Introduction: Federalism in Katzenstein's Policy and Politics in West Germany

Peter Katzenstein's treatment of federalism in Policy and Politics in West Germany (1987) was one of the classic accounts of co-operative federalism. It built on, reconciled and took forward what had hitherto been the pioneering texts: Fritz Scharpf et al. (1976) on Politikverflechtung, the interlocking of tiers of government in the policy process; and Gerhard Lehmbruch's Parteienwettbewerb im Bundesstaat, which explored how the dynamics of multi-tiered party competition could produce an equally interlocked ‘all-party proportional government’ through the interaction of different party majorities in Bundestag and Bundesrat (Lehmbruch 1976, p. 168). The arguments in Scharpf and Lehmbruch ran along parallel and largely unconnected trajectories. Parties did not really figure in Scharpf; Lehmbruch did not immerse himself in the institutional detail of the policy-making process. Each provided a brilliant but partial account. Katzenstein provided the linkage.

This linkage came in the juxtaposition of a ‘decentralised state’ with a ‘centralised society’ (Katzenstein 1987, p. 15). The decentralised state was a multifaceted antidote to Hitler. It was manifested in a strong Constitutional Court, the sectorised and regionalised operation of the civil service, ministerial autonomy under the Ressortprinzip, but above all federalism. West German federalism evolved in a way which was unusual. The division of powers was primarily functional, separating responsibilities for legislation, which was mainly carried out at the federal level, and implementation, which was mainly the responsibility of the Länder governments.