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This article analyses incremental institutional change and subsequent organizational and performance outcomes of the digital transformation from a comparative perspective. Through 31 expert interviews, the authors compare two digitalized public services in Germany. Two digitalization approaches are identified. The voluntary, decentralized bottom-up approach involves layering of new rules, limited organizational restructuring, and performance deficits. Conversely, the compulsory, top-down approach with centralized control facilitates displacement of existing rules and far-reaching organizational change; in this study, it is also associated with improved performance.
Dieser Beitrag vergleicht die kommunale Verwaltungsdigitalisierung in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz (DACH-Länder) als Vertreter der kontinentaleuropäisch-föderalen Verwaltungstradition bei zugleich unterschiedlichen Digitalisierungsansätzen und -fortschritten. Basierend auf Interviews mit 22 Expert*innen und Beobachtungen in je einer Kommune pro Land sowie Dokumenten-, Literatur- und Sekundärdatenanalysen untersucht die Studie, wie Verwaltungsdigitalisierung im Mehrebenensystem organisiert ist und welche Rolle dabei das Verwaltungsprofil spielt sowie welche Innovationsschwerpunkte die Kommunen im Hinblick auf die Leistungserbringung und die internen Prozesse setzen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der hohe Grad lokaler Autonomie den Kommunen ermöglicht, eigene Akzente in der Verwaltungsdigitalisierung zu setzen. Zugleich wirken die stark verflochtenen komplexen Entscheidungsstrukturen und hohen Koordinationsbedarfe in verwaltungsföderalen Systemen, die in Deutschland am stärksten, in Österreich etwas schwächer und in der Schweiz am geringsten ausgeprägt sind, als Digitalisierungshemmnisse. Ferner weisen die Befunde auf eine unitarisierende Wirkung der Verwaltungsdigitalisierung als Reformbereich hin. Insgesamt trägt die Studie zu einem besseren Verständnis dafür bei, welche Problematik die Verwaltungsdigitalisierung für föderal-dezentrale Verwaltungsmodelle mit sich bringt.
All over Europe, cities and municipalities face new and numerous challenges to uphold their unique self-governing role in society. This intriguing reality underscores this volume’s ambition of brightening the future of local self-government. After further elaborating on this relevant background and the approach taken, the first chapter introduces three main dimensions of analysis. They are key to the volume’s subsequent parts on the essence of local government’s autonomy, its transformations in the light of digitalisation, marketisation and amalgamation and, finally, its changing intergovernmental relations concerning supervision and subnational policy-making. This volume covers eight countries, spread over Europe. And so, this introductory chapter ends with highlighting main features of the different local government systems involved.
Comparative literature on institutional reforms in multi-level systems proceeds from a global trend towards the decentralization of state functions. However, there is only scarce knowledge about the impact that decentralization has had, in particular, upon the sub-central governments involved. How does it affect regional and local governments? Do these reforms also have unintended outcomes on the sub-central level and how can this be explained? This article aims to develop a conceptual framework to assess the impacts of decentralization on the sub-central level from a comparative and policy-oriented perspective. This framework is intended to outline the major patterns and models of decentralization and the theoretical assumptions regarding de-/re-centralization impacts, as well as pertinent cross-country approaches meant to evaluate and compare institutional reforms. It will also serve as an analytical guideline and a structural basis for all the country-related articles in this Special Issue.
Points for practitioners
Decentralization reforms are approved as having a key role to play in the attainment of ‘good governance’. Yet, there is also the enticement on the part of state governments to offload an ever-increasing amount of responsibilities to, and overtask, local levels of government, which can lead to increasing performance disparities within local sub-state jurisdictions. Against this background, the article provides a conceptual framework to assess reform impacts from a comparative perspective. The analytical framework can be used by practitioners to support their decisions about new decentralization strategies or necessary adjustments regarding ongoing reform measures.
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.
Der vorliegende Beitrag fasst die bisherige Forschung über die Wirkungen von Gebietsreformen zusammen und analysiert diese aus inhaltlicher und methodischer Perspektive. Basierend auf einer Auswertung von ausgewählten nationalen und europäischen Studien werden Wirkungsbefunde in drei zentralen Dimensionen dargestellt: (1) Leistungsfähigkeit, Verwaltungs- und Veranstaltungskraft, (2) Einsparungen, Skalenerträge und Wirtschaftlichkeit und (3) Partizipation und demokratische Kontrolle. Im Ergebnis kann festgestellt werden, dass die Leistungs- und Handlungsfähigkeit kommunaler Verwaltungen durch Gebietsreformen überwiegend positiv beeinflusst wird. Dagegen sind die empirischen Befunde bezüglich Wirtschaftlichkeit, Einsparungen und Skalenerträge sowie zur Partizipation und demokratischen Kontrolle nicht eindeutig.
In recent decades, a wave of administrative reforms has changed local governance in many European countries. However, our knowledge about differences as well as similarities between the countries, driving forces, impacts, perceptions, and evaluation of these reforms is still limited. In the chapter, the authors give an overview about mayors’ perceptions and evaluations of two major reform trajectories: (a) re-organisation of local service delivery and (b) internal administrative/managerial reforms. Furthermore, differences between (groups of) countries as well as similarities among them are shown in these two fields of administrative reform. Finally, the authors tried to identify explanatory factors for specific perceptions of administrative reforms at the local level.
Comparatice methods B
(2020)
This article analyses the decentralization of the French welfare state focusing on the transfer of the Revenu minimum d’insertion (RMI) welfare benefit to the departments in 2003 and 2004. We map and explain the effects of the reform on the system and performance of the subnational provision of welfare tasks. To evaluate the impact of decentralization on the RMI-related action of the departments, we carry out a qualitative document analysis and use data from two case studies. The RMI decentralization offers an exemplary insight into the incremental implementation of French decentralization. We find many unintended effects in terms of the performance and outcome of the subnational welfare provision. This is traced back to the combining of institutional and policy reforms and the inadequate translation of high political expectations into an inadequate action programme both resulting in excessive demands on the local actors.
Points for practitioners
The decentralization of public tasks is associated with high expectations in terms of the effects on the performance of public services and public governance on the subnational levels. For an in-depth measure the range of administrative performance and political systems effects should be taken into account. We propose a five-dimensional scheme allowing for the determination of decentralization effects on the resource input to and the operative output of subnational public services, on the horizontal coordination between subnational task holders and the affected non-public stakeholders, on the vertical intergovernmental coordination, and on the democratic accountability of subnational authorities.