Germany, like most European states, has a well-established parliamentary system with the typical array of rights and liberties associated with all recognized, functioning democracies. It is also clear to anyone who travels to Germany that the country is a federation. Even the most unobservant foreigner knows that Bavaria is somehow separate and distinct from other regions of Germany, and he or she may even be aware of the existence of the fifteen other states (Länder) that constitute the country. A beginning student of Germany soon learns something about the names and locations of sixteen capital cities other than the national...

Where is Germany? What are its constituent parts? Who is a German? These questions may not be entirely unique to Germans; they are sometimes asked in many nation-states in Europe and elsewhere. But questions about identity have been asked for centuries in Germany and to some extent are still asked today. For hundreds of years “Germany” was a group of tribes located in north-central Europe, most but not all of which became a part of the empire of Charlemagne and, after the death of Charlemagne, a part of what would become the Holy Roman Empire. This empire consisted of hundreds...

As in the case of the American states, the GermanLänderexisted before the federation. But unlike the United States, there is no legal controversy in Germany over the role of the states as opposed to the “people” in creating the federation.¹ Representatives from theLändermet at Herrenchiemsee in 1948 to draft the new constitution and formed the Parliamentary Council which negotiated with the Allies over the final text in 1949. The German Constitution, or Basic Law, was thenapprovedby the parliaments of theLänder(except Bavaria) rather than by popular referendum. This does not make the Federal...

To some extent the Allies, especially the British,¹ tried after the war to break older administrative traditions in Germany, but the Americans and French looked for guidance at the pre-Nazi administrative structures in their occupation zones. Nineteenth-century organizational structures were largely reinstated under the formula, “a new beginning, but not a fundamentally new organization.”² But there was a focus on localizing administration, in part as a consequence of the Potsdam Agreement that called for “decentralization” in post-war Germany.³ The reconstruction of administration from the bottom up helped strengthen and stabilize local self-government.⁴ In the nineteenth century it was said that...

For almost forty years after the federal Constitution went into effect, little attention was paid to state (Land) constitutions in Germany. Amendments were made on numerous occasions, but these were almost always rather minor changes or technical corrections and did not arouse much controversy. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, this changed dramatically for two major reasons. A scandal in Schleswig-Holstein in 1987 involving allegations that the prime minister (Minister-Präsident) had been guilty of a serious abuse of power (the Barschel/ Pfeiffer affair) led to a thorough revision of thatLand’s Constitution which included...

According to the official English translation of Article 20, para. 1, of the Basic Law, the Federal Republic of Germany is a “democratic and social federal state.” A better translation might be “a democratic and federal social welfare state.” “Social” in German usually means socially fair, or just, and generally equal. Therefore, this concept provides a constitutional basis for the German welfare state. A European-type welfare state is under strong unitary pressures, because government programs for old age pensions, disability, medical insurance, nursing home care, unemployment insurance, child support, and other social services must be offered on a national basis...

In the Kaiserreich of 1871–1918, the Constitution gave the central government only a brief catalogue of powers, with all other powers reserved for the states; however, the central state also had concurrent powers and implied powers. Over time the national government assumed more powers through constitutional changes and legislation which also had to be passed by a second chamber, theBundesrat, that represented the mostly monarchical governments in the states. The state parliaments had no voice in these developments or in the many cooperative agreements signed by the state governments to bring about more uniformity in the country.¹

In...

When one reads of European parliaments and their members, one normally thinks of the national level. This is understandable with respect to the mostly unitary political systems, which have only national parliaments. But some of these states, such as Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium, are federal systems, and some others, such as Spain, have a semifederal territorial organization. In these systems far more parliamentarians are members of regional parliaments than of the national parliament. Nevertheless, since the regional parliamentarians receive much less media coverage and relatively little public attention in general, less is known about them than about their counterparts...

In every federal system there is a national party system which, in spite of certain commonalities, is likely to be somewhat different from the regional and/or local party systems. In the United States there are two dominating, loosely organized, personality- and candidate-oriented, generally weakly disciplined parties with no single universally recognized national party leader except perhaps the president. They are financed by various private interest groups and individuals, including many supporters who are not members in any formal sense and pay no dues. In part because of these general characteristics, some differences can and do exist between the national and...

Five phases can be distinguished in the development of political parties in theLänder. The first phase, from 1945 to 1953, was the period during which older parties were reestablished, e.g., SPD, and new parties were founded, e.g., the refugee party (BHE), CDU, and FDP (although the CDU has its roots in the old Center Party [Zentrum] and the FDP could be traced back to liberal parties of the Empire and Weimar Republic). The second phase, from 1953 to 1969, saw the developing concentration of parties culminating in the three- (or “2½”)-party system of CDU/CSU, SPD, and FDP. The third...

All federal states have some kind of second chamber that participates in the legislative process and represents the constituent parts of the whole, but Germany’s second chamber is unique in the world’s federal systems.¹ It is unique in that it is afederal, not aLand, organ, in which the member states are represented by theirgovernments(i.e., cabinets). This means it is an executive as well as a legislative body, and it means also that it is not a part of parliament, which is theBundestagalone. Rather, it is a constitutional organ along with theBundestag, the federal...

At first it would appear that this chapter is misnamed. Surely “European and Foreign Policy” are themes that belong to the federal government. They do, of course, but theLänderare not irrelevant in these areas. Indeed, European policy is now to a considerable extent domestic policy, and many responsibilities that have traditionally belonged to theLänderhave been and are today the subjects of European Community – now EU – regulations and legislation. The efforts by theLänderto protect their sphere of responsibility from EU incursions or, at the very least, to participate in the decision making that...

The most commonly cited characteristic of American federalism is “dual federalism.” This refers to constitutionally delegated powers for the federal government and reserve powers for the states, with each level of government responsible for making, financing, implementing, and administering its own policies. In case of conflict, federal law is supreme so long as the federal government is authorized to act by the constitution. German federalism is also sometimes described by German scholars as “dual federalism,” but sometimes this means the same as above (Trennsystem) and at other times something quite different. That is, it often means “dualism” in the sense...