen und Think-Tanks’, in D. Simon,A. Knie and S. Hornbostel (eds) Handbuch Wissenschaftspolitik, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag, pp 390-405. Stone, D. (2004) ‘Introduction: Think tanks, policy advice and governance’, in D. Stone and A. Denham (eds) Think tank traditions: Policy research and the politics of ideas, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, pp 1-18. Stone, D. (2007) ‘Recycling bins, garbage cans or think tanks? Three myths regarding policy analysis institutes’, Public Administration, vol 85, no 2, pp 259-78. Thunert, M. (1999) ‘Think Tanks als Ressourcen der Politikberatung. Bundesdeutsche Rahmenbedingungen und Perspektiven’, Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen, vol 12, no 3, pp 10-19. Thunert, M. (2006) ‘The development and significance of think tanks in Germany’, in S. Jochem and A.Vatter (eds) ‘Think tanks’ (special issue), German Policy Studies/ Politikfeldanalyse, vol 3, no 2, pp 185-221. Weaver, K.R. (1989) ‘The changing world of think tanks’, Political Science & Politics, vol 22, no 1, pp 563-9. Weaver, K.R. (1999) ‘The changing world of think tanks’, in T. Mijakaw (ed) The science of public policy: Essential readings in policy sciences, London and New York: Routledge, pp 267-87. Welzel, C. (2006) ‘Politikberatung durch Stiftungen’, in S. Falk, D. Rehfeld, A. Römmele and M. Thunert (eds) Handbuch Politikberatung, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp 275-89. Wernicke, J. and Bultmann, T. (eds) (2007) Netzwerk der Macht – Bertelsmann. Der medial-politische Komplex aus Gütersloh (2nd advanced edn), Marburg: BdWi: Bund demokratischer Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler-Verlag. Zunker, A. (2006) ‘Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik: Die Neu-Berlinerin’, in S. Falk, D. Rehfeld,A. Römmele and M.Thunert (eds) Handbuch Politikberatung,Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, pp 363-73.

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Non-university research institutes: between basic research, knowledge transfer to the public and policy analysis Martin Thunert

Introduction Germany has a long tradition of academic and applied research conducted outside universities but sometimes at arm’s-length distance to or in close collaboration with the academic world, dating back to the founding of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in 1911. To a very large degree these non-university or extramural research institutes get their core institutional funding from public sources.These research institutes and their academic expert staff – many of whom hold cross-appointments or adjunct status at universities – are one external source of policy analysis and policy advice in an increasingly diverse group of information providers located inside and outside the federal government in Berlin. Inside the German federal government, bodies as diverse as upper echelon ministerial civil servants, policy-planning units, the staff of parliamentary committees, Enquete-Kommissionen (legislative research committees), parliamentary research services and various arm’s-length advisory councils as well as auditing and accounting offices provide policy-relevant information and analysis. A special group of in-house actors conducting policy analysis and providing policy advice in Germany are so-called Ressortforschungseinrichtungen (departmental research institutes), which operate at arm’s-length distance from the career civil service. Outside government, actors such as think tanks, operating foundations, party foundations and party research foundations play a similar role to research institutes and the academic experts working therein.1 There is clearly a huge overlap between so-called ‘academic think tanks’ (see Chapter 16, this volume) and many non-university research institutes. Like academic think tanks, research institutes can be university adjuncts or extramural.2 As a matter of fact, a significant number of academic think tanks portrayed elsewhere in this volume are members of large extramural research organisations such as the Leibniz Association (discussed later). Henceforth, the funding structures, organisation, staff recruiting procedures, mission statements and dissemination patterns of non-university research institutes resemble those of academic think tanks. Like academic think tanks, extramural research institutes conduct policy-relevant research and analysis, which is often interdisciplinary, of national, if not international, importance and team-oriented. On the other hand, applied policy research and active involvement in political consultancy are much less central to the mandate of most non-university research institutes than to that of academic think tanks.

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This chapter focuses exclusively on research organisations and research institutes in Germany that are academic institutions, but that exist organisationally independent of universities, working both at arm’s-length distance and in close collaboration with them. Introductory insights are provided into the German research landscape regarding research institutes conducting policy-relevant work. Some of the most important research organisations and a few selected individual institutes are introduced, and the characteristics, developments and trends of policy analysis conducted by research institutes examined.

Extramural research landscape in Germany The German extramural research landscape is vast. Perhaps the best overview to date is provided online by Deutschland denkt (Germany Thinks).3 This online portal provides introductory insights into the German research landscape (mostly outside universities) and it profiles approximately 100 selected research institutes that are both engaged in the dialogue between research and the public and have an interdisciplinary and international orientation.4 In addition, the Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen (Alliance of German Science Organisations) is an informal group comprising the most important German science organisations. Its objective is to facilitate joint discussion and consultation, and it issues statements on research policy topics at irregular intervals. Members with particular policy relevance include: • • • • •

Leibniz-Gemeinschaft (Leibniz Association) Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Max Planck Society) Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (Fraunhofer Society) Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft (Helmholtz Association) of German research centres Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina)

The following overview introduces some of these organisations and their most policy-relevant institutes.5

Leibniz Association The Leibniz Association is the largest research umbrella organisation in Germany. Founded in 1995, it represents 86 extramural research institutes and four associated members in all areas of science. The member institutes are located across all of the 16 Länder (federal states) of Germany. According to its current president, Karl Ulrich Mayer,6 ‘Leibniz institutes cover the whole spectrum from basic to applied science, provide important research infrastructure and are heavily engaged in policy advice and the transmission of science to the larger public’ (Leibniz Association, 2010).The Association (as of 2009) has a total budget of €1.2 billion; third party funding amounted to €245 million. The total staff working at its institutes amounts to close to 14,000, 45 per cent of whom are researchers/scientists and doctoral students. The Leibniz institutes’ most important collaborative partners are universities, both in Germany and abroad. In addition, many Leibniz institutes maintain close collaborative links with industry and support knowledge and technology transfer. Selected member institutes of the Leibniz Association with strong policy relevance (among others) are as follows:7 248

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• • • • • • • • • • • •

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Potsdam German Research Institute for Public Administration (FÖR), Speyer German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIO-HSFK), Frankfurt IFO Institute for Economic Research (IFO), University of Munich Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), Kiel Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), Halle Rhenish-Westphalian Institute for Economic Research (RWI), Essen Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB) Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning (IRS), Erkner (outside Berlin).

Most of these institutes can be characterised as academic think tanks and are thus introduced as a group in Chapter 16 with one exception, namely, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). PIK was founded in 1992 and is a non-profit organisation. It is a member of the Leibniz Association and is funded to a roughly equal extent by the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the federal state of Brandenburg. In 2011, it received about €10.8 million in institutional funding and €225,000 from the FRG’s economic stimulus packages and the European Regional Development Fund. Additional project funding from external sources amounted to around €10.2 million. It currently has around 340 employees.

Max Planck Society and Max Planck Institutes The Max Planck Society is arguably Germany’s most successful organisation for ‘basic’ or ‘fundamental’ research (Grundlagenforschung). Since its establishment in 1948,8 no fewer than 17 Nobel laureates have emerged from the ranks of its scientists, putting it on a par with the best and most prestigious research institutions worldwide. The Max Planck Society currently operates 80 research institutions in Germany as well as abroad.The Max Planck Institutes (MPIs) are primarily active in the natural sciences and the life sciences, but also in the humanities and social sciences: there are seven MPIs in the social sciences and eight in jurisprudence. MPIs are independent and autonomous in the selection and conduct of their research pursuits.To this end, they have their own, internally managed budgets, which can be supplemented by third party project funds. The quality of the research carried out at the institutes must meet the Max Planck Society’s excellence criteria.To ensure that this is the case, their research activities undergo regular quality reviews. Short-term policy relevance is not an objective of most MPIs. However, as the Max Planck Society is a non-profit research organisation, its scientists are obliged to make the results of their work accessible to the general public. This knowledge transfer occurs in a number of ways: each year scientists and researchers at the Max Planck Society publish more than 12,000 scientific articles in renowned national and international scientific journals, databases, specialised textbooks, reference books and so on. More than 9,000 junior scientists and researchers work at its institutes. After completing their studies, they go on to assume responsible positions in business, politics and society. 249

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Policy-relevant MPIs in the social sciences and jurisprudence are: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale Research on Collective Goods, Bonn Demographic Research, Rostock Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen Economics, Jena Human Development, Berlin Study of Societies, Cologne Intellectual Property and Competition Law, Munich International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law, Luxembourg Foreign and International Criminal Law, Freiburg Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg European Legal History, Frankfurt am Main Social Law and Social Policy, Munich Tax Law and Public Finance, Munich.

In the following, two examples are discussed. First, the Max-Planck-Insitut für Gesellschaftsforschung (MPIfG, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies). MPIfG in Cologne is one of Germany’s most prestigious research institutes in the social sciences, created in 1985. It investigates connections between economic, social and political action and conducts basic research aimed at an empirically based theory of the social and political foundations of modern economic systems. Taking an institutional perspective as their point of departure, approximately 50 MPIfG research team members study the ways in which markets and economic organisations have emerged from historical/institutional, political and cultural contexts. It claims to bridge the gap between theory and policy, and contributes to policy discussions on the central issues of modern societies. MPIfG participates in numerous international cooperative research projects, thus distinguishing itself with a wide-ranging, global network of research institutes. About 80 per cent of its financing comes from public funds from the federal and state governments. This funding pattern, by and large, applies to MPIs in general: In addition to the grants provided by the German federal government and its states for institutional support, the Max Planck Society and its institutes receive project funding from the German government and state ministries, from the European Union, grants from private individuals, in the form of membership fees, donations and remuneration for services rendered.9

The second example discussed is the Max-Planck-Insitut für Meteorologie (MPI-M, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology), an internationally renowned institute for climate research. Its mission is to understand the Earth’s changing climate. Scientists at MPI-M are investigating what determines the sensitivity of the Earth system to perturbations such as the changing composition of its atmosphere, and are working towards establishing the sources and limits of predictability within the Earth system. MPI-M is developing and analysing sophisticated models of the Earth system, which simulate the processes within the atmosphere, land and ocean. Such models have 250

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developed into important tools for understanding the behaviour of our climate, and they form the basis for international assessments of climate change. Targeted in-situ measurements and satellite observations complement the model simulations.Together with several other non-university research institutions such as PIK as well as a number of smaller environmental think tanks, MPI-M has been a key adviser to governments and the public on the issue of climate change.

Fraunhofer Society Fraunhofer is Europe’s largest application-oriented research organisation. Fraunhofer – or the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft as it is also known – undertakes applied research that is directly useful to industry, the service sector, and also to public administration. Research efforts are geared to subjects such as health, security, communication, energy and the environment. There are more than 80 research units, including 60 Fraunhofer institutes, at different locations in Germany. The majority of more than 20,000 staff members are qualified scientists and engineers. Fraunhofer has an annual research budget totalling €1.8 billion. Of this amount, €1.5 billion is generated through contract research. More than 70 per cent of its contract research revenue is derived from contracts with industry and from publicly financed research projects. Almost 30 per cent is contributed by the German federal and Länder governments in the form of base funding. Among the most relevant Fraunhofer institutes is the Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung (Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, ISI) in the south-western city of Karlsruhe. ISI analyses the origins and impacts of innovations. It researches the short- and longterm developments of innovation processes and the impacts of new technologies and services on society. On this basis, it is able to provide its clients from industry, politics and science with recommendations for action and perspectives for key decisions. Its expertise lies in a broad scientific competence as well as an interdisciplinary and systemic research approach. Since its inception in 1972, Fraunhofer ISI has been influential in shaping the German and international innovation landscape. Today, it employs 220 staff members, among them scientists from the fields of natural sciences, engineering, economics and social sciences who each year work on about 350 research projects.The annual budget, €21 million in 2011, is mainly earned from contracts performed for national and international public bodies, for industry and for foundations and scientific organisations.

Helmholtz Association The Helmholtz Association is Germany’s largest scientific research organisation. Its work follows the tradition of the great natural scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–94). A total of 33,634 staff members – among them 11,369 scientists – work in its 18 scientific-technical and biological-medical research centres. They carry out top-level research to identify and explore the major challenges facing society, science and the economy.Their work is divided into six strategic research fields: energy; earth and environment; health; key technologies; structure of matter; and aeronautics, space and transport. The Association’s annual budget amounts to more than €3.4 billion. The federal and Länder authorities share around 70 per cent of the total budget in 251

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a ratio of 90:10. The remaining 30 per cent is acquired by Helmholtz centres in the form of contract funding. Its activities focus on securing the long-term foundations of human life and on creating the technological basis for a competitive economy. Policy analysis is not a key preoccupation, but much of the work of its centres is – at least indirectly – policy-relevant. For example, Helmholtz research focuses on ensuring that society remains mobile and has a reliable energy supply, that future generations find an intact environment or that treatments are found for previously incurable diseases.

Leopoldina The Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina) has been fulfilling its role of providing science-based advice to society and policy-makers since its designation as the National Academy of Sciences on 14 July 2008. Ever since, it has been under the patronage of the Federal President of Germany. It works independently and is committed to acting in the public interest. It is registered as a non-profit organisation and is funded by the FRG and by the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt, where it is located in the city of Halle. With a membership of over 1,400 scientists in around 30 countries, it is both the largest academy in Germany and a supranational association. In early 2012 the Academy moved into its new headquarters in Jägerberg in Halle, a location providing enough space for it to grow into its new role as the German National Academy of Sciences.10 In addition to its headquarters in Halle, the Leopoldina has maintained an office in the government quarters of Berlin since 2009, which offers convenient proximity to policy-makers, the media as well as international delegations, firmly anchoring it close to the heart of political action in Germany. The National Academy was founded with the aim of creating a legitimised institution that would work according to scientific standards and independently of economic or political interests to address key issues of significance for the future of society, that would share its findings with policy-makers and the public, and would put these issues up for discussion on a national and international level. The wideranging expertise of its members allows the Leopoldina to voice its opinions on significant developments and the most pressing challenges of our time. In the 21st century, its primary concerns are climate change, global food security, disease control and health, demographic change, global economic systems, conflict research and the use of natural resources. Its statements and recommendations provide policy-makers with scientific analysis and evaluation on these as well as some other issues. A further key aspect of its work is early identification of major scientific developments that are likely to become important to society in the future, and providing analysis and recommendations accordingly. In this way, it hopes to help set policy-making on the right course. The National Academy is free to choose its research themes and does so based on the scope of its scientific work which is defined by its members, the presidium and its standing committees. It can also decide to respond to policy-makers’ requests, and is equally independent in appointing researchers to the working groups that produce the respective statements and recommendations. The working groups are interdisciplinary and the Leopoldina calls on further independent experts for the peer review process.

