Bulletin n. 3/2008
February 2009
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Jeffery Charlie
    Groundhog Day: The Non-Reform of German Federalism, Again
    in German Politics , Volume 17, Issue 4, December ,  2008 ,  587-592
    Germany is now witnessing the fifth in a series of set-piece negotiations on the reform of the federal system since 1990. Like the other points in the series, it is unlikely that significant reform will follow. This persistent pattern of non-reform reflects in part the difficulty of disentangling a system based on high consensus requirements between federal and regional governments through negotiations based on similarly high consensus requirements. More fundamentally it reflects the power of a unitarist conception of federalism in Germany. This conception is periodically challenged, but has not yet been overcome, by 'territorialising' pressures from elites and citizens in some German Länder. These territorialising pressures appear persistent and are likely in due course to bring a further iteration - another 'groundhog day' - in the eternal German federalism reform debate.
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