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D. Mauricio Reichenbachs - On the nature of the government-nonprofit relationship in Germany D. Mauricio Reichenbachs1 On the government-nonprofit relationship in German welfare services – still the era of corporatism?2 Abstract This qualitative study discusses whether with respect to welfare services Germany’s government- nonprofit relationship can still be characterized as corporatist. Taking the city-state of Bremen and the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt as examples, Elinor Ostrom’s distinction between rules-in-form (legal guidelines and laws) and rules-in-use (norms, practices) serves as vantage point for scrutinizing the de facto characteristics of the state-third sector interaction in the realm of welfare services. Traditionally, the relationship between the German state and the third or nonprofit sector regarding welfare production has been referred to as corporatist, collaborative, and coordinated. However, recent developments, such as increasing market measures and the proliferation of short-term and performance contracts, have profoundly challenged this notion. Notwithstanding well-documented legal changes, there has not yet been a systematic, encompassing attempt to describe the rules-in- use dominating the current state-third sector relationship. Expert interviews were conducted from January to August 2012 in Bremen and from November 2013 to January 2014 in Saxony-Anhalt with the executives of the service-providing nonprofit organizations and public leaders. The underlying dimensions of six state-third sector relationship schemes were the foundation of the interview guide and the deductive coding framework. For Bremen, the results suggest that despite legal changes, state and third sector officials assess their arrangement as corporatist – though with some modifications. Collaboration, partnership and integration still very much shape state-third sector co- governance and co-management, not supporting forecasts of corporatism’s decay. However, formality and instances of low decision making mutuality and low autonomy regarding the implementation of services are on the rise. Nursing care appears to be the pioneering sector in this respect. For Saxony-Anhalt the findings indicate that a balance of corporatist and new elements (high formality, rising occasions of non-partnership interaction) are characteristic of the government- nonprofit relationship. 1 PhD-Fellow at the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS) at the University of Bremen, Germany. Contact: [email protected] 2 Draft: please do not cite without author’s permission. 1 D. Mauricio Reichenbachs - On the nature of the government-nonprofit relationship in Germany Table of Contents 1. The traditional view on Germany: subsidiary welfare corporatism and state-third sector partnership ..................................................................................................................... 4 2. Corporatist welfare arrangements under pressure ......................................................... 5 2.2. Legal changes emphasize competition, pluralism and efficiency ............................. 5 2.3. Still corporatism? ........................................................................................................ 6 3. Research focus, case studies, and the concept of rules ................................................... 8 3.1. Rules-in-use versus rules-in-form ............................................................................... 8 3.2. Case selection: political stability and socio-fiscal pressure ....................................... 8 3.3. The city-state of Bremen – Small, social-democratic, and high financial pressure .. 9 3.4. The federal state of Saxony-Anhalt – changing governments, GDR legacy and high financial pressure................................................................................................................. 10 3.5. Defining the terms third sector and social and health services .............................. 10 3.6. Conducting qualitative research using expert interviews ....................................... 11 3.7. Filtering out relevant relationship dimensions: Six state-third sector relationship schemes under review ......................................................................................................... 14 3.8. Developing the coding system and analyzing the interviews ................................. 20 4. Results of the qualitative content analysis..................................................................... 21 4.2. Kuhnle & Selle – Integrated dependence ................................................................ 23 4.3. Gidron et al. – Collaborative-partnership versus collaborative-vendor ................. 24 4.4. Coston – Collaboration versus contracting and third-party government ............... 25 4.5. Young – Complementary and adversarial lens ........................................................ 26 4.6. Najam – Complementarity versus confrontation .................................................... 27 4.7. Brinkerhoff – Partnership versus contracting .......................................................... 29 4.8. Who interacts with whom? Shedding light on the interacting parties ................... 30 5. Summary and discussion of the findings ........................................................................ 31 5.1. The resilience of the corporatist paradigm?!........................................................... 31 2 D. Mauricio Reichenbachs - On the nature of the government-nonprofit relationship in Germany 5.2. What ‘new’ elements? – Changes in welfare service planning and delivery ......... 34 5.3. Sector-specific trends................................................................................................ 35 5.3.1. General findings ................................................................................................. 35 5.3.2. Nursing care ....................................................................................................... 36 5.3.3. Children, youth, and family help ....................................................................... 36 6. Limitations. conclusions and outlook ............................................................................. 37 List of Figures Figure 1 - Case selection ............................................................................................................. 9 Figure 2 - Interviewed experts and their organizations ........................................................... 13 Figure 3 - Kuhnle & Selle's four government-voluntary welfare organization relations ......... 15 Figure 4 – Gidron et al.’s four models of state-nonprofit relations ......................................... 16 Figure 5 – Coston’s state-nongovernmental organization continuum .................................... 17 Figure 6 – Young’s three modes of government-nonprofit interaction .................................. 18 Figure 7 – Najam’s Four C’s of state-nonprofit relations ......................................................... 19 Figure 8 – Brinkerhoff’s four modes of state-third sector interaction .................................... 20 Figure 9 – Summary and interpretation of the coding results ................................................. 22 Figure 10- Overview and interpretation of the coding results ................................................ 32 3 D. Mauricio Reichenbachs - On the nature of the government-nonprofit relationship in Germany 1. The traditional view on Germany: subsidiary welfare corporatism and state-third sector partnership With corporatism and subsidiarity as bedrocks, the German system of ‘subsidiary welfare corporatism’3 has ever since its institutionalization during the Bismarckian era (subsidiarity) and the Weimar Republic (corporatism) attributed an integral partnership role to the third sector. More precisely, Germany’s welfare production has been characterized by institutionalized and persisting state-third sector linkages4 and “provides a prime example of a corporatist regime”5. Recent developments, however, have called these descriptions of cooperative partnership into question. Germany’s traditional ‘neo-corporatist’6 setup prominently showed in the incorporation of recognized third sector entities – first and foremost the six grand welfare associations and their umbrella organization, the BAGFW7 - in public policy development, goal setting and policy implementation.8 Especially in the provision of public services, the state and third sector associations can look back on a long tradition of cooperation and coordination.9 Consequently, Esping-Andersen ascribes Germany to the group of corporatist-statist welfare states10 and Salamon & Anheier characterize Germany’s ‘nonprofit regime’ as corporatist - epitomized by a large share of public funding of nonprofit organizations and close state-third sector cooperation.11 This cooperation is guided by the subsidiarity principle implying that tasks which the individual or community can achieve independently must not be appropriated by higher level entities.12 Hence, family provided welfare should precede state welfare13 and nonprofit organizations affiliated with the grand welfare associations are endowed with a de jure and de facto precedence over statutory and for-profit entities.14 3 Cf. Boeßenecker (2005), p. 11. 4 See Czada (1994), p. 37; Backhaus-Maul/Olk (1996), p. 580. 5 Priller et al. (1999), p. 109. 6 Schmitter (1974); Lehmbruch (1979);

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