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In the wake of Leopoldina, at least two other research-oriented academies have become prominent players in the German policy advisory scene over the past 10 years, namely, acatech and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW).

acatech acatech (National Academy of Science and Engineering) represents the interests of the German scientific and technological communities, both at home and abroad. It is autonomous, independent and a non-profit agency. Its funding comes from the FRG and the German Länder. Additional sources of funding include donations and funding from third parties in relation to specific projects. It is composed of three organs: the general assembly, the senate and the executive board.The general assembly determines its objectives and working methods.The senate advises on strategic matters and, in particular, garners input from the business sector. The executive board steers the academy. Its members are elected from members of the general assembly and the senate committee.The current presidents of acatech (2012) are Henning Kagermann and Reinhard Hüttl.The current chair of the senate is Roman Herzog, former FRG President. The head office in Munich and the capital office in Berlin coordinate its work, making it accessible to the interested public. In addition, they support acatech’s networking efforts with international scientific organisations. As a working academy, it supports policy-makers and society, providing qualified technical evaluations and forward-looking recommendations. Moreover, it is determined to support knowledge transfer between science and industry and to encourage the next generation of engineers. It is working to promote sustainable growth through innovation, and its work focuses on four core areas: (i) scientific recommendations (it advises policy-makers and the public on future technology issues based on best-in-breed research); (ii) transfer of expertise (it provides a platform for exchanging excellence between the sciences and business); (iii) promotion of young scientists and engineers (it is involved in the promotion of young scientists and engineers); and (iv) a voice for science and engineering (it represents the interests of scientists and engineers at national and international levels). Its members are admitted into the organisation on the basis of their outstanding scientific achievements and excellent reputation. Since acatech deals with a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary issues in science and technology, members are drawn from engineering and the natural sciences, from humanities and social sciences.The second pillar of the academy is the senate, whose members include distinguished figures from technology-oriented business and associations and from large scientific organisations. The senators support acatech’s work and facilitate the transfer of knowledge. It is a flexible working academy and a network linking science and business. Topranking scientists are the driving force behind its core work, while experts from industry ensure a transfer of knowledge arising from practical applications in industry. They are engaged in discussing the core issues of science and technology and in studying policy questions within the context of technology policy. These issues are structured into topic-based networks from which project groups are created in which academy members work closely with external experts. The findings of the project groups are presented to policy-makers, the business sector and the interested public through scientific journals, symposia, forums and discussion panels.

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Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities11 The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW), which has had many names since its inception, can look back on an eventful past. Reconstituted in its present form in 1992 by an interstate agreement between Berlin and Brandenburg, it is carrying on the tradition of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, which was founded in 1700 by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716). From the start, it united the natural sciences and the humanities, which made it the prototype for the many academies that followed. As the largest non-university research institute for the humanities in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, BBAW preserves and reveals the region’s cultural inheritance, while also pursuing research and offering advice on issues that are crucial for the future of society and providing a forum for dialogue between scholarship and public. Academy members are often academics working in academic think tanks or in policy advisory councils.12 The academy is active in advising government and the public on topics of particular scientific and social interest, which are explored by academy members, external experts and young researchers, and are presented for public debate in the form of research reports, memoranda and recommendations. For instance, the reports by the research group on genetic engineering laid the groundwork needed for an unprejudiced and open-minded debate on genetic technology in Germany. It has spoken up by presenting position papers on the health system and the humanities, and has taken a stand on new approaches in stem cell research. In the context of the initiatives of the National Academy, BBAW has contributed to recommendations such as those on ‘green genetic engineering’ and in setting priorities in energy research. BBAW seeks to encourage dialogue between science and society in a variety of ways. Assorted events are held to emphasise this mission, including Leibniz Day and Einstein Day, the Sophie Charlotte Salon, the Academy Lecture, the Ernst Mayr Lecture, the Special Lecture and the ZEIT Science Forum, as well as conferences on different research projects. It also publishes the journal Gegenworte, which provides a platform for debating knowledge. With its initiative in school and other individual activities, it also addresses younger audiences. In addition, it has attempted to explore and present central issues by networking with other institutions on the following annual topics: ‘Europe in the Middle East – the Middle East in Europe’ in 2007/08 and ‘Evolution in nature, technology and culture’ in 2009/10.

Research institutes and policy advice: recent developments and the current situation The potential impact of external policy research organisations, such as extramural research institutes on policy-making in Germany, depends on at least three factors (see Weaver and Stares, 2001, pp 23-6): (i) an adequate supply of top-ranking sources for scientific policy advice; (ii) a visible demand for such external advice and the willingness to at least listen to it; and (iii) the institutional capacity of governments to change policy. To analyse the latter factor is beyond the scope of this chapter. Henceforth, we now turn to factor (i) – the supply-side – as far as research institutes and their willingness and capacity to provide policy advice are concerned. Factor (ii) – the demand side – is dealt with indirectly. 254

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Availability of and demand for scientific policy advice There is little doubt that from the perspective of financing external sources of policy advice, the overall conditions for the growth and sustainability of extramural research institutes with policy relevance in Germany have been good, in some respects, very good. Before and after German reunification, there has been a sustained and mostly growing commitment to the public funding of policy-relevant research centres at both the federal and Länder level of government.Therefore, many, if not most, publicly funded research institutes with a potential for policy advice operate on a solid and predictable legal and financial base and are able to attract qualified and credentialed researchers, scholars and scientists.The fact that some of the publicly funded research institutes in Germany – especially in economic, environmental and security policy – are among the best-funded in the world should also serve as an indicator that there is general willingness on the demand-side (governments, parliaments and the larger public in a federal state) to value independent scientific policy advice in principle, and to create institutional practices by which policy-relevant scientific knowledge is deliberated, validated and challenged. To an outside observer, the degree of public and government support for extramural research in Germany – sometimes with more, sometimes with less, policy relevance – can be puzzling, especially when taking into account that the research areas of some extramural institutes may indeed overlap. The legacy of German history as well as mental and cultural predisposition within the research community can be important variables for explaining the role and self-image of extramural research institutes as well as other policy-relevant institutions with a strong research focus. Germany’s ‘broken’ past with periods of totalitarian (Nazi period) and authoritarian (Imperial Germany and German Democratic Republic) government did not discredit the idea that research – especially policy-relevant research – should be provided by a publicly financed infrastructure. What was discredited by German history is government-controlled and government-driven research, but not the idea of a public infrastructure for both basic and policy-relevant research per se.The dominant German narrative was that of a plurality of voices and perspectives – most of which were supposed to be technical rather than ideological and partisan – under the umbrella of a public research infrastructure. Overlapping research areas were not seen as a problem – not even as a waste of money – but rather as an expression of a diverse research landscape outside the control of both government and vested private interests. In the decades following the Second World War, Germany rejected both the ideas of a single academy controlled by the government as well as the notion of research as competition of largely private organisations in an unregulated marketplace of ideas. German research and advisory arrangements were designed in a corporatist style and were supposed to assemble all perspectives in any given policy field. The ideological competition of partial and even partisan advisory organisations in a largely private marketplace of ideas was not part of the original design. Rather, most members of the expert community as well as members of the political class and of the public at large still seem to prefer a policy expert, displaying an exceptionally strong scholarly disposition (Wissenschaftlichkeit), which is expressed in his or her equidistance from both the government and the private sector. By and large, many members of extramural research institutes seem to mirror this image.

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Significant changes have occurred, however, and are still occurring: with the reinvention of Leopoldina and the creation of advisory bodies such as acatech, strong forces in the current German government and among elites in the research community seem to be willing to move away from the corporatist tradition and to prefer the concentration of high-level advisory functions in one or a small number of dedicated organisations enjoying a somewhat privileged or ‘semi-official’ status in advising government. As demonstrated below, some of these new and reinvented organisations are, at the same time, trying hard to transfer research findings to the public debate and to engage the interested public in debates and direct public participation in policy-planning. In a parallel development, more money than before is being spent by private sources – partly through charitable foundations and operating foundations, partly by corporations, private consultancies and individual donors directly – to conduct policy-relevant research. Initially, these new players certainly had advantages in communicating and marketing their research findings and their thematic priorities all to policy-makers, the media and to the general public, but a number of overhauled public research organisations, whether extramural institutes or academic think tanks, have caught up in terms of communication and knowledge transfer, and their reliance on state funding has so far not proven to be a disadvantage (see also Thunert, 2013).

Rediscovering policy advice as a mission Since the 1990s we have witnessed the (re)discovery of policy analysis and advice, knowledge transfer between scientists and practitioners and public policy dialogue with a lay public as a core mission by organisations traditionally devoted to ‘pure’ advanced research, such as the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina or BBAW and new academies.13 Unlike before, many extramural research institutes now embrace policy advice and knowledge transfer as a core task in their mission statements. Despite the existing uncertainties in many areas of scientific knowledge, more and more members of research institutes have become willing to provide guidance for political decision-makers. This process has been especially visible with regard to Leopoldina and its sister academies as well as with economic research, climate research and area studies institutes of the Leibniz Association, but also with selected Max Planck and Fraunhofer Institutes. Here are some recent examples to illustrate this process.

Policy shapers: Leopoldina and selected Max Planck Institutes Leopoldina has been fulfilling its role of providing science-based advice to society and policy-makers since its appointment as the National Academy of Sciences on 14 July 2008. In this capacity, it works closely with acatech and BBAW as well as with the Länderakademien represented in the Union der deutschen Akademien der Wissenschaften (Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities). Leopoldina created new academy workgroups on issues such as ageing, energy and predictive genetic diagnostics.After an internal review process, it issues science-based recommendations and statements that are addressed to political institutions and the interested general public.14 Two recent examples may serve as testimony of its possible direct policy influence: its statement on the energy and research policy implications of the nuclear disaster in the Japanese prefecture of Fukushima in Spring 2011 had an impact on the work and recommendations of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Ethics Commission 256

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on a Safe Energy Supply. Another statement published in 2011 focusing on preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) was met with great interest among members of the German Bundestag and was widely discussed in the media and in society. In a guest column for the national daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Speaker (President) of the German Bundestag, Norbert Lammert, acknowledged the usefulness of Leopoldina’s expert submission on the complicated issue of PGD for parliamentary deliberation.According to Lammert, Leopoldina’s written expertise was concise, based on thorough research and accompanied by an oral briefing of members of parliament of just one hour (see Lammert, 2011, pp 2-3). On 26 July 2012 Leopoldina made national front-page headlines – rare for a research institute – with a recommendation that was issued by 20 members who are respected natural scientists. They argued against the use of bio-fuels as a renewable energy source in the struggle to reduce CO2 emissions.15 With this high-profile recommendation, Leopoldina is in opposition not only to domestic advisory bodies such as the Bio-Economy Council, but also to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which both support bio-energy.

Climate research Nowhere has the policy impact of extramural research institutes been more visible than in the area of climate research. In 1992 the FRG set up the Wissenschaftlicher Beirat Globale Umweltveränderung (German Advisory Council on Global Change, WBGU) as an independent, scientific advisory body in the run-up to the Rio Earth Summit. WBGU publishes flagship reports every two years, making its own choice of focal themes. In addition, the German government can commission the council to prepare special reports and policy papers. Five of the nine council members – including its chair, Professor Schellnhuber, Director of PIK – belong either to PIK, to a Fraunhofer institute, to the German Development Institute or to the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Essen. Another non-German member belongs to a similar nonuniversity institute in Austria.The Beijing Institute of Technology has tried to measure the direct and indirect influence of climate change research institutions on the global climate change negotiation process by ranking more than 300 institutes worldwide (CEEP-BIT, 201216).Whereas most of the top-ranked institutions are US and British research universities, PIK, a member of the Leibniz Association, is among the four top-ranked German institutions followed by universities and smaller environmental think tanks. If the judgement of scientific peers (see von Storch, 2011;Weingart, 2012) is to be believed, the research institutes with the highest policy relevance working on the issue of climate change are non-university institutes like PIK, and MPIs like MPI-M.Their recommendations have become the official framework for the climate change policies of the FRG.

Engaging in policy dialogue forums In recent years – and triggered by scandals as well as by citizens’ resistance against large-scale infrastructure projects such as the building of new runways at major airports (Frankfurt, Berlin and Munich) or the reconstruction of Stuttgart’s main train station, the federal government in Germany and some Länder governments have become more interested in using novel ways to engage citizens in policy dialogues, including both crowdsourcing and ‘town hall’ meetings, as well as finding new ways of merging more 257

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traditional expert knowledge with the ‘wisdom of crowds’. Research organisations, research institutes and their members are key members of expert policy dialogues, as the following examples demonstrate: • Innovation Dialogue: on behalf of Chancellor Angela Merkel, acatech was commissioned to set up an ‘Innovation Dialogue’ between government departments, members of parliament, scientific organisations and the German business community to foster innovation in science and technology (see http:// innovationsberatung.acatech.de). • Chancellor’s Dialogue on Germany’s Future: the Chancellor’s Dialogue on Germany’s Future, launched by Chancellor Angela Merkel at the end of 2011, is divided into a non-public Experts Dialogue and a public National Dialogue. As part of the Experts Dialogue, suggestions for the future design of Germany’s economy and society within the next five to ten years are being developed by a total of 18 interdisciplinary working groups comprising roughly 120 experts. Regardless of current issues and trends, it offers the opportunity to discuss fundamental questions and perspectives of a desirable future for Germany – without restrictions in the choice of subjects or proposed solutions.17 Leading members of research organisations and institutes described above have been participants in the Experts Dialogue. For example, Professor Marion A. Weissenberger-Eibl, Director of ISI, is the expert heading the working group ‘Innovation culture’. The final report of the Experts Dialogue was submitted to the Chancellor at the end of August 2012.

Evaluation and quality control: research excellence and/or policy relevance? The (re)discovery of policy research and policy advice as a core mission for research institutes was accompanied and in some cases preceded by the institutionalisation of quality control mechanisms for extramural policy advice organisations. In contrast to many think tanks – including some academic think tanks from the Leibniz Association – publicly funded research institutes are subject to evaluation and quality control by the Wissenschaftsrat (German Science Council).18 Starting in the early 1990s – and as a consequence of German unification – the FRG and Länder governments asked the Science Council to evaluate individual research institutes or entire groups of research organisations such as the Leibniz Association. This set in motion a process of evaluation of the research quality of nearly all federally funded research institutes. The first round of this evaluation process was mostly completed a decade later, and resulted in the almost complete overhaul of organisational structures, methodological approaches and academic aspirations experienced by some of Germany’s largest expert advice institutes.19 However, only in a few cases have federally funded research institutes been shut down or lost their status as a research institution by being downgraded to a service institution.20 The evaluation criteria applied by the Science Council are essentially guided by the same criteria commonly used for science evaluations, such as the originality of the research programmes, publications (preferably in peerreviewed journals), patents, number of doctorates, etc. (Stucke, 2011, pp 164-5)

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In some cases other criteria such as knowledge transfer were also employed to do justice to the specific missions of policy-relevant research institutes. Nevertheless, the evaluation criteria were less geared to improve the proximity of researcher institutes to the ‘real world of policy-making’ and the policy agenda or to increase the public visibility of research institutes and their products, but more to enhance the international academic standing and scientific credibility of some extramural research institutes.While it can be argued with some certainty that the latter objective has, in many cases, been achieved by the evaluation process, it is doubtful whether the evaluation process with its dominance of purely academic criteria has improved the capacity of extramural research institutes to become more relevant for actual policy-making.

