‘Activation’ as a Change of the ‘Unemployment Regime’Implications for the German Employment System at large

After 16 years of conservative-liberal rule, a social democratic-green coalition cameinto office in 1998. Though having declared the successful combating of unemploymentthe principal yardstick for his government’s performance, Chancellor Schröder actuallystood back until mid-2001, expecting the favourable business cycle to resolve theproblem. Contrary to his expectations, the ‘New Economy’ boom brought the Germanunemployment rate only down from 12.7% (1997) to 10.3% (2001), according to thenational administrative count.1 Only then a modest reform inspired by the ‘activation’discourse2 was placed smugly into the downward turning economic tide of early 2002...