New Challenges to Public Governance and the Restructuring of Government Roles - The German Experience

Professor Dr. Dieter SchimankeSecretary of State (ret.), Senior Expert (GIZ, German

International Cooperation)Hamburg/Germany

Beijing, November 29th, 2012

Contents

I. Phases of the Debate on State and Government over 50 years

II. Empirical trends in Governance during the last 20 years

III. The State is back

I. Phases of the debate on State and Government

Democratic State

Active State Slim State Activating State

State ensuring services

Periode Since beginning 50‘ies

Mid of 60‘ies

End of 70‘ies

Since mid of 90‘ies

Since late 90‘ies

Catchwords Rule of Law (‚Rechtsstaat‘), Demo-cracy

Failure of market; reactive politics

Failure of state and bureaucracy; regulation in excess

Governance; Civil society

Delegating functions; Regulating and monitoring

Theories Parliamentarism; Max Weber

Macro-Economics; Corporatism

Micro-Economics; New Public Management

Neo-institutionalism; Social Capital

The regulatory state; Neo-Weberianism

Empirical indicator: Quota of taxes and contributions of the GNP

Year 1965 1975 1985 1995 2000 2008 2009 2010 2011provis.

Germa-ny

31.8 34.3 36.1 37.2 37.5 36.5 37.3 36.1 37.1

Sweden 33.3 41.3 47.4 47.5 51.4 46.4 46.6 45.5 44.5

UK 30.4 34.9 37.0 34.0 36.4 35.8 34.2 34.9 35.5.

USA 25.5 29.3 32.5 34.5 35.2 34.5 33.7 33.6 n.a.

II. Trends in the last 2 Decades (1)(1) Decreasing trust in hierarchical top-down-steering(2) Increasing importance of net-work and net-work-management(3) Combination of different forms of steering (state, market,

negotiating etc.)(4) Shift to the perspective of specific steering approaches in the single

fields of policy(5) ‘Renovating’ the macro-structure of the state organization/revision

of the ‘institutional arrangements’ (multi-level-system; structures and processes of public administration and IT/E-Government)

(6) Decentralization of problem solving; outsourcing of functions; agencification; using private forms of service delivery

(7) Reducing public tasks (due to fiscal restrictions)

Trends in the last 2 Decades (2)

(8) New distribution of functions between state, economy and civil society

(9) Change of the leading concept of the state: from the active state to the state ensuring services (‘Gewaehrleistungsstaat’)

(10) Trends in the single fields of policy and public administration into an international or supranational (Europe) orientation

(11) Special challenge: the ageing of the population(12) Trend to open government (free access to information)(13) Crisis of legitimation of politics and new issues of

participation (public communication)

The silent Revolution of the 1990-ies

(Especially following points 6 and 9)Reducing the State (!?):The reform of the semi-state sector:

telecommunication, post services (German Post), railway (German Railway), the social securities

The sector of (communal) services: water, energy (electricity, gas), waste

III. The State is back

The increasing demand for public services, caused by demographic developments, the imbalance of income (increasing poverty), the failures of the markets

The demand for state interventions in crises (crisis management): the case of the financial crisis 2008 pp. (Governance of the financial markets)