D. Lehmkuhl et C. Herr, RAILWAY REORGANIZATION IN GERMANY - BURDE N-SHIFTING OR CONCEPTUAL REORIENTATION, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 35(4), 1994, pp. 631-657
Since the early 1970s, the central governments have been considered to
suffer from ''governmental overload''. In response to this, in German
y such as in many other countries, two avenues of modernisation were o
pened. On the one hand the mobilisation and reinforcement of the subna
tional involvement, that is of the Lander and Kommunen. On the other h
and, an introduction of market-oriented strategies such as privatisati
on and/or deregulation. The reorganisation of German railways, started
in January 1994, provides an opportunity to analyse the relationship
of these two strategies, since both, decentralisation and privatisatio
n lie at the heart of the reorganisation design. Our reconstruction of
the policy process confirms earlier observations that ministerial and
federal fragmentation of state authority constitute the main obstacle
to structural reform in the German political system. Moreover, there
seems to be a tension between decentralisation and privatisation. This
is the case, whenever the privatisation approach is spurred by fiscal
policies of withdrawal and ''burden-shifting'' rather than by concept
ual reorientation of state functions. Thus, the future role of the sta
te, i.e. the key element of structural reorganisation, remains unsolve
d.