Public Administration in Germany

German public administration is rooted in the tradition of the Rechtsstaat, which aims at the protection of human dignity and individual freedom by providing rules, principles and institutions that ensure the prevention of arbitrary state action and the protection of individual rights. At supranational and international levels, the principle of the Rechtsstaat has been merging with the common law concept of the rule of law. A dynamic interpretation of the Basic Law (the German constitution) of 1949 by the Federal Constitutional Court has constantly specified and extended the normative scope of the fundamental rights, which are directly binding on the legislative, executive and judicial powers. The constitutional principle of the social state (Sozialstaat) has enhanced not only the dynamic evolution of the law, but also the creation of largely equivalent levels of infrastructure and services in the different territories of the German state.

The German federal architecture is shaped by a peculiar mix of strong decentralisation and high autonomy at lower levels of government coupled with an administrative culture of uniformity, solidarity and coordination. This system has been described as ‘administrative federalism’ to emphasise the prominent role of executives and administrations in policymaking and policy implementation. The federal level relies on the Länder for executing its tasks; in turn, the Länder executives possess rights of co-decision in federal legislation via the Bundesrat. While formal jurisdictions are strongly decentralised, a dense web of interlocking powers and processes, as well as institutions of coordination, creates incentives for territorial governments to closely cooperate with each other. The German-style administrative federalism has been successful, but is requiring adaptation and developments caused by trends like the upward shift of tasks from the Länder to the federal level and increasing party-system fragmentation.

This chapter discusses how public administration in Germany is influenced by the making and implementation of law by the organs of the European Union (EU). Although the public administrations of the EU Member States are, in principle, responsible for enforcing the laws made by the EU, the EU’s influence on the public administration of Germany as EU Member State is constantly growing. This is true, not only of those areas in which the Member States have transferred to the EU the authority to make laws, but increasingly also of those areas in which the Member States have retained such authority. At the same time, however, there is no systematic codification of the law on administrative procedures at European level and no system of legal remedy for Union citizens equivalent to those at national level.

The federal administration is significantly small (around 10 percent of all public employees). This speciality of the German administrative system is based on the division of responsibilities: the central (federal) level drafts and adopts most of the laws and public programmes, and the state level (together with the municipal level) implements them. The administration of the federal level comprises the ministries, subordinated agencies for special and selected operational tasks (e.g. the authorisation of drugs, information security and registration of refugees) in distinct administrative sectors (e.g. foreign service, armed forces and federal police). The capacity for preparing and monitoring government bills and statutory instruments is well developed. Moreover, the instruments and tools of coordination are exemplary compared with other countries, although the recent digital turn has been adopted less advanced than elsewhere.

Although German bureaucracy is typically categorised as Weberian, a clear distinction between politics and administration has never been a defining characteristic of the German political-administrative system. Many close interrelations and interactions between elected politicians and appointed civil servants can be observed at all levels of administration. Higher-ranking civil servants in Germany are used to and generally appreciate the functional politicisation of their jobs, that is their close involvement in all stages of the policy process, from policy formation, goal definition, negotiation within and outside government to the implementation and evaluation of policies. For top positions, therefore, a class of ‘political civil servants’ is a special feature of the German system, and obtaining ‘political craft’ has become an important part of the learning and job experience of higher-ranking civil servants.

A process-oriented approach sees public administration as an interconnection of information, communications, interactions and decisions. It establishes the process organisation that shows the state ‘in action’ and complements the administrative and personnel side of public administration. While the term administrative processes can be understood as a generic term for this procedural side of the administration, according to the German understanding, procedures are processes with which the administration works towards citizens and companies and in which these face the administration with their own rights. Characteristic of these procedures vis-à-vis persons outside the administration is a high degree of juridification by administrative procedure law. The legal status of the citizen vis-à-vis the administration is very strong in Germany. In recent years, also influenced by New Public Management thought, great efforts have been made to optimise the procedural side of public administration. The chapter presents significant tools and approaches of this process thinking.

The German system of public sector employment (including civil servants and public employees) qualifies as a classical European continental civil service model moulded in traditional forms of a Weberian bureaucracy. Its features include a career-based employment system with entry based on levels of formal qualification. Coordinated by legal frames and centralised collective bargaining, the civil service is, at the same time, decentralised and flexible enough to accommodate regional differences and societal changes. In comparison, the civil service system stands out for its high degrees of professionalism and legal fairness with low levels of corruption or cronyism.

This chapter gives an overview of public finance in Germany. In the first part, it describes the process of public budgeting, the main principles, and the budget cycle. Finally, it reports on budget reforms. Subsequently, it delivers information on the volume and structure of expenditure and revenue, the latter with a special focus on the tax system, the system of multilevel tax distribution among the levels of government and on public debt. The chapter refers also to the legal framework for public budgeting and accounting standards that differ between the levels of the Federation and the states. Some special information on local finance in Germany is also included.