Scientific policy advice in democratic society: guidelines and debates The dilemma of finding suitable and appropriate criteria to evaluate the work of research institutes with a policy advice mandate has triggered a larger debate about the role of scientific policy advice in a democratic society. This debate found its institutional form in the Working Group on Policy Advice under the auspices of BBAW which met, deliberated and reported between 2004 and 2008.21 Arguably the most important contribution of the BBAW Working Group on Policy Advice and policy analysis in Germany, and perhaps beyond, has been the drafting of the manifesto Leitlinien Politikberatung (Guidelines for policy advice) published by BBAW in 2008 (Ash et al, 2008). As a consequence of the double-edged character of policy-relevant expert knowledge, the Working Group orientation guide recommends intermediary consulting bodies accountable to both the world of science and scholarship as well as to the world of political decision-making. Or, in the words of a leading member of the Working Group, Peter Weingart, in order to become policy-relevant, scientific knowledge needs to be both epistemically and politically robust at the same time (see Weingart and Lentsch, 2008, pp 42-52). The BBAW-issued standards for good scientific policy advice are now binding for most publicly funded research institutes in Germany, and include independence, transparency, participation and disclosure of uncertainties and conflict of interests (see BBAW, 2006). However, different groups in the scientific community and in the policy community seem to draw different conclusions from the BBAW orientation guide and on the relationship between expertise and political power described therein: some members of the BBAW Working Group suggested regulating the utilisation of expert knowledge – primarily, but not exclusively, in the natural sciences – by decision-making bodies. At the moment, decision-making bodies as well as individual politicians and administrators are more or less free in their choice of experts and research institutes they wish to consult or to appoint to numerous positions in advisory councils or government commissions. In most cases, those who commission policy analysis from research institutes and their experts are free to pay attention or to ignore their advice. There is only one prominent case where the FRG is legally obliged to react and respond officially to an advisory body – the annual economic report of the nonpartisan Council of Economic Experts (CEE), delivered in mid-November of each year. The FRG is obliged to make a statement to the Bundestag on the content and analysis of the CEE annual report. BBAW wants this to become standard practice for the reports and evaluation of each and every official advisory body. 259

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Other members of the BBAW Working Group have actually gone further in their preference for regulation: they would like to restrict the freedom of decision-makers to appoint experts of their choice to official advisory bodies; rather, they would like bodies such as academies of sciences or professional associations of academics to maintain shortlists of the most distinguished and best qualified experts on any given topic of policy-relevant expertise. Many of these experts would be members of extramural research institutes. When choosing the expert members of advisory bodies, politicians and administrations would be obliged to adhere to the experts named on these shortlists. Most politicians, on the other hand, would like to keep as much control in the outcome of advisory processes as possible, and would therefore resist any restrictions put on them by the regulation of expertise.

Conclusion Policy-relevant research institutes ideally provide issue-specific expert information to democratically legitimised decision-makers and their staff in the executive and legislative branches of government. In addition, they provide information to other stakeholders and to society at large. Research institutes and their academically trained staff have a somewhat special position, when policy-making and policy analysis in a liberal democracy such as Germany are concerned. Unlike civil servants in government, they are not obliged to represent an official position they might not agree with. Unlike politicians and representatives of advocacy-oriented and interestbased organisations, they are free from the pressure of producing immediate results to the liking of their constituents and clients. While this position gives research institutes the opportunity to arrive at policy-relevant research findings and policy recommendations that are the result of careful analysis, the fact that they are relieved of the duty to fight in the trenches of governance and delivering public policy results entails the risk of becoming irrelevant, or at least less relevant, to policy-making.The picture of research institute academics sitting comfortably in their extramural ivory towers attempting to create knowledge aimed at creating a nearly perfect world is well-known and sometimes justified. Indeed, a number of incentives work against the policy relevance not just of university-based academics, but also of research institutes: the pressure for young scientists in extramural research institutes to publish as much as possible in the shortest period of time in prestigious and peer-reviewed scientific journals is as strong as on their colleagues at university departments. Often this research gets caught up in minor questions set by the narrow agenda of the research group leader and sometimes independent intellectual curiosity is lacking. In addition, pressure from grant-giving organisations such as the European Union to work in large research networks can stifle competition between research institutes for ideas and solutions. Given the structure and ethos prevailing in the German research infrastructure, research institutes and their scientific staff may not be the best-suited institutions to balance substance and politics. Research institutes usually have a deep understanding of the general policy relevance of the issues on which they work and have a desire to create the most efficient, elegant or comprehensive solution to any given challenge they work on. But research institutes do not usually care much about the political process. They relish making the world a better place, but they rarely care about how to win politically.Thus, research institutes often lack an appreciation for what is politically feasible at any given time. They toil in the world of ‘first best’ 260

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solutions and often scorn political decision-makers for embracing policy options that sacrifice substance for the sake of the politically feasible. Despite these seeming disadvantages of research institute experts in influencing policy-making, there is a broad consensus in the German scholarly community that policy experts should be closely tied to academic institutions and academic practices. Representatives of this school of thought – among them not only natural scientists, but also many economists and international relations specialists – argue that if institutions want to ensure a steady flow of academic talent to applied policy research, both the profession itself and the policy side need to treat publications in refereed journals and good policy advice with equal respect (see, for example, Hellmann and Rudolf, 2007; Schmidt, 2007).Thus, it can be predicted with some confidence that a majority of researchers working in extramural and university-affiliated institutes will refrain from conducting policy analysis and policy-relevant research in a narrower sense. They will continue to conduct research independent of the current policy agenda. But as this chapter has shown, there is a growing number of research institutes and their leaders who are well aware of the pitfalls of scientific policy advice, but who engage in it nevertheless. Germany today features research institutes and some of their staff, especially, but not exclusively, working on economic issues, on climate change, environmental policy and to a lesser extent on foreign and security policy, who at least have the potential to occupy the space between pure ivory tower academia on the one hand, and practical policy-making and policy advocacy on the other. Some of these research institutes and at least some of their members are interested in policy inquiry and committed to the transfer of scientific knowledge into policy-relevant knowledge. While they refrain from becoming policy-makers, some accept or even embrace their role as knowledge-brokers, agenda-setters and policy-shapers. While extramural research institutes have not been a traditional home to this new brand of policy researcher and policy entrepreneur, some institutes mentioned in this chapter, as well as the increasing number of schools of public policy and governance, and operating foundations and think tanks, will provide a fertile ground for an emerging non-university policy research community in Germany.22 Nevertheless, extramural research institutes are by no means in a privileged position to provide much needed policy analysis and policy advice. They are but one, albeit a very important, component of an emerging ‘third community’ – located between ivory tower academe and the political world, of policy-aware research institutes, think tanks, academic experts and policy advocates which have reluctantly accepted that the scientific knowledge they attempt to create is only one among several types of evidence that decision-makers and their advisers take into account in the process of policy analysis and policy-making. The big asset of extramural research institutes and academics is that their work meets international academic standards. But think tanks blurring the line between academic research and policy advocacy are perhaps in a better position to narrow the gap between the world of policy ‘wonks’ and the world of political ‘hacks’ because they are in equidistance between policy and politics. Decision-makers in Germany do not suffer from a lack of available expertise provided by research institutes, academies, think tanks and in-house consulting bodies. Members of parliament do not expect experts to relieve them of the duty to make binding public policy decisions. Members of parliament as well as government officials are sometimes frustrated when academic experts from research institutes or universities cannot give them what they desire most: practical answers to pressing 261

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policy questions in a reasonable amount of time. They expect experts to inform and advise them to the best of their knowledge, to show them alternative courses of action, but never to make decisions. Majorities decide in a parliamentary democracy, but their decisions cannot be based on what might or might not be the truth from a scientific perspective. In a liberal parliamentary democracy such as Germany, majority trumps truth.

Notes For a full overview of the German policy advice and policy research landscape, see Thunert (2001, 2013) as well as the handbook on policy advice and political consulting by Falk et al (2006).

1

Other policy-relevant research institutes can be departments of non-profit organisations, interest groups, political parties, societal organisations or commercial actors such as corporations and large financial institutions. 2

3

See www.goethe.de/wis/fut/prj/for/enindex.htm

For a list of research centres from A to Z, see www.goethe.de/wis/fut/prj/for/for/ enindex.htm

4

Disclaimer: some paragraphs and phrases in the following sections have been adapted from institutes’ websites or from their promotional literature. 5

Karl Ulrich Mayer is Stanley B. Resor Professor of Sociology at Yale University, New Haven, CT.

6

Some of these institutes can be counted as academic think tanks and are portrayed in Chapter 16.

7

8

Its pre-Second World War forerunner was the Kaiser Wilhelm Society.

9

See www.mpg.de/186435/Facts_Figures

The FRG and the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt financed the purchase and refurbishment of the property.

10

BBAW is the acronym for Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. The German term Wissenschaften includes the natural and life sciences, engineering, the humanities and social sciences.

11

See, for example, the members of the class of social sciences of BBAW (www.bbaw.de/ die-akademie/mitglieder/sortierung-nach-klassen?klasse=SW).

12

On the issue of a renaissance of scientific policy advice in general, see also Färber et al (2011). 13

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Non-university research institutes See http://www.leopoldina.org/en/publications/statements-and-recommendations/ and http://www.leopoldina.org/en/policy-advice/science-for-politics-and-society/

14

See, among others, ‘Nationalakademie Leopoldina warnt vor Biokraftstoff ’ (‘NA L warns against biofuels’), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 26 July 2012, p 1. 15

Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology (CEEP-BIT): Climate Change Research Institute Rankings 2012, 21 July 2012, see http:// sme.bit.edu.cn/docs/20120724100852283332.pdf 16

The second pillar, the National Dialogue, began in February 2012. On its internet platform (www.dialog-ueber-deutschland.de) citizens put forward their own suggestions for discussion until mid-April 2012. In addition, the Chancellor discussed the central issues of the Dialogue on Germany’s Future with interested citizens in three public events (US-style town hall meetings) in the cities of Erfurt, Heidelberg and Bielefeld with 100 participants each. The results of the National Dialogue will be included in the Experts Dialogue.

17

18

For a comprehensive overview of its functions, see Stucke (2011).

In the meantime, evaluation of extramural research institutes with a policy research role has become a regular procedure. In most cases, evaluations of institutes occurs in seven-year intervals.

19

One such example is the Hamburg World Economic Archive (HWWA), which was downgraded to the status of a documentary service institute. However, HWWA’s research was privatised and re-launched as the Hamburgisches Welt Wirtschafts Institut (HWWI, Hamburg Institute of International Economics) a few years later. 20

The work of the working group is summarised in Weingart and Lentsch (2008) and Lentsch and Weingart (2009, 2011).

21

The development of applied policy research in Germany is discussed in the edited volume by Glaab and Korte (2012).

22

References Ash, M.G., Hüttl, R.F., Kielmansegg, P.G., Kurth, R., Mayntz, R., Münkler, H., Neidhardt, F., Pinkau, K., Renn, O., Schmidt-Aßmann, E. and Weingart, P. (2008) Leitlinien Politikberatung, Berlin: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaft (BBAW). BBAW (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften) (2006) Standards and ‘best practice’ of scientific policy advice, Akademie-Debatten, Berlin: BBAW. Brinckmann, A. (2004) ‘Wissenschaftliche Politikberatung in den 60er Jahren. Die Studiengruppe für Systemforschung, 1958-1975’ Dissertation, Hamburg University. Cohn, D. (2007) ‘Academics and public policy: Informing policy analysis and policy making’, in L. Dobuzinkskis, M. Howlett and D. Lacock (eds) Policy analysis in Canada, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp 574-98. 263

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Falk, S., Rehfeld D., Römmele,A. and Thunert, M. (eds) (2006) Handbuch Politikberatung, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Färber, G., Salm, M. and Zeitz, D. (2011) ‘Renaissance wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung? Eine Neubewertung wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung aufgrund veränderter Rahmenbedingungen und ihre Konsequenzen für die Akteure’, Zeitschrift für Politikberatung, vol 4, no 1, pp 3-13. Glaab, M. and Korte, K.-R. (eds) (2012) Angewandte Politikforschung,Wiesbaden: SpringerVS. Hellmann, G. and Rudolph, P. (2007) ‘Über die Produktion von Wissen. Forschung und Beratung in den internationalen Beziehungen und in der Außenpolitik: Zwölf Thesen zur Situation in Deutschland’, Internationale Politik, May, pp 110-21. Lammert, N. (2011) ‘Wahrheiten und Mehrheiten. Wissenschaftliche Beratung parlamentarischer Willensbildung’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2 February. Leibniz Association (2010) The Leibniz Association yearbook 2010, Berlin: Leibniz Association. Lentsch, J. and Weingart, P. (eds) (2009) Scientific advice to policy making: International comparisons, Opladen and Farmington Hills, MI: Barbara Budrich Publishers. Lentsch, J. and Weingart, P. (eds) (2011) The politics of policy advice: Institutional design for quality assurance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schmidt, C. (2007) Policy evaluation and economic policy advice, IZA Discussion Paper 2700, Bonn: IZA (Institute for the Study of Labour). Storch, H. von (2011) ‘Eine Wissenschaft in der Falle der eigenen Wichtigkeit’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 28 November. Stucke, A. (2011) ‘Quality assurance through procedures – Policy advice by the German Science Council’, in J. Lentsch and P. Weingart (eds) The politics of policy advice: Institutional design for quality assurance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 157-74. Thunert, M. (2000) ‘Players beyond borders? German think tanks as catalysts of internationalization’, Global Society, vol 14, no 2, pp 191-212. Thunert, M. (2001) ‘Germany’, in R.K. Weaver and P. Stares (eds) Guidance for governance: Comparing alternative sources of policy advice, Tokyo and New York: Japan Center for International Exchange, pp 157-206. Thunert, M. (2013) ‘Expert policy advice in Germany’, in S. Brooks, D. Stasiak and T. Zyro (eds) Policy expertise in contemporary democracies, Farnham: Ashgate, pp 123-46. Wagner, G.G. (2011) ‘Quality control for the leading Institutes of Economic Research in Germany: promoting quality within and competition between the institutes’, in J. Lentsch and G.G. Wagner (eds) The politics of scientific advice. Institutional design for quality assurance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 215-28. Weaver, R. Kent and Paul B. Stares: Guidance for Governance: An Overview, in: R. Kent Weaver and Paul B. Stares: Guidance for Governance. Comparing Alternative Sources of Public Policy Advice,Tokyo and NewYork: Japan Center for International Exchange, 2001, 1-30. Weingart, P. (2012) ‘Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung – von den Möglichkeiten ganz zu schweigen’, Gegenworte, vol 27, spring. Weingart, P. and J. Lentsch (2008) Wissen-Beraten-Entscheiden. Form und Funktion wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung in Deutschland, Weilerswist: Velbrück. Wissenschaftsrat (2007) Empfehlungen zur Rolle und künftigen Entwicklung der Bundeseinrichtungen mit FuE-Aufgaben, Cologne:Wissenschaftsrat [Executive summary in English, see pp 6-15.] 264

eighteen

The role of policy analysis in teaching political science at German universities Renate Reiter and Annette Elisabeth Töller1

