Modernization of state and administration

Research subject and approach

The section’s research activities are centered on the structure and regulation of public administration, taking special interest in questions of administrative functionality and efficiency as well as in questions of adjustment, change, and modernization.

Consequently, research carried out within the section is focused on analyzing and influencing processes of modernization within state and administrative bodies.

The double challenge of being faced with a changing – partly increasing – array of demands and, at the same time, a decrease in public funds intensifies the pressure to utilize existing potentials for further rationalization of the administrative system. However, this has to be done without risking lowering the current standard of democratic-constitutional achievements.

There is a need for theoretical as well as practical concepts, which can guide administrative bodies in their efforts to achieve a high standard of performance and to adapt to changing circumstances. Such concepts should also contribute to the identification and reduction of current obstacles for reform. Section I aims to develop such concepts in close cooperation with practitioners, to define criteria for rationalization processes and to broaden the organizational as well as procedural conditions for their applicability. Naturally, this presupposes basic research as well as the development of adequate research methodologies.

Changing parameters for state and public administration such as recent demographic developments, societal change – including changes in value systems and orientations –, European and international competition in the face of weak local economic growth and relatively high unemployment rates, as well as the opportunities and risks of new communication technologies are taken into account when formulating research questions. Keeping in mind this broader context, the section has set itself the following tasks:

to analyze the consequences of such changing parameters for public administration, especially with regard to its structure, organizational forms and procedures under conditions of limited resources and to develop appropriate concepts of tools for action.
to foster the development of common themes which allow for closer cooperation and exchange of knowledge between the science and the practice of public administration.

In order to gain further points of reference for the analysis and evaluation of structural and regulatory aspects of administrative systems, it is not enough only to study approaches towards modernization taken in the German Laender and municipalities. In addition, European member states as well as other countries characterized by a strong dynamic of development and modernization have to be observed and analyzed in relation to the German context. Research on questions of administrative structure and regulation should therefore have a comparative scope. In this respect, the Scientific Documentation and Transfer Centre for Modernizing Administration in the German Laender (SDTC), which forms part of section I, is of fundamental importance.
As far as research methodology is concerned, a problem-oriented approach is chosen in most cases for the design of the research strategy, as well as for the procedures and instruments selected to generate scientific knowledge. On the practical level of carrying out research, this problem-centered approach makes it necessary – always guided by the specific research question – to draw on approaches from a variety of disciplines. It may be feasible to combine methods from social sciences, economics and historical sciences with administrative-legal (normative) requirements, thus allowing for research findings, which meet the research agenda and are transferable into public administration practice. The technique of “Regulatory Impact Assessment” (Gesetzesfolgenabschätzung) developed in Speyer, is a highly successful example of this approach, satisfying legal as well as social scientific standards and producing applicable knowledge.

The section’s general research agenda finds its expression in two medium-term focal points of research:

New forms of public management and governance
Impact assessment/evaluation of consequences

Research focus: “New forms of public management and governance”

This focus continues the traditional line of research carried out in Speyer on questions of reforming state and administration and directs it into new innovative research fields under the guiding concepts of “management” and “governance”. Regarding internal aspects of public administration, which are of principal concern for the research institute, it has published a great number of studies on questions of personnel as well as on organizational structures and processes.

For a number of reasons German public administration has remained a legalistic and rule-bound one. New demands on the effectiveness and efficiency of administrative activity are not always compatible or may even contradict this legalistic understanding. Contemporary strategies of modernization (such as double-entry bookkeeping, cost-output accounting or the use of new information and communication technologies) raise the question of whether and how such business-oriented management concepts can be integrated into a public administration of the continental-European kind without relegating democratic values and the rule of law to a position of lesser importance. Such an undertaking requires trans-disciplinary theoretical work. Section I attends to such issues not only in the context of public administration in the narrow sense, but also in neighboring fields such as the reform of universities and research institutes funded by the state.

Lately, the concept of ‘governance’ has gained prominence in international debates and is employed across disciplinary boundaries. Extending beyond the scope of state-authorized institutions and competencies, this concept refers to the steering, coordinating and regulating structures, which exist in a given socio-political system as the result of interactions among all groups involved. Section I is mainly dealing with questions of “public governance” putting special emphasis on the analysis of organizational and procedural aspects, which enable state and administration to fulfil their tasks, always taking into account the complex interplay between state, business, societal actors and citizens. The above mentioned changing parameters under which public administration has to operate pose new challenges for the realization of “good governance”. Hitherto existing models for achieving efficiency, transparency, accountability and coherence have to be re-examined and continually adapted. Seen from such a governance perspective, modernization is a permanent task of administrative research. Section I aims to accompany this process with scientific analysis and practical recommendations while simultaneously developing its own approach to, and areas of expertise in the governance-debate.
On the basis of this agenda, the section covers long-term fundamental questions as well as more immediate ones regarding the modernization of public administration, exemplary areas of research are:

