Abstract
One of the central debates about contemporary Germany concerns the extent to which the established political structures and policy processes of the pre-unification Federal Republic can absorb the shock of incorporating the new Länder of the former GDR. Some, most recently Douglas Webber (1995), have identified a high capacity for adaptation in the structures and traditions of the ‘old’ Federal Republic and for accommodating the former GDR without undue disruption. Others, though, have argued that the incorporation of the former GDR will, over time, produce ‘far-reaching’ (Lehmbruch, 1990) or even ‘fundamental’ (Veen, 1993) change. The latter has been the case particularly in assessments of the impact of unification on the federal system in Germany. A number of the most prominent commentators on German federalism — Heidrun Abromeit (1992), Arthur Benz (1991), Jens Hesse and Wolfgang Renzsch (1990), Hartmut Klatt (1993), Fritz Scharpf (1990, 1994) and Roland Sturm (1991) among them — all predicted in the aftermath of unification that, on balance, the integration of the five new German Länder into the federal system would modify the relationships between Länder and central institutions in favour of the centre, in particular the federal government.
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Jeffery, C. (1998). German Federalism in the 1990s: On the Road to a ‘Divided Polity’?. In: Larres, K. (eds) Germany since Unification. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26132-1_6
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