After 1990, the rupture of the politico-administrative system and transformation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was essentially shaped by the process of German unification and the GDR’s integration into the ‘old’ Federal Republic. Thus, basic constitutional and institutional issues, such as legal rule (Rechtsstaat)-based administration, inclusion in the European Union, were (‘exogenously’) pre-determined by the GDR’s accession to the ‘old’ Federal Republic. The chapter highlights East Germany’s politico-administrative transformation after 1990 by addressing the organisational and personnel dimensions of the remoulding and rebuilding of the administrative structures at the new Länder and local levels. Finally, notwithstanding the particularities of the ‘East German case’, it raises question whether there are lessons which other countries facing transition or transformation can draw from East Germany’s experience.

The chapter analyses recent reforms in the multilevel system of the Länder, specifically territorial, functional and structural reforms, which represent three of the most crucial and closely interconnected reform trajectories at the subnational level. It sheds light on the variety of reform approaches pursued in the different Länder and also highlights some factors that account for these differences. The transfer of state functions to local governments is addressed as well as the restructuring of Länder administrations (e.g. abolishment of the meso level of the Länder administration and of single-purpose state agencies) and the rescaling of territorial boundaries at county and municipal levels, including a brief review of the recently failed (territorial) reforms in Eastern Germany.

In recent decades, the provision of public services in Germany has increasingly been transferred to institutions outside the core administration. The process has resulted in a considerably changed institutional landscape with multiple effects on its steering, governance and management. The aim of this chapter is to highlight experiences with the four different institutional arrangements of corporatisation, outsourcing, privatisation and re-municipalisation in Germany. Against this background, we provide some lessons learnt for public administration and finally shift attention to the discussion on public versus private service provision.

The German administrative system is well known for its time-honoured subsidiarity principle regarding the delivery of social and welfare services, especially at the local level. The public (municipal) sector is only allowed to provide these welfare services if the civil society, welfare organisations and citizens’ initiatives are not able to do it on their own. Against this background, the co-production of public services is deeply rooted in the German administrative culture. However, in more recent times, often prompted by fiscal problems, but also triggered by an increasing demand for more citizen participation, the co-production of services and the involvement of multiple actors have gained increasing importance. Against this backdrop, the chapter outlines these shifts from ‘traditional’ modes of service delivery and decision-making to co-producing features and participatory elements. It also addresses some of the resulting key problems and pitfalls, such as accountability, transparency and legitimacy.

Digital transformation of the German public sector is embedded in a large-scale reform focussing on digitalisation and de-bureaucratisation of public services. By 2022, 575 public services will have been digitised. Digitalisation is, however, a contested topic in Germany: modernisation efforts have been stalled resulting in backlogs and the delay of IT consolidation of outdated legacy systems. At the same time, however, innovation pockets are emerging across all levels of government. The chapter first provides an overview of the legal basis of digital transformation, centralised and decentralised organisational embeddedness of administrative responsibilities and then highlights insights into selected implementation cases.

Over the last decades, Better Regulation has become a major reform topic at the federal and—in some cases—also at the Länder level. Although the debate about improving regulatory quality and reducing unnecessary burdens created by bureaucracy and red tape date back to the 1960s and 1970s, the introduction by law in 2006 of a new independent institutionalised body for regulatory control at the federal level of government has brought a new quality to the discourse and practice of Better Regulation in Germany. This chapter introduces the basic features of the legislative process at the federal level in Germany, addresses the issue of Better Regulation and outlines the role of the National Regulatory Control Council (Nationaler Normenkontrollrat—NKR) as a ‘watchdog’ for compliance costs, red tape and regulatory impacts.

Human resource management (HRM) reform has not been the focus of attention in Germany despite its obvious relevance for effective policy implementation. Although there is a general trend worldwide towards convergence between public and private HRM strategies and practices, management of the workforce in German public administration still remains largely traditional and bureaucratic. This chapter describes and analyses German practices regarding the central functions and elements of HRM such as planning, recruitment, training and leadership. Furthermore, it explores the importance and contribution of public service motivation, performance-related pay and diversity management in the context of German practices. The chapter concludes by highlighting some of the major paradoxes of German public HRM in light of current challenges, such as demographic change, digital transformation and organisational development capabilities.

This chapter describes the most prominent public management reform trajectories in German public administration over the past decades since unification. In the 1990s, the New Steering Model emerged as a German variant of the NPM. Since the mid-2000s, local governments in Germany have been subjected to a mandatory reform of their budgeting and accounting system known as the New Municipal Financial Management reforms. Both reforms have led to a substantial change in terms of internal decentralisation, customer orientation, transparency in resource use and the financial situation of administrative bodies. But the emerging reform patterns and their impacts have not replaced the dominance of a strong legalist culture with hierarchical, centralised control. However, in the course of the reforms, a citizen-customer perspective, more participation of citizens and limited application of new management instruments have been accommodated within the persisting bureaucratic system.