(historical) paths towards modernization
difficulties in the process of designing and implementing necessary reforms
conditions for and limits of systemic regulation
the integration of information and communication technologies into the organizational and procedural structures of public administration
the interaction between administration and citizens
the design of organizational and procedural structures in public administration
ensuring the integrity of public administration (including the study of counter-tendencies of “good governance” namely, phenomena such as corruption and patronage in public bodies)
implementing more effectively the German system of state-funded higher education and research

Research focus: “Impact assessment/evaluation of consequences”

The objective of this research focus is to improve existing legal regulations, the creation of new norms, and organizational structures on the basis of a theoretical approach, which aims to anticipate and measure their consequences. Impact assessment is the methodological attempt to review norms and other measures taken by politics and administration with regard to whether the intended regulatory effects were achieved and/or which unintended side-effects occurred concurrently. Public actors are thus given the opportunity to take stock of their activities and – if necessary – to correct them. In the face of the tension between changing tasks and decreasing funds, the development and refinement of an optimizing tool such as “impact assessment” is of special need. Section I primarily attends to three sub-fields of impact assessment, namely: regulatory impact assessment (the assessment of the impact of legal norms, e.g. Gesetzesfolgenabschätzung), research on evaluation, and research on sustainability.

The GRIP was and continues to be a pioneer in developing a method for assessing the impact of legal norms and in testing the practical applicability of this method; a fact which has been increasingly recognized internationally as well. In Germany, today all political forces support the idea of regulatory impact assessment in principle; in practice, however, it continues to play a minor role – especially in important legislative projects. At the current stage of research on, and deployment of, the impact assessment methodology, there is a need to widen the body of knowledge about this tool and experience in its use, in order to make it more relevant for the legislative process. Among other tasks, research will concentrate on methodologically advancing the use of the instrument of regulatory impact assessment simultaneously with its further practical deployment and the systematic analysis of experiences gained in this process. The intensive scholarly engagement with regulatory impact assessment can thus be expected to contribute to an improved outcome in lawmaking.

In the administrative sciences, evaluation studies analyze concrete projects of modernization in politics and administration – either concurrently or ex-post. This approach ensures quality control through an incremental feedback of intermediary results and therefore contributes to a continuous improvement of the modernization process. Systems of quality management institutionalized in the context of specific modernization projects are themselves the object of evaluation research of the second order.

Today, sustainability is a generally established guiding concept for state as well as administrative activities. It is understood as the need to take the interests of future generations into account in all contemporary considerations and has found its constitutional expression in art. 20a of the German Basic Law. With regard to economic, social and ecological aspects, public authorities have the obligation to avoid making decisions, which privilege the present at the expense of the future. This obligation holds true not solely for the legislator (within the legal boundaries of a consideration of consequences), and the legal system, but also for administrative bodies, especially in areas of discretionary authority. Up to now, however, administration and administrative research have played only a subsidiary role in the debate on sustainability in Germany. Section I aims to remedy this situation. Precisely in the context of research on impact assessment and evaluation it is imperative to include research on ways to weight the interests of contemporary actors against the interests of future actors in a transparent manner and to thereby support the concept of sustainability with a sophisticated methodology for achieving it.

Impact assessment and evaluation studies, both with the concept of sustainability in mind, must be an interdisciplinary undertaking able to capture economic, social, ecological and other aspects in one encompassing integrative framework. The systematic application of such impact-oriented theoretical concepts to all kinds of innovation (here understood in the broadest sense as any technical, social or institutional improvement) can be a key to activating synergies between different academic disciplines and policies involved in the effort to optimize administrative procedures.

Medium- to long-term orientation of the research program

Section I continues to see its mission in analyzing and shaping processes of modernization in state and administration by means of public administration research. It strives for a higher level of networking with institutions dedicated in a similar manner to basic and/or applied, problem-oriented research in the field of modernizing state and public administration. This can be done by organizing mutual relations of exchange with comparable research institutes within and outside of Germany, through the exchange of scholars or through the organization of academic conferences. Such forms of cooperation are strengthened and supported by the already existing partnerships and cooperation agreements of the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer. Two further partnerships, which are of special importance for section I, have been formed with the Centre for Science and Research Management Speyer and with the FIZ Karlsruhe (Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe).
The two research focal points within the section will be re-examined at regular intervals and – if necessary – amended and broadened.