Introduction This chapter deals with the questions to what extent, in which way and why policy analysis has become part of programmes teaching political science at universities in Germany. The overall finding is that policy analysis has been established as part of most, but by far not of all, programmes, and also to strongly varying extents. While one third of Bachelor of Arts (BA) programmes do not contain policy analysis in an institutionalised way, two thirds of the programmes do contain modules on policy analysis. Eighteen per cent of all Master’s (MA) programmes in political science entail a special focus on public policy or policy analysis. As policy analysts, we are interested in identifying and explaining change, which means, for example, finding out whether the actual status quo of policy analysis as taught at German universities differs from the situation 10 or 25 years ago, and if so, why. The problem here is that comprehensive data on the respective study programmes are not available across time. For our analysis, we therefore complemented our data on study programmes with expert interviews with a number of people who have been involved in creating and changing programmes for teaching political science in general and policy analysis in particular since the middle of the 1980s. This chapter proceeds as follows. If policy analysis as a sub-discipline is part of actual programmes, someone has to teach it. Thus, we first look at the personal aspect of policy analysis at German universities and evaluate the share of positions at ‘professor level’, with an explicit denomination for this sub-discipline.We then look at the study programmes, focusing on whether and how much policy analysis is part of German BA programmes and how many and which of the MA programmes have an explicit focus on policy analysis/public policy. Since up to this point we have only presented a snapshot of today’s policy analysis at universities, in the next section we try to identify change over time (when policy analysis was established) and by doing so, develop an understanding of why policy analysis was established as part of teaching political science at universities. The conclusion follows.

Personal resources for teaching policy analysis: chairs for policy analysis If policy analysis is being taught in the context of BA and MA programmes, someone has to do this. Thus, a stocktaking of professorships with an explicit denomination

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for policy analysis could help identify the personal resources that exist to teach this sub-discipline.

Data and methods We started from a list provided by the German Political Science Association (DVPW, Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft) including all chairs for political science in Germany, which total about 390. In this list we identified a number of chairs with an explicit denomination for Politikfeldanalyse (literally, policy field analysis), ‘PolicyAnalyse’, Staatstätigkeits(forschung) (literally, state-activity research) or ‘public policy’ or one of these in combination with some other issues. We added three more chairs with such a denomination that were not included in the original list (see Table 18.1).

Results Table 18.1 displays the results of our empirical endeavour. We identified 21 chairs with a denomination for policy analysis at 14 universities.There is a remarkable clustering Table 18.1: Chairs with a denomination for policy analysis Institution

Chair dedication according to official homepage

1 University of Bamberg 2 University of Bremen 3 University of Bremen 4 Technical University of Darmstadt 5 University of Erfurt 6 FernUniversität in Hagen 7 University of Halle-Wittenberg 8 University of Hannover 9 Hertie School of Governance 10 Hertie School of Governance 11 University of Konstanz 12 University of Konstanz 13 University of Lüneburg 14 LMU Munich 15 LMU Munich 16 University of Münster 17 University of Münster 18 University of Potsdam 19 University of Potsdam 20 University of Tübingen 21 University of Tübingen

Political science, particularly international comparative policy analysis Policy analysis Public and social policy Administrative science, public policy, local/regional political research Public policy (Franz Haniel Chair of Public Policy) Policy analysis Comparative government and policy research Political science, research area ‘Policy analysis and administrative science’ Public policy Public administration and public policy Political science, particularly policy analysis and political theory Comparative policy research and administrative science Political theory and policy analysis Empirical political research and policy analysis Global governance and public policy German politics and policy analysis Comparative policy research and methods of empirical social science International organisations and policies Administration and policy Political economic and comparative policy analysis Policy analysis and political economics

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of specialised chairs: at seven universities there are two chairs with a denomination for policy analysis: at the University of Bremen, the Hertie School of Governance, the University of Konstanz, Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU), the Universities of Münster, Potsdam and Tübingen. Even though the number of 390 chairs in political science is an educated guess rather than a reliable figure, this would mean that only a little more than 5 per cent of all chairs in political science specialise in policy analysis.

Discussion There are, however, a number of problems with these data. The first is that we can expect most people in a position that has a denomination for policy analysis to do research and teach in this field. Yet, there are other people who are definitely members, if not forerunners of the German policy analysis community, but who have a position with a more general denomination, not reflecting their specific interest in policy analysis. Manfred G. Schmidt, one of the founding fathers of the field of (comparative) policy analysis ([vergleichende] Staatstätigkeitsforschung) in Germany, is one example. Nils Bandelow, one of the editors of the journal German Policy Studies, belongs to this category, as do Volker Schneider and Winand Gellner, who have both published textbooks on policy analysis. Neither of them has a chair with a dedication specialising in policy analysis or public policy.The second problem is that unfortunately we have no data across time. Thus, even if there seems to have been an increase in positions with a dedication for policy analysis, we cannot verify or falsify this. Third, what does the existence of a chair dedicated to policy analysis tell us about the role of policy analysis in study programmes? This last question is addressed below, after we present data on the role of policy analysis in BA and MA programmes.

Policy analysis in study programmes Institutionalisation of policy analysis in Bachelor of Arts programmes When looking at study programmes, our first aim was to identify the extent to which policy analysis has been institutionalised as part of BA programmes.

Methods and data We started with a list of BA programmes provided by the DVPW, which, after removing three misallocations (MA programmes) and adding two missing programmes, contained 91 BA programmes. From this list, we removed all programmes which did not have a clear focus on political science, and ended up with a list of 70 BA programmes in political science or in political science in combination with other subjects, mostly public administration or sociology, but with a focus on political science. We then checked the curricula and looked for three different kinds of ‘manifestations’ of policy analysis: • A modules: modules fully dedicated to policy analysis and carrying policy analysis (Politikfeldanalyse, policy analysis, public policy or Staatstätigkeits[forschung]) without a further subject as part of the title.

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• B modules: modules containing policy analysis (Politikfeldanalyse, policy analysis, public policy or Staatstätigkeits[forschung]) as an issue among other things (for example, government or comparative government or public administration) or which have a title that does not mention policy analysis, but that has substantial policy-analytical content. • C modules: modules dealing with particular policy fields, for instance, social, environmental or economic policy (but excluding external relations, which we see rather connected to international relations). When analysing the role of policy analysis in curricula according to these three criteria, we depended on the description of curricula and modules as presented on the internet (in the module handbooks or similar documents). If doubts arose, we contacted the person in charge of the programme via telephone or email. There is certainly always the possibility that these formal descriptions either over- or underestimate the role of policy analysis. There might be modules which (due to their affiliation with a particular position) are labelled ‘policy analysis’ or ‘x + policy analysis’ but that only sometimes offer classes on policy analysis (for example, at the University of Halle). In such cases our data tended to overestimate the role of policy analysis. There are also programmes in which policy analysis is not a defined part of the curriculum, but is being offered in seminars or lectures on a regular basis (as, for example, at the University of Hamburg). In such cases our data underestimated the role of policy analysis. When we identified these three kinds of modules, we considered them as carrying a different degree of relevance for policy analysis.We found that a module that is fully dedicated to policy analysis (A module) reflects a stronger role for this sub-discipline than a module in which policy analysis is combined with other issues (B module), and this again reflected a stronger role of policy analysis than a module dealing with particular policy fields (C module). Thus, we allocated points to each programme, giving three points for each A module, two points for a B module and one point for a C module. After we distributed these points, we came up with four categories of programmes: • Category 0: programmes with no institutionalisation of policy analysis • Category 1–2: programmes with minor elements of policy analysis (1–2 points, thus cannot have an A module) • Category 3–4: programmes with a relevant institutionalisation of policy analysis (3–4 points) • Category 5+: programmes with a strong focus on policy analysis (5 points and more)

Results • • • •

Category 0: 32.9 per cent (23 out of 70) Category 1-2: 34.3 per cent (24 out of 70) Category 3-4: 24.3 per cent (17 out of 70) Category 5+: 8.6 per cent (6 out of 70)

As a result of this analysis, we found that roughly one third of all programmes do not contain any policy analytical elements in an institutionalised way. Another third 268

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contains minor elements, whereas one third of all 70 BA programmes in political science we looked at displayed a relevant or even strong focus on policy analysis. Table 18.2 displays the programmes belonging to category 5+. Table 18.2: Bachelor of Arts programmes that fall into the category 5+ with the strongest focus on policy analysis Programme

BA Politikwissen-schaft

University

Freie Universität Berlin University of BA Politikwissen-schaft Bremen University of BA Integrierte Bremen Europastudien BA Politik und Verwaltungs- University of Konstanz wissenschaft University of BA Politkwissen-schaft Lüneburg University of Passau BA Governance and Public Policy/Staatswissenschaften

A modules: solely policyanalytical module(s) ***

B modules: module(s) combining policy analysis with other subjects **

C modules: Module(s) on certain policies *

Number of points

0

1

4

****** (6)

2

0

1

******* (7)

1

2

0

***** (5)

0

3

0

****** (6)

2

0

0

****** (6)

2

0

3

********* (9)

Taking these results, we found that four out of six ‘5+’ programmes actually contain one or even two ‘A modules’. In two cases, the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Konstanz, we found instead one or more B modules containing a strong fraction of policy analysis among other themes, and, in the case of the Freie Universität Berlin, no less than four thematic C modules on specific policies (environment, social policy, and so on). Finally, in two cases, again the University of Bremen with its BA programme on Politikwissenschaft (Political Science) and the University of Passau, two purely policy-analytical modules are combined with additional C modules on specific policies.

Specialised Master’s programmes Our next aim was to identify the relevance of policy analysis in Master’s programmes in political science.

Methods and data Since there was no comprehensive list of political science MA programmes, we took the list of BA programmes mentioned above as a starting point. On the one hand, not all universities with a BA programme in political science also provide consecutive Master’s programmes in this discipline. On the other hand, there are some universities that do not offer a BA programme, but do offer one or more MA programmes. We 269

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found a total of 56 universities offering one or more MA programmes (consecutive and meant as advanced training) in political science, or in political science in combination with other fields such as, as is frequently the case, public management. These add up to a list of 157 MA programmes in political science or in political science combined with related fields. Based on this list we then checked the number of specialised MA programmes in policy analysis. At this step we looked for the same terms as for the BA programmes in order to identify MA programmes specialising in policy analysis. Here, we applied three criteria. MA programmes specialising in policy analysis are programmes that: • in their title have the term ‘policy analysis’ (Politikfeldanalyse, policy analysis, public policy or Staatstätigkeits[forschung]) alone or among other things (for instance, public management or governance or public administration); or • in their curriculum comprise substantial policy-analytical contents meaning that at least two of the modules of the respective programme are explicitly dedicated to policy analysis (Politikfeldanalyse, policy analysis, public policy or Staatstätigkeits[forschung]) or a specific policy field (for example, social policy); or • explicitly allow for a specialisation in policy analysis (see Table 18.3).

Results Among the 157 MA programmes at 56 universities we identified 28 specialising in policy analysis.Thus, 82 per cent of the MA programmes do not have a focus on policy analysis while 18 per cent do display such a focus. When looking at the universities, we found three different types of universities teaching policy analysis: • Type 1: at 38 universities (66.6 per cent), none of the total of 85 political science MA programmes taught specialised in policy analysis • Type 2: nine universities dedicated one political science MA programme specifically to the teaching of policy analysis • Type 3: nine universities dedicated more than one political science MA programme to the teaching of policy analysis/public policy – a total of 19 specialised MA programmes. In a regression analysis, which for reasons of space is not part of this chapter, we looked at the relationship between personal resources and specialised programmes. As could be expected (but not taken for granted), we found a statistically significant positive correlation between having a specialised chair for policy analysis and the strength of policy analysis in BA programmes as well as having a specialised MA programme.2 However, these data do not tell us anything about the direction of the causal relationship. If chairs were dedicated to policy analysis because profiled programmes required qualified staff, or because the presence of someone with an institutionalised interest in policy analysis made him/her able to realise a strong focus on his/her hobbyhorse in a new programme, this cannot be clarified by our analysis (but see the next section).

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The role of policy analysis in teaching political science at German universities Table 18.3: Master’s programmes specialising in policy analysis at German universities University

Number of specialised Master’s programmes in policy analysis

Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen 1 University of Münster 2 University of Bamberg University of Erfurt

1 2

University of Heidelberg Hertie School of Governance Freie Universität Berlin

1 2 2

Humboldt University Berlin University of Bremen

1 2

Technical University Darmstadt University of Duisburg Essen University of Hanover

1 1 1

University of Kassel

2

University of Konstanz

2

University of Passau University of Potsdam

1 3

University of Frankfurt/Oder LMU Munich

2 1

Titles of Master’s programmes

MA Public Management and Governance MA Politikwissenschaft mit Schwerpunkt Staatstätigkeit in Politikfeldern; MA European Studies MA Politikwissenschaft mit dem Schwerpunkt Politikfeldanalyse MA Staatswissenschaften, Studienrichtung Sozialwissenschaft; MA Public Policy MA Politische Wissenschaft MA Public Policy; Executive MA Public Management MA Politikwissenschaft‚ Regionalstudien und (vergleichende) Analyse von politischen Systemen und Politikfeldern Franco-German dual MA Public Policy and Management MA European Governance and Administration (MEGA) MA Politikwissenschaft ‚Politikfelder und Verwaltung MA Sozialpolitik MA Governance and Public Policy MA Politikmanagement, Public Policy and öffentliche Verwaltung MA Politikwissenschaft focused on ‘Politikfelder und Politische Verwaltung’ MA Labour Policies and Globalisation MA Politikwissenschaft focused on Sozialpolitik MA Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaft; MA Public Administration and European Governance MA Governance and Public Policy – Staatswissenschaften MA Public Policy and Administration MA Global Public Policy MA European Governance and Administration MA European Studies; MA Public Policy MA Politikwissenschaft mit Schwerpunkt Governance und Public Policy

Identifying and explaining change: teaching policy analysis before and after the Bologna process As mentioned before, our data allow for presenting a snapshot of the extent to and the ways in which policy analysis is contained in study programmes today.These data neither allow for identifying change, since we have no comparable data across time, nor do they offer any explanation for possible change. Starting from the fact that policy analysis has never been one of the ‘core fields’ of political science, but developed into a recognised sub-discipline throughout the 1980s, change must have taken place at some point between then and today. Thus, if

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we could identify at what point of time it occurred, we should also be able to make plausible suggestions as to the causes of change.

