Collected Papers of the Law Faculty of the University of Rijeka

SUPPLEMENT

Homage to Academician Lujo Margetić

LOCAL SELFGOVERNMENT IN GERMANY

UDK: 352(430)
Original scientific paper

Local selfgovernment in Germany is analized in its historical development, its present-day constitutional bases, its statistical data, its fields of activity, its organizational structure, and the tensions inherent in its relations with central government and with the citizens.

The system of local selfgovernment, in spite of its historical antecedents in the ancient Germanic communities and free towns of the Middle Ages, is of comparatively recent origin parallel to the emergence of modern States in the territory of what was the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Its development after the reunification of Germany in 1990 is characterized by the sometimes contradictory drives towards technological efficiency on the one side and an increased role of citizens in local decision-making on the other. The first movement towards the application of management know-how in government has to overcome strong traditionalist positions that emphasise that "government is different". The attempt to introduce institutions of direct democracy into German local self-government has to confront not only the strong centralist trend in the German machinery of government but also the problem of a limited span of attention and limited time budget of the citizens. There are additional difficulties in the application of the German principle of financial equalization among local units, as well as specific hardships in reorganizing the system of local government in the former DDR according to western standards.

Key words: local selfgovernment, Germany, technical efficiency, direct democracy.

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