Animals in the administrative zoo: organizational change and agency autonomy in Germany

Abstract

Although Germany does not figure among the ‘forerunners’ of managerial reforms of the public sector, it has a long tradition of agencies and non-departmental bodies at the federal level. Over time, the federal administration has developed into a highly differentiated ‘administrative zoo’ with a large number of species, questioning the image of a well-ordered German bureaucracy. The article addresses organizational changes among non-ministerial agencies during the past 20 years and ministry—agency relations, drawing on data from a comprehensive survey of the federal administration. The structural changes we observe are neither comprehensive nor planned; they are much more evolutionary than revolutionary, driven by sectoral policies and not by any overall agency policy, supported more by regulatory than by managerial reforms, and most of the changes are horizontal mergers or successions of existing organizations, while we find almost no evidence for hiving-off from ministries to agencies. At the same time, federal agencies report a lot of bureaucratic discretion, whereas they perceive substantial levels of ‘red tape’ due to administrative regulations. We also find that traditional, hierarchical modes of ministerial oversight are still dominating; only few agencies have performance agreements with measurable goals. Points for practitioners The article will be of interest to practitioners concerned about the nature and direction of organizational change within government, especially about processes of horizontal and vertical differentiation and steering. It demonstrates that even in a highly developed and classical bureaucratic administrative system such as Germany there is and has for a long time been a large variety of governmental agencies that enjoy a considerable amount of autonomy. At the same time there is continuous change and adaptation to new circumstances, even though all this has very little to do with international modernization trends such as New Public Management or comprehensive agencification.