Methods and data We carried out written interviews with experts who had taught political science in general and policy analysis in particular for more than 25 years.We asked them to tell us which of our two hypotheses (combining point of change and causal mechanisms) were best suited to explain the establishment of policy analysis as part of teaching programmes, or, if neither hypothesis applied, what other explanation could be given. The following hypotheses were suggested: • HA post-Bologna hypothesis: in the former Magister and Diploma programmes there were only minor elements of policy analysis. It was the Bologna process that from the late 1990s onwards forced universities to change their programmes into BA and MA structures. This was a ‘window of opportunity’ to change not only the structure, but also the content of the programmes.The grown relevance of policy analysis within the discipline and the more practical approach of policy analysis and its usability on the labour market were reasons to strengthen policy analysis in the new programmes. • HB pre-Bologna hypothesis: the establishment of policy analysis basically took place in the 1980s and already then in part reflected the search for an orientation towards better usability of political scientific diplomas on the labour market. Bologna, in contrast, only implied minor changes regarding the content of study programmes and helped to codify and standardise the role of policy analysis. Ten out of the 14 experts we contacted replied in time. Seven stated that they found the B hypothesis to apply fully or mostly. One replied that it was rather A, one said it was both and one differentiated according to different universities (A and B). Some of the experts replied in much more detail, and thus helped us to construct the following ‘narrative’ and typology.

Results In the early 1980s policy analysis, as developed in the US more than 10 years before, reached Germany. In the political scientific community there was a huge debate as to whether or not this new approach was to be welcomed. While some political scientists cast doubts about the novelty of policy analysis altogether (see, for example, von Beyme, 1985, p 24), others were critical about the close relationship between policy research and advice. They expressed concerns that policy research – for its practical use – would obtain external research funds while the ‘core fields’ of the discipline would not (Hartwich, 1985, p 3), that the explicit integration of policy analysis into the curricula could cause a ‘depoliticisation’ of political science by neglecting the role of concepts such as power, domination and interests (Greven, 1985, p 144), and that, in the end, a disintegration of ‘institutionalists’ on the one hand, and ‘policy researchers’ on the other, would lead to a dissolution of the discipline (cf Böhret, 1985, p 217). While some found policy analysis poor in theoretical and methodological terms (Hesse, 1985, p 51), advocates of the new field welcomed this 272

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as an opportunity for professionalisation in terms of theories, methods and empirical research (cf Hartwich, 1985, p 3). A survey on the themes of political scientific research, however, conducted by Carl Böhret in 1984, revealed that already by that time roughly a quarter of all established researchers in political science were in fact working on policy analyses in a wider sense (Böhret, 1985, p 240), and the same share of academics found this to be a relevant and urgent field of future research (Böhret, 1985, p 278). However, the consequence of this development for teaching programmes was only a minor debate. While some asked ‘How could policy fields become part of a systematic political science education?’ (Hartwich, 1985, p 4), others feared ‘that to establish a policy-orientation into teaching political science would lead to a crowding out of more traditional elements of political science’ (cf Murswiek, 1985, p 84). The fear of re-distributional effects among the sub-disciplines of political science might actually have been the main reason for the Commission on the Reform of Study Programmes (established with the Conference of Federal Education Ministers [Kultusministerkonferenz, KMK] in 1982) to pay only lip service to the relevance of policy analysis in its general considerations, while the recommendations as such did not touch the issue of policy analysis (KMK, 1985). Yet, the development from the mid-1980s onwards was characterised by different paths taken by different universities. The establishment of policy analysis as part of programmes teaching political science (Diploma in some, Magister and also training for teachers in most cases) can thus be imagined as a more or less self-enforcing, path-dependent process that occurred in some, but not in other, cases in the decade between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s. At the core of this were individuals most often with a Marxist background in the widest sense, who, however, were less interested in explaining the emergence of the state out of the capitalist system and were more interested in identifying what exactly the state does (and possibly even why). These individuals started establishing classes on policy analysis at their universities. In this context, in some places specialised staff was recruited while in other places policy analysis continued to be taught by people with a focus on government in general. While there was certainly some variation as to the extent of theory integrated in policy analysis classes, teaching by then gained a focus on policy analysis and not on policy advice (as is, in part, common in the US approach). At the same time policy analysis was also integrated into the mainstream perspective on the level of textbooks on German government: in 1990 Klaus von Beyme and Manfred G. Schmidt edited a volume on Politik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Politik meaning neither polity nor politics, but policies (von Beyme and Schmidt, 1990). In 1991 Rudzio added a chapter on political tasks and their achievement to his textbook (see Rudzio, 1987; 1991, pp 385-435). In 1987 Adrienne Héritier published a first introduction to policy analysis (Windhoff-Héritier, 1987) that was followed by Klaus Schubert’s introduction in 1991 (Schubert, 1991). While throughout the early 1990s at some universities (for example, Hannover, Bremen and Konstanz) the introduction of policy analysis as part of the curricula led to an outspoken specialisation in this field, at other universities policy analysis remained one field among others, or was neglected altogether. From the late 1990s onwards, in some places with a focus on policy analysis, chairs were explicitly denominated to policy analysis or closely related issues, and thus the focus on policy analysis was institutionalised (for example, in Darmstadt, Hannover or Hagen).This was certainly easier at bigger institutes with more than four chairs covering the four ‘core areas’ of 273

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political science as defined by the DVPW. At most universities, which nowadays have a focus on policy analysis, this was already the case by the mid-1990s. Even though the Bologna reforms caused a fundamental transformation to the structures of studying political science (see Wolf, 2004; Steinhart, 2010) in most universities, Bologna did not change the study content substantially. However, Bologna supported the stabilisation and (in part) expansion of policy analysis in several ways. First, new BA and MA programmes entailed greater capacities, also meaning that the additional establishment of (more) policy analysis was not a zero-sum game. Second, Bologna made reforms an ongoing process, with continuous evaluation and external verification, forcing universities to account for the success or failure of their programmes.Third, the relevance of modules and content of the programmes for the labour market has been a strong argument in the study programmes’ accreditation and re-accreditation processes. Featuring the Bologna process, the existence of a specialised chair helped intensify a profile in policy analysis.All in all, Bologna helped to establish and possibly intensify paths that had already been previously taken, although it did not cause fundamental path changes. To sum up our narrative on how policy analysis happened to be established in study programmes, we propose three basic types of development, for which we give examples.

(1) Universities traditionally specialising in policy analysis These universities introduced policy analysis between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s and continuously specialised programmes and chairs, albeit to varying degrees. There are a few universities with a long tradition in teaching policy analysis which today display a strong focus on policy analysis, including four or more stars in our evaluation of the BA programmes, one or more specialised MA programmes and even two specialised chairs: this applies in particular to Bremen, Konstanz, LMU Munich and Münster. Furthermore, there are universities with a long tradition in teaching policy analysis that do not have a particular focus on policy analysis in their BA programme (yet some courses on policy analysis), but that have a specialised MA programme and a chair dedicated to policy analysis. This is, for example, the case in Bamberg, Darmstadt, Hannover and Potsdam. Moreover, the Freie Universität (FU) Berlin has a history of teaching policy analysis and a focus in BA and MA, but no specialised chairs. The University of Heidelberg has a history of teaching policy analysis, a specialised MA programme and two chairs with individuals with a specialisation (Staatstätigkeitsforschung), but no denomination for policy analysis. And also Tübingen and Hagen have a history of teaching policy analysis, a specialised chair and some focus in their BA programme, but no specialised MA programme.

(2) Universities newly specialised in policy analysis There are a few universities that have only recently specialised in policy analysis (since 2000).This has been the case at either newly founded universities or those that have taken a radically new path, including a focus on policy analysis. Newly founded (private) institutions with a focus on policy analysis are the Zeppelin University (founded only in 2003, and currently with no explicit chair on policy 274

The role of policy analysis in teaching political science at German universities

analysis, but with some focus in the BA programme and a specialised MA programme) and the Hertie School of Governance (founded in 2003 with two chairs on policy analysis, offering no BA programme, but two specialised MA programmes). Universities that totally reorganised their programmes towards a strong focus on policy analysis include Passau (with the strongest emphasis on policy analysis that we could find and one specialised MA programme and an individual with an interest in policy analysis, but no such denomination), and also to Erfurt, with a specialised chair in public policy and two specialised MA programmes.

(3) No relevant history or presence in teaching public policy There is a third group of universities that either had some history in teaching policy analysis, but did not institutionalise this, either in the old or in the new programmes (as, for example, the University of Hamburg), or that have never had much interest in policy analysis (for instance, the Universities of Mannheim, Stuttgart, Kiel or Gießen).

Conclusion This chapter has addressed the questions to what extent, in which ways and why policy analysis has become part of programmes teaching political science at universities in Germany. We found that two thirds of the BA programmes do contain modules on policy analysis, roughly a quarter of all programmes have some focus on policy analysis and almost 9 per cent have a strong focus on policy analysis. Eighteen per cent of all MA programmes in political science specialise in policy analysis/public policy.These data certainly rely in the first place on a quantitative approach at appraising the role of policy analysis, which has its merits and demerits. Since we based our analysis on the formal description of the programmes (as, for example, entailed in module handbooks) in single cases, our data could either over- or underestimate the role of policy analysis in particular programmes.Yet, in the main, we think that we offer an adequate description of the status quo. In terms of resources, 21 chairs are specialised in policy analysis, while we all know individuals with a particular expertise in public policy working on a chair with no such denomination. It is hardly surprisingly that there is a statistically significant correlation between specialised chairs and specialised programmes. As to the questions of how, when and why policy analysis became a relevant part of teaching political science at some but not at other universities, we found that in most cases paths were (or were not) already taken between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, while the Bologna reforms may have helped to stabilise, standardise and possibly strengthen such paths but – with few exceptions – did not allow for dramatic path changes. Finally, we asked ourselves whether the situation as described by our data reflected a strong or weak representation of our sub-discipline – very much a question of whether the glass was half full or half empty. On the one hand, starting from the fact that (of course) we considered our sub-discipline to be most relevant, we were surprised (and disappointed) by the fact that one third of all BA programmes do not entail policy analysis on a regular basis at all. On the other hand, when looking into the history of establishing policy analysis in research and teaching since the mid1980s, we found it rather surprising and encouraging that not only do two thirds of 275

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all BA programmes in political science have some or even a strong focus on policy analysis, but also a decent share (almost one fifth) of MA programmes specialise in policy analysis/public policy. Since the creation of MA programmes is an ongoing process, we expect that the share of specialised MA programmes could still increase.

Notes We are very grateful to the German Political Science Association (DVPW, Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft) in general and Felix Wurm in particular for providing us with data on chairs and study programmes in political science in Germany. If we discuss at some points that these lists in part were not complete, this is not to criticise but to make the steps we took documented and comprehensible. Furthermore, we want to thank Arthur Benz, Bernhard Blanke, Hans-Hermann Hartwich, Hubert Heinelt,Werner Jann, Frank Nullmeier, Rainer Prätorius, Josef Schmid, Roland Sturm and Thomas Saretzki for answering our questionnaire and beyond this, sharing with us their views and memories of how policy analysis came into the world of studying political science. We also thank Michael Stoiber for his support.

1

2

In the first case Spearman’s r is 0.487 and in the second 0.493, each at a level of significance of 0.01. This means that if there was a specialised chair, it was more likely to be found with a BA programme with a relevant institutionalisation of or a strong focus on policy analysis. Also the probability of finding a specialised MA programme increased with having a specialised chair. If there was no specialised chair, in 36 universities there was also no specialised MA programme (from 44 cases), and in 10 out of 14 cases with a specialised chair, there was also a corresponding MA programme. Only 12 out of 58 cases did not fit into the expected pattern.

References Beyme, K. von (1985) ‘Policy Analysis und traditionelle Politikwissenschaft’, in H. Hartwich (ed) Policy-Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Ihr Selbstverständnis und ihr Verhältnis zu den Grundfragen der Politikwissenschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 7-29. Beyme, K. von and Schmidt, M.G. (eds) (1990) Politik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Böhret, C. (1985) ‘Ein Bericht für das 1 Wissenschaftliche Symposium der Deutschen Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft (November 1984) in Hannover’, in H. Hartwich (ed) Policy-Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Ihr Selbstverständnis und ihr Verhältnis zu den Grundfragen der Politikwissenschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 216-33. Greven, M.Th. (1985) ‘Macht, Herrschaft und Legitimität. Eine Erinnerung der Politologen an die Grundfragen ihrer Disziplin’, in H. Hartwich (ed) PolicyForschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Ihr Selbstverständnis und ihr Verhältnis zu den Grundfragen der Politikwissenschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 143-7. Hartwich, H. (1985) ‘Einführung’, in H. Hartwich (ed) Policy-Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Ihr Selbstverständnis und ihr Verhältnis zu den Grundfragen der Politikwissenschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 1-6.

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Hesse, J.J. (1985) ‘Policy-Forschung zwischen Anpassung und Eigenständigkeit:Wider die “Moden” der sozialwissenschaftlichen Staats- und Verwaltungsforschung’, in H. Hartwich (ed) Policy-Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Ihr Selbstverständnis und ihr Verhältnis zu den Grundfragen der Politikwissenschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 30-68. KMK (Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) (ed) (1985) Veröffentlichungen zur Studienreform 24: Entwurf: Empfehlungen der Studienreformkommission Politikwissenschaft/Soziologie, vol 1: Politikwissenschaft, Bonn. Murswiek, A. (1985) ‘Policy-Forschung und politische Institutionenanalyse – Verbindungslinien einer anscheinbaren Zerrüttung’, in H. Hartwich (ed) PolicyForschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Ihr Selbstverständnis und ihr Verhältnis zu den Grundfragen der Politikwissenschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, pp 80-6. Rudzio,W. (1987) Das politische System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: eine Einführung, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Rudzio,W. (1991) Das politische System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: eine Einführung, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Schubert, K. (1991) Politikfeldanalyse. Eine Einführung, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Steinhart, I. (2010) State of the Bologna reform process in Germany in political science (www. ecpsa.org/fileadmin/News/Bologna.pdf). Windhoff-Héritier, A. (1987) Policy-Analyse. Eine Einführung, Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag. Wolf, K.D. (2004) ‘Die Vermittlung von berufsbefähigendem Wissen und Können im BA/MA-Studiengang Politikwissenschaft an der Technischen Universität Darmstadt’, in J. Hopbach (ed) Qualitätssicherung an Hochschulen. Neue Herausforderungen nach der Berlin-Konferenz, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, pp 87-94.

