3.3. Institutional Development and Participation
In official rhetoric much importance is put on the
institutional structure of German territorial administrations giving much scope
to local decision making. The principle of municipal sovereignty over territory
and land use, as well as personal and financial matters, is much cherished. The
command over urban infrastructure, its construction and management (either
direct or in delegation) flows from this. The locally elected council is thus
given responsibility for the social equality and management of resources
enhancing a sense of sustainability and coherence among the local
population. The range of municipal action has always been far more
restricted than officially acknowledged, its limited reach further undermined
consistently in the past decades due to the more or less frequent interference
by federal and federate state (Länder) authorities, both in administrative
terms as well as in party politics. This is the result of changes in the fiscal
system, which put much of the social burden of the overall economic development
on the local institutions without allowing for additional sources of revenue.
The consequences of this tendency, nurtured by the federal government's finance
sector, have never been seriously reflected upon, let alone opposed by the
institutions concerned with the federal housing and local development policy,
including the responsible federal ministry. The various ministries did not
oppose the general tendency neither, at best they introduced some modifications
in details regarding the competencies allocated to local government. Finally,
despite the independent associations of the cities and the smaller communities
(Deutscher Städtetag and Deutscher Gemeindebund) with the aim of strengthening
the role of the local authorities, the problem has not yet been tackled in any
fundamental way. Rather, they have been instrumental in streamlining the local
administration with the effect that some municipalities are the
"slimmest" and relatively most "efficient" public
administrations in the country in general. The concept of local democracy,
taken for granted in the official discourse, has not been discussed
fundamentally at either a national or local government level. Administrative
restructuring in public institutions has always been justified with technical
and financial arguments, including the recent district reform in Berlin (end of
2000) which reduced the number of districts from 23 to 12. The growing gap
between public administration and the citizens is being deplored, but the remedy
is usually sought in making public matters more economical, i.e. efficient at
the surface. Local problems, however, have brought about the introduction
of a new, more down-to-earth level in settlement matters. Larger cities have
introduced district or ward committees. These are boards of local
representatives composed according to the results of the council elections. They
have been given the right of commenting council decisions in view of local
conditions, but lack any decision making power, let alone executive
competencies. The considerable potential of this emerging institutional
structure for democratising development has not yet been discussed at all. And
certainly it needs to be explored systematically and implemented. Local
Agenda 21 and Related Participatory Planning Initiatives The idea of Local
Agenda 21 is to aim at an ultimately sustainable style of life in general, i.e.
energy-saving, resource-conserving, waste-recycling, but also socially
equitable, convivial, intellectually satisfying etc., through interventions
geared at local level. It was proposed in the final document of UNCED in Rio
1992. The suggestion in chapter 28 was to consult the local population and make
them participate in the process of reorienting public measures and individual
actions to fit the aim in general. In Germany, there is no consistent
policy towards the Agenda 21 objectives and no federal policy supporting Local
Agenda 21 initiatives. At the next tier, at Länder-level, in some cases there
is a modest encouragement of Local Agenda 21 activities, be it towards the
respective governments, be it towards encouraging local level activities.
In 2001 in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, it was finally
decided to create an Agenda 21 for its territory. An institution called
"Agenda-Transfer" had already been established in 1996 to enhance the
corresponding actions at the local level. Since it is understood that the
concerns of Agenda 21 fall under the sovereignty of Local Government the latter
is held responsible for conceiving the Local Agenda 21 interventions. Agenda
Transfer's first task was and is to convince the respective municipalities in
starting the corresponding actions. Its activities have brought about a
considerable raise in the number of Local Agenda 21 communes. In addition, these
are instrumental in enhancing the process generally, always with the intention
of fostering popular participation. Of those municipalities which have
joined the movement (20 % of the communes in NRW are still waiting, most of them
are rather small), there are two tendencies (and this reflects the state in
Germany in general). The first type of municipalities integrates the tasks
indicated by Agenda 21 into its current council administration. In this case a
department or section is opened which initiates a process of consultation. This
is done more or less top-down, sometimes with the effect of discouraging
bottom-up initiatives aiming at the same goal. In most cases, however, there is
an ongoing and open process of consultation in which the grass-root groups are
heard. The population is involved more or less actively, depending on the
individuals implicated. The second type of municipalities provides little
official support for the Local Agenda activities. Consequently, the initiative
lies with the grass-root initiatives. This model depends not only on the
individual citizens concerned and their personalities, but also on specific
local traditions. The result is a large variety of patterns, mostly middle-class
oriented under the leadership of professionals in retirement or other
intellectuals. This movement is structured so extremely bottom-up that there is
little co-ordination and networking among the various cities and towns. The
federal government and most Länder governments look at this kind of movement
with great indifference.
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