Introduction

A common issue in political science is the extent to which rules affect behaviour. This chapter takes a variation on this theme and explores the extent to which different institutional rules around the competences of the mayor and council in various German states lead to different perceptions about the power of the actors involved. This chapter first explains why Germany has different municipal codes by sketching the history of local self-government of German municipalities after 1945. Then, the different institutional rules inscribed in the municipal codes of the Länder are presented, which are used to elaborate an index of mayoral power. The index will then be correlated with the perception of local actors about the balance of power in their municipality and, finally, explanations will be offered about why mayors and councillors perceive the exercise power as they do. In this analysis, only 13 of the 16 German states are covered, as three ‘city states’ are special cases that are not comparable to others in relation to local government.

The evolution of local government in Germany

Local government does not have a prominent place in the German constitution. In Article 28, two short sentences prescribe the principles of the German local government system:

• 1. Municipalities and counties have the right to govern themselves within the framework of the law.

• 2. In counties and municipalities, the people must have a representative body which emerges from general, direct, free, equal and secret ballots.

Everything else concerning municipalities may be decided upon by the Länder, which have considerable discretion over their own organisation. German municipalities are considered ‘creatures of the Länder’ (Wollmann, 2004: 109), since they can be founded, merged, re-organised and abolished by state legislation without their consent. The Länder have so far followed different approaches in organising their municipalities.

The postwar configuration

During the postwar reorganisation, the four allies followed a top-down process by reinstating the local level of government. In each occupational zone, the occupying power chose a different local government system for its zone. Those systems were kept largely intact by the newly founded German states (Länder), which formed the federal republic.