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Academics and policy analysis: tension between epistemic and practical concerns Renate Mayntz

Introduction In the modern so-called ‘knowledge society’, the state is expected to act rationally in the pursuit of its tasks (Voßkuhle, 2008). This implies, among other things, that public policy decisions must be based on the best available knowledge. What is needed is both descriptive knowledge of given situations, including statistical data, and theoretical knowledge of causal relations – knowledge needed to identify the causes of a problem and to guide the choice of policy measures by pointing out their likely effects. The historical process of rationalisation undergone by Western civilisation has included both the ‘scientification’ of knowledge and the ascent of bureaucratic organisation. The highly personalised, experience-based knowledge of the practitioner is no longer deemed sufficient. Whether in agriculture, education, medicine or governing, knowledge produced according to the standards of scientific methodology and meeting the criteria of reliability, reproducibility and validity is what is now asked for. The tendency towards formal organisation, expressed most clearly in Max Weber’s concept of bureaucracy, has not only affected the management of public affairs, but also the production of scientific knowledge and the way it feeds into the policy process. In a classical public bureaucracy, bureaucrats are expected to possess the knowledge required for the effective performance of their duties. There has therefore been a tendency to provide for scientific counsel within the politicaladministrative system, whether in the form of research institutes attached to one of the federal ministries, or in the form of the Wissenschaftlicher Dienst (scientific service) assisting individual members of parliament. But in developed societies the in-house provision of scientific knowledge is not sufficient to make rational policy decisions, and must be supplemented by external inputs.

Policy analysis The function of policy analysis for today’s policy-making and the way policy analysis is produced and delivered reflects the tendency towards ‘scientification’ of knowledge as well as towards formal organisation. Quasi by definition, policy analysis is a scientific activity; it is produced by and delivered to policy-makers by organisations and in an organised fashion. The formalisation of providing knowledge to political decisionmakers is intended to safeguard the reliable, ‘scientific’ character of the knowledge brought to bear on policy, and to prevent the collusion with particularistic interests that easily takes place where elite interaction and informal advice shape policy decisions. 279

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The term ‘policy analysis’ can refer to different things: it can mean analysis of a situation calling for public intervention (problem analysis), it can mean evaluation of an established policy (Derlin, 1990) and it can refer to the design of a policy. The different varieties of policy analysis easily merge into each other. Policy design obviously presupposes the analysis of the status quo; the analysis of a problematic situation in turn implies recommendations for action, even if these are not spelled out. There is therefore a fluid boundary between analysis and design. Policy analysis does not necessarily imply doing primary research; it often involves searching for, assembling and processing existing data and already available theoretical knowledge. Many of the institutions engaged in policy analysis use the secondary analysis of available data and knowledge as well as primary research. As every scientist doing theory-oriented empirical research knows well, there is also a fluid boundary between producing and assembling knowledge. Academically trained scientists – academics for short – are engaged in policy analysis for different reasons and in different institutional contexts. The university professor who does independent research work on financial or health policy does so first of all for the sake of gaining factual (descriptive) and explanatory knowledge; he or she wants to understand ‘was der Fall ist’ (‘what the case is’: Wittgenstein, 1989, p 4). But that same person may also be called to serve as a scientific expert in an advisory council to the government. Historically speaking, universities and academies of science have always been engaged in solving theoretical problems that had practical implications, whether realised at the time or not. This seems to apply especially to the natural sciences. But economic knowledge has also been produced in universities for a long time, and of course economists have always believed that their knowledge should guide policy. Academics trained to do research of potential practical relevance are also employed by organisations that do not primarily search for true knowledge, but want to provide information as the basis for specific practical decisions. The target of such organisations may be public policy, but it may also be the strategies of educational, industrial and service organisations for reaching their specific goals, for coping or for adapting to new circumstances in their environment. Organisations that produce policy analysis for ultimately practical goals include Ressortforschung (government research institutes), think tanks, research units in large corporations (for example, Deutsche Bank research) and the various kinds of associations and lobby organisations dealt with in this volume. Whether policy analysis is based on primary research or secondary analysis, if it is to be used for some practical purpose it must be presented in such a way that it can be absorbed and used by the prospective recipient. Although the televised ritual where the chair of an expert council ceremoniously hands a voluminous report to the chancellor seems to suggest otherwise, the provision of scientific knowledge to decision-makers cannot be organised as a simple process of transportation.The German word Vermittlung that is generally used in discussions of the science–policy relation has the meaning both of transfer and of mediation. Successful transfer presupposes the translation of academic knowledge into practically usable knowledge. This does not mean simplification; it involves selecting those bits of knowledge that are of importance for the user, which in turn requires communication with the user.There are different ways of organising such communication. Falk et al (2009) maintain that direct interaction between adviser and advised promotes successful transfer. But it

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also harbours the danger of bias. This observation leads directly to tension between two possibly conflicting sets of criteria that policy analysis must deal with.

Epistemic robustness versus practical usefulness Policy analysis that is not purely academic but aims to be used in the policy process is expected to be of high scientific quality or epistemically robust, as this has come to be called, and of practical use. To serve the intended purpose, even the data supplied by a lobby organisation with the intention of influencing policy must meet at least minimal criteria of reliability.‘Practically useful knowledge’ is not the same as applied knowledge, in contrast to basic research.Academic scientists like to quote the familiar saying that there is nothing more practical than a good theory. It is indeed a welldocumented fact that since the scientific revolution in the 17th century, research aiming first and foremost at knowledge for its own sake has led to most of the important innovations in the human mastery of natural processes. Applied research is typically commissioned to serve a specific, narrowly defined purpose and leads to incremental improvement rather than radical innovation. It is therefore appropriate to use the term ‘practically useful’ rather than ‘applied’ in the debate about the quality criteria of scientific consultancy. Knowledge – and this also holds true for policy analysis – that is practically useful has only the potential to be used or applied, and it is its recipient who decides whether to use it or not. The criteria of epistemic robustness are straightforward and have been spelled out in detail by Weingart and Lentsch (2008). A given policy analysis can be called epistemically robust if in producing it, the norms of scientific methodology with respect to data collection, data evaluation and interpretation have been strictly observed, the best available database has been used and the analysis includes results from different disciplines where relevant. Moreover, epistemic robustness demands that both the collection of data and its interpretation are objective and non-partisan, that the subjective beliefs and normative preferences of the scientists play no role in the analysis and that reasonable doubts about the reliability and completeness of the analysis are explicitly stated. What makes policy analysis practically useful is less easy to state. Practical usefulness is an ambiguous term, having two different possible reference points. If policy analysis is to serve the development of an effective public policy, to be ‘practically useful’ requires that data and conclusions communicated address the specific policy issue in question, that the analysis is delivered in time, which means before a policy decision must be made, and that the analysis is formulated in a way that is also understandable to intelligent lay people. Recommendations for policy design should also avoid conflict with existing law, and should not be based on unrealistic assumptions, for instance, about the necessary financial resources and administrative capacity. However, ‘practical usefulness’ can have a second meaning, a meaning implied where the communication problem between science and politics is thought to follow from the incommensurability of ‘scientific rationality’ and ‘political rationality’, the first being about truth, the second about power.To be practically useful would then mean that a given policy analysis can be used to the political advantage of the recipient vis-à-vis a critical electorate and in the unavoidable power struggles of day-to-day policy-making. There is an evident tension between the criteria of ‘epistemic robustness’ and ‘practical usefulness’.Where no reliable knowledge is available, policy analysis cannot 281

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be both thorough and timely. Policy measures that would solve a problem are often too costly to be implemented or will cause resistance. The simple presentation of a complex subject matter can facilitate decision-making, but from a certain point on, simple becomes substantively wrong. A selective presentation of data and an unobtrusively biased interpretation often promise higher effectiveness, if not of the policy itself, at least in finding the support necessary for a political decision.This has been nicely shown, for instance, for the policy analysis underlying the so-called Hartz IV legislation (Kusche, 2008; see also Chapter 10, this volume). Scientists as policy advisers are confronted with a difficult optimisation problem when they seek to meet the different criteria of high quality advice. Meeting one set of criteria cannot substitute for deficits in meeting the other set: political usefulness is no substitute for epistemic robustness, and scientific quality cannot make up for deficits in political usefulness. All individuals as well as all institutions producing knowledge that is to be used in the policy process are therefore subject to tension between the scientific quality and the practical value of the knowledge they offer and the advice they give. This tension underlies attempts to find the correct balance between distance and closeness, independence and dependence in the relation between expert analysts and practitioners.While the independence of scientific experts tips the balance in favour of epistemic robustness, it carries the danger of losing practical relevance.To learn the needs of policy-makers, the details of the problem to be solved and the obstacles they face, direct communication is needed, but too much closeness can impair scientific objectivity.This danger is recognised when the British guidelines on scientific analysis in policy-making (Office of Science and Technology, 2005) demand: ‘Experts should not be expected to take into account potential political reactions to their findings before presenting them’ (guideline 22, p 7). The tension is felt less where one set of criteria is given priority over the other. For think tanks and lobby organisations seeking influence on policy, the usefulness of a given analysis has priority and here ‘useful’ may well be defined in political terms rather than relating to the problemsolving quality of public policy. The tension is felt most by the academic scientist engaged in policy analysis explicitly addressed to public policy-makers. They must serve two masters: the scientific community, their peers who demand strict compliance with the exigencies of scientific method and a valuable contribution to the store of knowledge, and the intended users of their analysis who want it to be useful for their own purposes. For an academic scientist, becoming too applied means to risk his or her reputation as a scientist.

Scientific advisory councils Scientific advisory councils stand out in the claim to observe fully both the criteria of ‘epistemic robustness’ and ‘political usefulness’ – which means that here the tension between the different criteria is particularly strong. This holds independent of differences in the specific function and the organisational properties of scientific advisory councils. Institutionally, scientific advisory councils attached to political institutions – government, parliament or the executive – are situated between commercial consulting (that is, producing commissioned policy research) and the lobbying activities of interest associations using (selective, targeted) information as a means of influencing policy-makers: they do not work for money and they do 282

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not lobby for some particularistic interest. At the federal level in Germany, there are advisory councils attached to a ministry that monitor specific policy fields on a permanent basis. Aside from answering questions about a given problem situation or a policy measure under deliberation, they engage in what has also been called ‘horizon scanning’, that means observation of developments in a specific policy field with a view to identifying problems before they become acute.Then there are expert commissions instituted to give advice with respect to a specific policy initiative; in the exceptional case expert commissions give advice to the government directly.The comprehensive survey of institutionalised scientific advisory bodies at the German federal level, conducted by a working group of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (see Weingart and Lentsch, 2008), also includes parliamentary Enquète Commissions and departmental research institutes. The literature dealing with political advisory bodies and their relation to political decision-makers (for example, Friedrich, 1970; Murswieck, 1994) has highlighted the conflict between a pre-eminent orientation of academic experts at the value of scientific ‘truth’ and the expectations of policy-makers. From the perspective of policy-makers, scientific quality, that is, ‘epistemic robustness’, is simply assumed to be given where it is scientists who analyse policy. The failure of scientific advisory bodies to meet the expectations of policy-makers is mainly due to them having missed the criteria of ‘practical usefulness’.The failure to squarely address the policy issue in question, the delays in delivering the expected analysis and the use of academic jargon in presenting it – all this contributes significantly to the disappointment of policymakers with the advice they receive. Needless to say, if policy analysts and scientific advisers were to give priority to the perceived usefulness of their work, scientific quality criteria are in danger of being neglected.To ensure that policy advice is both of high scientific quality and helpful for developing effective policy, guidelines and codes of practice have therefore been formulated in many countries (see Weingart and Lentsch, 2009). These guidelines focus on organisational features of advisory bodies, their composition, rules of procedure and the behaviour of the expert members. If complied with, such guidelines can direct advisory bodies to produce analyses and recommendations that meet the criteria of epistemic robustness and of being useful for policy development. However, the best evidence-based, epistemically robust policy analysis does not guarantee that it will be used for the purpose of effective public policy. Often disappointment with the output of scientific advisory bodies is the consequence of unspoken (and unspeakable) expectations on the part of policy-makers, equating ‘practical usefulness’ with political usefulness in the sense referred to above. Where a truthful analysis would work to the political disadvantage of a given policy-maker or political party, the neglect of scientific quality criteria may even be welcomed. As is well known, reports and recommendations of scientific advisory councils are not necessarily used to solve policy problems, but for the post hoc justification of decisions already taken, as a weapon in political or administrative infighting or for merely symbolic politics. Such uses of scientific policy advice violate the normative image of the relation between scientific advisory councils and policy-makers and are criticised as unwanted ‘instrumentalisation’ by scientific advisers. What happens here is a de facto conflation of two equally legitimate, but ideally separate, types of advising politicians: policy advice and political consultancy.

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The guidelines for producing high quality policy advice typically have very little to say about the way policy-makers are to use it (Mayntz, 2009).There are no rules that explicitly denounce the political ‘instrumentalisation’ of policy advice; the guidelines go tacitly on the assumption that policy-makers seek advice only for the purpose of finding the best possible solution for given policy problems. In some guidelines the choice of a source from which advice should be sought is considered. The German guidelines (BBAW, 2008) ask at least that the report or the recommendations of a scientific advisory council should be made public, that their content should not be distorted when referred to in a public debate and that reasons should be given if recommendations are not followed. These rules can make for greater transparency, but do nothing to prevent political ‘instrumentalisation’. In fact, it is hardly feasible to formulate official guidelines that would prohibit the political ‘instrumentalisation’ of policy advice. Formal rules asking the recipients of policy advice to refrain from using it strategically in the ubiquitous power struggles of the political arena could hardly be more than moral exhortations. Given the ability of human beings for creative circumvention, rules that conflict with the interest of the rule-taker are doomed to be evaded. But in the case of scientific policy advice, there is even some objective justification for not only using it for the construction of a policy: policy is not neatly separable from politics. Using policy advice as political ammunition, in election campaigns as well as in dealing with a difficult coalition partner or fraction, can help to push through an effective policy measure that meets with resistance. Political power, support from a coalition partner and public consent are needed to enact a policy, produce a binding decision and get a reform proposal accepted in parliament. As policy cannot be separated from politics, the strategic political implications of policy advice cannot realistically be ignored by the advised.

