Competitive federalism

With competitive federalism is often named a competitive federalism . The regional units within a state should have their own scope for decision-making in many areas. This creates competition between the individual regions, which is intended to reward the more productive regions. Competitive federalism is often associated with the USA and Switzerland .

The opposite is the cooperative federalism that Germany stands for. In that country, for example, supporters of competition federalism are demanding the (re-) transfer of legislative powers to the federal states . The aim is also to unbundle federal and state competencies. Further elementary demands are the reform of the horizontal financial equalization scheme and the reform of the Federal Council . Until December 2004 a commission of the Bundestag and Bundesrat (Commission of the Bundestag and Bundesrat for the Modernization of the Federal Order, Federal State Commission ) met.

Politically, the concept of competitive federalism is supported primarily by the FDP and the Bavarian Party . On the other hand, parties that tend to be left-wing fear that this would jeopardize the equality of living conditions in Germany, as required under Article 72 (2) of the Basic Law .

literature

• Heribert Schatz, Robert Chr. Van Ooyen, Sascha Werthes: Competitive Federalism . The rise and fall of a political controversy. Nomos-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2000, ISBN 3-7890-6754-7 .
• Jochen Zenthöfer: Competitive federalism. To reform the German federal state based on the Australian model. Schmidt, Grasberg bei Bremen 2006, ISBN 3-86651-016-0 (At the same time: Potsdam, Universität, Dissertation, 2006).