Reforming Federalism in Germany: Incremental Changes instead of the Big Deal

The unique characteristics of Germany's federalism have been long identified as one of the main obstacles to legitimate and efficient governance. In 2006, the grand coalition adopted a federal reform which aims to disentangle the intertwined levels of government by reducing the influence of the Länder governments in federal policy-making and strengthening the Länder by granting more legislative competences to the federal states. In this article, I summarize the reasons for the constitutional change, provide a short overview of the reform process, and evaluate its results. I argue that the achieved compromise will only lead to incremental changes in Germany's federalism and will not be sufficient to solve the perceived problems of Germany's federal structure. Copyright 2009, Oxford University Press.