Impact of policy analysis To have an impact on policy, high quality policy analysis must be provided and it must be used in policy development. However, not every policy analysis that could contribute to the solution of a public policy problem is used. For one thing, what political decision-makers get from their scientific advisers is not always welcome. If the mandate calls for the evaluation of a given policy, the finding that it is ineffective because of faulty design or negligent implementation is unwelcome.The same holds for policy analysis that points to a new problem arising or a problem politically ignored so far. In such cases the unwelcome message or advice is likely to be disregarded. More problematic, but rarely analysed, is the failure of policy-makers to ask for advice on a specific matter. The role attributed to knowledge generally and policy analysis specifically in public policy-making is based on an idealistic model of the science– policy relationship (Mayntz, 1994). In this model, policy-makers define public interest goals and, where necessary, ask scientists to provide them with the knowledge needed for evidence-based decisions. This is evidently a normative model of questionable descriptive value. The fact that the lack of demand for knowledge that would be relevant for policy can be more critical than sub-standard policy analysis became evident in the recent financial crisis. Scientific knowledge about the crisis potential inherent in the globalised financial system had not been asked for by politicians, nor did political advisory councils, failing in their early warning function, give the alert to what was coming. Mainstream economics had advocated the theory of market 284

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efficiency that denied the possibility of a crisis threatening the breakdown of the global financial system. Politicians had come to share the belief in the efficiency of (financial) markets, a belief seemingly justified by a flourishing financial industry that created jobs and tax revenue. By deregulating financial markets, politicians had unwittingly fostered the conditions that quite unexpectedly resulted in a major crisis. If the political elite, a given functional elite and the acknowledged scientific experts all agree in their perception of a situation, both the demand for and the supply of policy analysis that supports a contrasting world view is lacking.The impact of policy analysis on public policy depends on demand for advice even more than on its quality.

References BBAW (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften) (2008) Leitlinien Politikberatung, Berlin: BBAW. Derlin, H.-U. (1990) ‘Program evaluation in the Federal Republic of Germany’, in R. Rist (ed) Program evaluation and the management of government: Patterns and prospects across eight nations, New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Books, pp 37-51. Falk, S., Römmele, A., Schober, H. and Thunert, M. (2009) ‘Vom strategischen Nutzen des Wissenschaft für die Politikberatung’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, vol 51, pp 119-25. Friedrich, H. (1970) Staatliche Verwaltung und Wissenschaft. Die wissenschaftliche Beratung der Politik aus der Sicht der Ministerialbürokratie, Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt. Kusche, I. (2008) Politikberatung und die Herstellung von Entscheidungssicherheit im politischen System, Wiesbaden:VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Mayntz, R. (1994) ‘Politikberatung und politische Entscheidungsstrukturen. Zu den Voraussetzungen des Politikberatungsmodells’, in A. Murswiek (ed) Regieren und Politikberatung, Opladen: Leske + Budrich, pp 17-30. Mayntz, R. (2009) ‘Speaking truth to power: Leitlinien für die Regelung wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung’, dms – Der moderne Staat, vol 1/2009, pp 5-16. Murswieck, A. (ed) (1994) Regieren und Politikberatung, Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Office of Science and Technology (2005) Guidelines on scientific analysis in policy making, London: The Stationery Office. Voßkuhle (2008) ‘Das Konzept des rationalen Staats’, in G.F. Schuppert and A.Voßkule (eds) Governance von und durch Wissen, Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp 13-32. Weingart, P. and Lentsch, J. (2008) Wissen – Beraten – Entscheiden. Form und Funktion wissenschaftlicher Politikberatung in Deutschland, Weilerswist:Velbrück Wissenschaft. Weingart, P. and Lentsch, J. (eds) (2009) Scientific advice to policy making: International comparison, Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers. Wittgenstein, L. (1989) Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung – Tractatus logico-philosophicus, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.

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Index

Index Page numbers in italics refer to tables and figures. Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to footnotes.

A absolutist rule 22 Absolventenstudien 49–51, 51–53 academic and applied policy analysis 8–9, 45–48 professionalisation 48–53 academic careers 53 academic fundamental research 203–204 academic policy advice 232 academic policy analysts 56n academic think tanks 233–234, 236–238 academics 280 active policy-making 30–32 actor-centred institutionalism (ACI) 36–37, 61, 78 administration 91–93, 95–98 administration of the Bundestag research services 152, 154–155 advisory councils 282–284 advisory groups see commissions advocacy coalition framework 35, 62 advocacy groups see public interest groups advocacy think tanks 84, 234–235, 238– 240 agenda-setting 105–106, 164 aktive Politik 30–32 allgemeine Staatslehre 22 Alliance for Work (Bündnis für Arbeit) 136, 140–142, 147n Allianz der Wissenschaftsorganisationen (Alliance of German Science Organisations) 248 analysis of single cases 60–62 applied policy analysis 8–9, 45–48, 223– 224 professionalisation 48–53 public interest groups 222–223 applied research 251, 281 argumentative turn 35–36 Aristotle 20 Austria 63, 80–82

Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) 80 automatisation 61 availability and demand of scientific policy advice 255–256 Avenir Swiss 84

B Bachelor of Arts programmes 267–269 Backhaus-Maul, H. 154 Balkanisation 94 Ballard, S. 47–48 Bandelow, N. 62 Banner, G. 124 Barlösius, E. 209 Barry, B.M. 218 Basic Law 26, 150 Beamte 112–113 Bentham, J. 25 Benz, A. 37 Berlin 135 Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) 254, 259–260 Berliner Räterepublik 136, 140–142, 143 Berry, J.M. 218 Bertelsmann Foundation 100, 102n, 233, 237–238 Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) 237–238 Beyme, K. von 23, 150 biblical policy 23 bio-fuels 257 Blancke, S. 114 Bodin, J. 21 Bogumil, J. 121, 122, 123, 125, 126, 128, 130 Böhret, C. 273 Bologna process 271–275 Börzel, T.A. 35 Botero, G. 21, 23 bottom-up democracy 130–131 budgeting 125, 127–129, 172–173

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C cameralism 23, 24, 26n careers for policy analysts 51–53, 108–109 case study research analysis of single cases 60–62 comparative case studies 63–64 macro-quantitative comparisons 66–67 qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) 64–66 cash credits 127–128 Catholic universities 23 Catholicism 21 centralisation 77 centrality analysis 68 chairs for policy analysis 265–267 chancelleries 108–109 Chancellor’s Dialogue on Germany’s Future 258 characteristics of policy analysis 3–5 cheque writing activities 112 Christian Democratic Union (CDU) 183, 186, 188, 189, 191 Christian Social Union (CSU) 183

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citizen engagement 257–258 Citizens and Representatives in France and Germany (CITREP) 173 citizens’ community 126–127 citizens’ initiatives and council referanda by Länder 124 civil servants 112–113 cleavages 185–187 climate research 257 clinical policy analysts 56n coalition committees 108 coalition treaties 108 coalitions 62, 94–95, 189–190 Cohen, D.K. 161 cohesion-seeking 187–188 Coleman, J. 68 collective office-seeking 189–190 commercial political advisers 54 commissions 136, 139, 140, 166–168, 185 see also Bündnis für Arbeit; Hartz reforms; Rürup Commission common traditions in German-speaking countries 76–77 communication 12–13, 100, 102n, 111, 163, 189 communicative campaigning 208–209 comparative case studies 63–64 macro-quantitative comparisons 66–67 qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) 64–66 comparative policy analysis 32–33 competition 114–115 competitive democracy 121–122 competitive party system 190–191 Confederation of German Employers’ Association (BDA) 202, 205–206 Confederation of German Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB) 199, 200, 201, 204–205 consensus 94–95 consensus democracy 82 conservatives 183 see also Christian Democrats consociationalism 80, 82, 121–122 Constance, University of 78 constituencies 173–174 Constitution 95–96, 149 consultancy 55, 125, 209–210 see also policy advice consumer groups 219–220 applied political analysis 222–223 policy framing 224–225 research activities 221–222 consumer policy 217, 219–220

Index contract research 209–210 control functions 164–165 cooperation 94–95 coordination 95–98 council referenda and citizens’ initiatives by Länder 124 counter-intelligence 221 Court of Auditors 172–173 Crisis and choice in European social democracy (Scharpf, 1991) 63

D Dahl, R. 31 decision-making processes Länder 106–110 municipalities 121–122 decision-making structure 94–95 deductive approach to comparative case studies 63–64 degree courses 267–271 before and after Bologna process 271–275 democratic societies, policy advice in 259–260 Denmark 65–66 deparliamentarisation 161 departmental principle 96 Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina 252–253 policy advice 256–257 Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB) 199, 200, 201, 204–205 dialogic knowledge management 143 dialogue forums 257–258 direct democracy 123 direct government provision 112 Donahue, J.D. 112 Dose, N. 114 Drexler, A. 114 Dunn, W.N. 4 Durning, D. 35 Dye, T. 161

E economic knowledge 280 economic policy 63, 81, 110 Economic policy in the Kohl era (Zohlnhöfer, 2001) 63 economisation 119 education policy 109–110, 114–115 efficiency reforms 113–114 elective function 163–164 Ellwein, T. 98, 100n

embeddedness crisis 201–203 Emmenegger, P. 65–66 employers’ associations 197–198, 239 embeddedness crisis 201–203 membership crisis 200–201 research activities 203–210 research into 198–200 think tanks 235 employment 114, 136 energy consumption 66 energy policy 135, 187, 225, 256–257 Enquete-Kommission 166 environmental groups 219 applied political analysis 222 policy framing 224–225 research activities 220–221 environmental policy 62, 76, 217, 219, 224 epistemic robustness 281–282 scientific advisory councils 282–284 establishment of policy analysis 1–2 étatism 23 EU effect on Länder 106 EU Framework Programmes 81 evaluation studies 7, 13, 83–84 evidence-based policy-making 222–223, 223–224 executive power 95–96 expert commissions 136, 139, 166–168, 185 see also Bündnis für Arbeit; Hartz reforms; Rürup Commission external sources of policy analysis Bundestag 166–173 as counterweight to deparliamentarisation 175–176 members of parliament 173–175 extramural research institutes 248–254 policy advice 254–260 extra-university research institutions, Austria 80–81

F Falk, S. 280–281 Färber, G. 54, 55 Federal Association of German Industry (BDI) 135, 205–206 federal cabinet 95 Federal Court of Auditors 172–173 federal executive 95–96 federal policy-making institutional basis of 93–99 Federation of Environment and Conservationism 221

289

Policy analysis in Germany Federation of Taxpayers 218 Feindt, P. 221 Feldkamp, M.F. 155 Ferris, J. 219 Fichte, J.G. 22, 24 financial control 172–173 financial management (budgeting) 125, 127–129 municipalities 127–129 Fischer, F. 35, 226 Fischer, T. 95 Floß, D. 111 Forester, J. 35, 226 foundations 184–185 framing of discourses 224–226 France 23 Fraunhofer Society 251 Fukushima 225, 256–257 functions of self-administration 120–121 fundamental research 203–204, 249 future of policy analysis 10–14

G game theory 63 Gellner, W. 1 general theory of the state 22 genetic engineering 62 genetically modified (GM) food 62, 224–225 German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina 252–253 policy advice 256–257 German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) 257 German idealism 24 German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) 233–234 German-speaking countries see also Austria; Germany; Switzerland higher education 76 political systems 76 shared traditions 76–77 universities 76 Germany policy analysis in Germany 77–80 political system 77 Gerring, J. 61 Gottweis, H. 81 governance discourse 37 government organisation 30–32 governmental structure Länder 107, 108–109

290

graduate careers 51–53 graduate survey 49–51, 51–53 grand coalition 95 Green Party 187, 219 Greenpeace 219 Greven, M.Th. 5, 26 Grunden, T. 182, 184, 188 Grundgesetz 95–96, 149 guidelines for policy advice 259–260, 283–284

H Hammer, E.-M. 2 Hanf, K. 109 Hans Böckler Foundation (HBS) 206–207, 211n, 212n, 238 happiness 24, 25 Hartwich, H.-H. 32, 273 Hartz reforms 99, 99–100, 101n Hassel, A. 99 health policy 109, 223–224 Hegel, G.W.F. 24 Heinze, R.G. 135, 219 Helmholtz Association 251–252 Héritier, A. 3, 78 Hicks, A. 190 higher education Austria 80–81 German-speaking countries 76 Hildebrandt, A. 107 history of policy analysis in Germany 1–5 Holtkamp, L. 122, 125, 126, 128, 130 Hörisch, F. 146 hospitals 109 Humboldt, W. von 25 Humboldtian Principle 76 Hurni, P.Y. 83 Hustedt, T. 47, 95, 96

I Immergut, E.M. 232 impact of policy analysis 284–285 implementation research 33–34 incremental policy-making 32 individual office-seeking 188–189 inductive approach to comparative case studies 63 industrial relations 197–198 see also employers’ associations; trade unions research 198–200, 203–204 information 98–99

Index in-house research services of the Bundestag 151–154 Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (Initiative for a New Social Market Economy, INSM) 8, 15n, 208–209, 239–240 innovation 113–116 Innovation Dialogue 258 Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (Institute of the German Economy in Cologne, IW) 208 Institut für Arbeits- und Berufsforschung (Institute for Labour Market and Vocational Research, IAB) 204 Institut für Höhere Studien (Institute for Advanced Studies, IHS), Austria 80 Institut für Qualität und Wirtschaftlichkeit im Gesundheitswesen (Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Healthcare, IQWiG) 223–224 Institute for Economic and Social Research 238–239 institutional basis of federal policy-making 93–99 institutionalism 36–37, 61, 78 institutions and governance 36–37 instrumentalisation of policy advice 284 INUS conditions 64, 69n Ismayr, W. 151

J Jann, W. 30, 35 Janning, F. 219–220 Japan 68 Jenkins-Smith, H.C. 62 job security regulations 65–66 joint decision trap 94 journalism 111

K Kant, I. 24 Karlhofer, F. 80 Kash, D. 47–48 Katz, R. 183 Kennis, P. 34 Keudel, D. 198, 199 Kieser, A. 143 Kießling, A. 183 Kingdon, J.W. 99, 184, 226 Kittel, B. 67, 80 Klein, M. 101n Kluge, N. 199, 205, 206–207

Knoke, D. 68 knowledge 31, 36, 98–99, 143 knowledge markets 36, 62 knowledge society 139, 279 Koalitionsausschüsse 108 Kohler-Koch, B. 35 König, T. 81 Korte, K.-R. 182 Kropp, S. 190 Kuhlmann, E. 223

L Laband, P. 26 labour market 136 labour market policies 114 labour unions see trade unions Lammer, N. 257 Länder 77, 116n, 172, 174–175 agenda-setting 105–106 budgets 111 citizens’ initiatives and council referenda 124n communication 111 competition 114–115 constitutional system 107 decision-making processes 106–110 economic policy 110 education policy 109–110, 114–115 effect of EU on 106 governmental structure 107, 108–109 health policy 109 labour market policies 114 media discourse 111 nationalisation 111 policy advice 115 policy innovation 113–116 policy instruments 110–113 privatisation 111 reforms 115–116 Landespressekonferenz 111 language 29, 77 Lasswell, H.D. 76 Lazarsfeld, P. 80 legal state 24 legalism 113 legislation 25 legislative role of the Bundestag 149–151 Lehmbruch, G. 122 Leibniz, G.W. 254 Leibniz Association 234, 248–249 Lentsch, J. 144, 281 Leopoldina 252–253 policy advice 256–257

291

Policy analysis in Germany Lieber, F. 22 life science governance 81 Lijphart, A. 63 limits of rationality 145 Lindblom, C.E. 31, 161 Linder, W. 82–83, 83, 84 lobbying 219–220 local administrations 119–121 budgeting 127–129 decision-making processes 121–122 trends and constraints 123–129 Lutheran thinkers 23

M Machiavellism 21, 23 macro-quantitative comparisons 66–67 Maier, H. 22 Maier, L.M. 35 Mair, P. 183 Majone, G. 226 Marschall, S. 151 Master‘s programmes 269–271 Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) 250–251 Max Planck Institutes (MPIs) 249–251 Max Planck Society 249–251 Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, MPIfG) 78, 250 Mayer, I. 66 Mayntz, R. 31–32, 34–35, 36–37, 61, 97–98, 98 Mead, L. 47 media 140, 163, 189 media discourse 111 Meineke, F. 23 Melanchthon, P. 23 membership crisis 200–201 mercantilism 23 Merkel, A. 95, 188 Merton, R. 171 Mielke, G. 185 ministerial bureaucracy 91–93, 95–98 ministries 108–109 Mintrom, M. 55 Mohl, R. 22, 23, 24 Müller, M.M. 107, 108, 114 Müller-Rommel, F. 1, 46, 47 multiple stream model 35, 144 option stream 144 policy stream 144 political stream approach 144, 226

292

problem stream 144 Münch, U. 115 municipal constitutions 123 municipalities 119–121 budgeting 127–129 decision-making processes 121–122 size 121–122 trends and constraints 123–129

N Nassmacher, K.-H. 182 National Academy of Science and Engineering 253 National Academy of Sciences see Leopoldina national parliament see Bundestag nationalisation 111 negative coordination 97, 101n negotiations 190–191 neo-Marxists 32 network analysis 67–68 network theory 34–35 networking 235–236 Neuenschwander, P. 83 Neumann, F.L. 199 new financial management 125 new media 236 new public management (NPM) 83–84, 113, 123, 232 new steering model 123–125 non-university research institutes 248–254 see also think tanks policy advice 254–260 North Rhine-Westphalia 122, 127–128 nuclear energy 225 nuclear power 135, 187, 225, 256–257 Nullmeier, F. 35, 62

O Obinger, H. 67 occupational areas for graduates 51–53 Office of Technology Assessment (TAB) 171–172 online research portals 248 opposition parties 174–175 organisation of government 30–32 organisation of parties 182–184 organised free market economy 92 orientation knowledge 143 Ortwein, H. 96 Otto-Brenner-Stiftung (OBS) 207–208

Index

P Pappi, F.U. 68 parliament see Bundestag parliament staff 153–154, 155–156 parliamentary agenda 164 parliamentary control 164–165 parliamentary democracies 150 parliamentary functions in the policy cycle 162–165 parliamentary groups 152–153, 155 parliamentary hearings 168–171 parliamentary policy analysis 165–166 parliamentary representation 173–175 participation 119, 126–127 parties organisation 182–184 as organised anarchies 182–184 policy-making 181–182, 184–191 problem-solving 185–187 strategy 191–192 partisan theory 32–33 party candidates 188–189 party competition 121–122, 185–187 party differentiation 186 party identity 187–188 party policies 193n party policy-making 184–191 Pelinka, A. 80 pensions 101n perspectives on policy analysis 2–3 Petermann, T. 171–172 Pilz, F. 96 planning 30–32, 91–93, 101n police state 22–25 Policey-Wissenschaft 22–25, 29 policy discovery of 20 the missing concept 29–30 policy advice 5, 46–47, 77, 83–84, 99–100, 135–136 see also expert commissions availability and demand 255–256 developments and debates 137–140 guidelines 259–260, 283–284 Länder 115 non-university research institutes 254– 260 opportunities and limits 142–146 practical relevance 280–281 pragmatic models 138 policy analysis in Austria 80–82 epistemic robustness versus practical usefulness 281–282

function and definition 279–280 the future 10–14 in Germany 77–80 history of 1–5 impact 284–285 institutional restrictions 105–106 meaning 161 political influence 79–80 the present 5–10 in study programmes 267–271 in Switzerland 82–84 policy analysts 56n career paths 108–109 policy cycle 163–164 policy design 280 policy dialogue forums 257–258 policy diffusion 35–36, 106–107 policy fields and networks 34–35 policy framing 224–226 policy innovation 113–116 policy instruments 33–34 Länder 110–113 policy network analysis 67–68 policy networks 34–35 policy transfer 35–36 policy turn 11 policy-making 3–4, 6–8 in the information society 99–100 parties 181–182, 184–191 political agenda 164 political consulting 46 political decision-making 31 political influence of policy analysis 79–80 political parties organisation 182–184 as organised anarchies 182–184 policy-making 181–182, 184–191 problem-solving 185–187 strategy 191–192 political planning 101n political problem-solving 31 political science use by public interest groups 226–228 political science of knowledge 36, 62 political systems Austria 80 German-speaking countries 76 Germany 77 Switzerland 76, 82 political usefulness 280–281 scientific advisory councils 282–284 political-administrative system (PAS) 31 politicians 188–189 Politik 29

293

Policy analysis in Germany politische Steuerung 78 Politische Vierteljahresschrift 3, 78 Polizei-Staat 22–25 Polizei-Wissenschaften (PoliceyWissenschaften) 22–25, 29 Polsby, N. 150 popular demands 115–116 positive and negative coordination 97, 101n post-parliamentarism 161 poverty 24 power 36, 188–189 practical relevance 280–281 practical usefulness 281–282 scientific advisory councils 282–284 pragmatic models of policy advice 138 precautionary principle 224, 225 pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) 257 presidential systems 150 press 111 see also media private businesses 135–136, 143 private energy consumption 66 private involvement in government activities 112 privatisation 111 problem-solving 185–187 Product Test Foundation 220 professional politicians 188–189 professionalisation 10–14, 48–53, 83–84 programme development 101n Projektgruppe Regierungs- und Verwaltungsreform (Project Group for Governmental and Administrative Reform) 31 Protestant universities 23 Protestantism 20, 21 Prussian style 25 public administration 83 public dialogue forums 257–258 public interest groups 217–218 applied political analysis 222–223 definition 218 as emerging policy actors 218–220 policy framing 224–226 research activities 220–222 use of political science 226–228 Public policy analysis (Dunn, 2010) 4 public relations 208–209 see also communication; media public spending 172–173 Pufendorf, S. von 21, 24

294

Q qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) 64–66 quantitative policy network analysis 67–68 quantitative research methods 78

R Ragin, C.C. 64 Raschke, J. 192 Räterepublik 136, 140–142, 143 rational consumers 223 rationality 145 reactive policy-making 32 real world politics 3–4, 47 see also policy making reason of state 21–22 Rechtsstaat 24 Rees, W.J. 218 reform policy 91–93 reforms resulting from Länder competition 114–115 reforms resulting from popular demands 115–116 regulation of policy advice 221–222, 259–260, 283–284 Reichard, C. 150 Reinkingk, D. 23 religion 23 Republic of Councils 136, 140–142, 143 research on governmental action 78 research activities public interest groups 220–222 research foundations 206–209 research institutions 80–81, 83–84, 204, 206–209 see also non-university research institutes; think tanks research services of the Bundestag 151–154 genesis and development 154–156 resources for teaching policy analysis 265–267 resources of parliamentary policy analysis 165–166 Ressortprinzip 96 Rhenish capitalism 197, 211n Röber, M. 150 Ronge,V. 32 Rothgang, H. 114 Rotteck, K. von 25 round tables 136, 139 Rüb, F.W. 62 Rürup Commission 98, 99, 101n

Index

S Sabatier, P.A. 35, 62 Sager, F. 82, 83 Saretzki, T. 3, 11, 35, 46, 47 Scharpf, F.W. 31–32, 36–37, 61, 63, 64, 65, 94, 184 Schedler, K. 83 Schiller, C. 99 Schindler, P. 155 Schmid, J. 94, 114, 219 Schmidt, M.G. 2, 32, 67, 77, 78, 105, 186 Schmidt-Aßmann, E. 25 Schmieg, G. 32 Schneider,V. 34, 66 school system 109–110 Schröder, G. 99, 189 Schroeder, W. 197, 198, 199, 201, 205 Schubert, K. 4, 101n Schuck, P.H. 218 Schulze, M. 204 Schüttemeyer, Suzanne S. 155, 161 Schwartz, J. 99 scientific advisory councils 282–284 scientific policy advice availability and demand 255–256 in democratic society 259–260 scientific political advisers 54, 137–138, 143 scientific quality see epistemic robustness Sebaldt, M. 217 Seckendorff, L. von 20, 24 self-administration 120–121 Seyfried, M. 172 shared traditions in German-speaking countries 76–77 Shonfield, A. 92 Silvia, S.J. 205 single case studies 60–62 Social Democratic Party (SPD) 61, 79, 95, 186, 187–188, 191 social network analysis 67–68 social networks 236 social phenomena 36 social policy 24–25 Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB) 2, 78, 236–238 social welfare state based on law 26 societal steering theory 34–35 sovereignty 21–22 Sozialer Rechtsstaat 26 Speth, R. 198, 206, 236 Staatskanzlei 108–109 Staatstätigkeitsforschung 78

stage heuristic 35 standards for policy advice 259–260, 283–284 state chancellery 108–109 statism 23 steering theory 34, 34–35 Steffani, W. 150–151, 162 Steffen, I. 84 Steinbrück, P. 136, 144–145, 189 Stein-Hardenberg Reforms 1 Steinmeier, F.-W. 95 Steuerungstheorie 34, 34–35 Stiftung Warentest 220 Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) 233–234 Stolleis, M. 22 Stone, S. 231–232 Stoop, P. 2 Straßner, A. 217 strategy 191–192 Streeck, W. 137 Strøm, K. 185 Strünck, C. 225 study commissions 166–168 study programmes 267–271 before and after Bologna process 271–275 Sturm, R. 105, 107, 114 Suchman, M.C 187 SUIN conditions 64, 69n Swank, D.H. 190 Sweden 65–66 Swiss Evaluation Society (SEVAL) 83–84 Swiss Public Administration Network (SPAN) 84 Switzerland policy analysis 82–84 political system 76, 82 research institutions 83–84

T Tálos, E. 80 targeted research 204–206 taxpayers 218 teaching policy analysis before and after Bologna process 271–275 personal resources at universities 265–267 study programmes 267–271 technology assessments 171–172 technology parks 114 tenured civil servants 112–113 terminology 29 textbooks 2–3, 4

295

Policy analysis in Germany Theory of Legislative Reservations 149– 150 think tanks 140–142, 181, 192, 231–236 see also non-university research institutes academic think tanks 236–238 advocacy think tanks 238–240 Thunert, M. 231, 235 Tiessen, J. 95, 96 Tils, R. 192 trade associations see business associations trade union think tanks 235 trade unions 188, 197–198, 207, 238 embeddedness crisis 201–203 membership crisis 200–201 research activities 203–210 research foundations 207–208 research into 198–200 targeted research 205 Trampusch, C. 61 typology of political advisers 54

U UK 63 uncertainty 98–99 unemployment 114, 136 unions 188 universities 5–6, 23 Austria 80–81 German-speaking countries 76 policy analysis in study programmes 11–12, 267–271 resources for teaching policy analysis 265–267 teaching policy analysis before and after the Bologna process 271–275 university chairs for policy analysis 265– 267 University of Constance 78 university programmes 49, 51 US 22, 31, 33, 47, 68, 220 public interest research groups 220

V Verflechtungsfalle 94 veto power 136, 190, 197 veto-seeking 190–191 Voßkuhle 279

296

W Wagemann, C. 66 Wald, M.L. 99 Walter Raymond Foundation 208 Weaver, K. 191 Wegrich, K. 35 Wehling, H.-G. 122 Weingart, P. 144, 281 welfare 23–24, 24–25, 25 welfare associations 218–219 welfare policy 25, 61 welfare state growth 67 Welfare state policy by bourgeois and social democratic governments (Schmid, 1982) 67 Werle, R. 37 Wesentlichkeitstheorie 149–150 Wessels, A.C. 114 Weßels, B. 170, 197, 202 Widmer, T. 83 Wiesenthal, H. 219 Wildavsky, A. 31 Willoweit, D. 22 Windhoff-Héritier, A. 5, 46, 47 Winter,T. von 154 Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut (WSI) 207, 238–239 Wissenschaftlicher Beirat Globale Umweltveränderung (WBGU) 257 Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB) 2, 78, 236–237 Wissenspolitologie 36, 62 Wohlfahrt, N. 129 Wohlfahrtsverbände 218–219 Wolf, F. 107 Wolf, M. 202

Z Zeckhauser, R.J. 112 Zohlnhöfer, R. 63–64, 188 Zolleis, U. 188 Zollinger, C. 82 Zöllner, D. 32 Zühlke, W. 129 Zunker, A. 234

Features of the series include: • a country-specific systematic examination of policy analysis systems by government and non-governmental actors • a history of the country’s policy analysis, empirical case studies and a comparative overview of alternative approaches in different jurisdictions • a key reference collection for research and teaching in comparative policy analysis and policy studies Series editors: Iris Geva-May and Michael Howlett, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Sonja Blum is a political scientist and a senior researcher at the University of Vienna, Austria. Her academic interests are policy analysis, comparative welfare state research, family policy, and the role of evidence and learning in policy-making. Klaus Schubert holds the chair in German Politics and Policy Analysis at the Institute for Political Science of the University of Münster, Germany. His major fields of research and publication are comparative policy analysis, especially social and welfare policies, as well as politics and economics. Public Policy / Social studies

www.policypress.co.uk International Comparative Policy Analysis Forum and Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis In association with the ICPA-Forum and Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis

Policy analysis in Germany [HB] [PRINT].indd 1

Policy analysis in Germany • Edited by Sonia Blum and Klaus Schubert

This comprehensive study, part of the International Library of Policy Analysis, brings together for the first time a systemic overview of policy analysis activities in Germany. Written by leading experts in the field – including informed practitioners – it outlines the development of the discipline, identifies its role in academic education and research, and examines its styles and methods. The book also focuses on the role of policy analysis for governments and parliaments, for parties, social partners, and interest groups. By offering a rich and timely review of policy analysis in Germany, this book is a valuable resource for academic exchange and for teaching, particularly in the fields of political science, social sciences, economics and geography. Moreover, by its broad, comprehensive understanding of ‘policy analysis’, the book will be of practical relevance and shape the debate for the future development of policy analysis in Germany and the different spheres where it is practised.

International Library of Policy Analysis Iris Geva-May & Michael Howlett

Policy analysis in

Germany

Edited by Sonja Blum and Klaus Schubert

15/07/2013 12:08