Westeuropäische Regierungsorganisationen im Wandel

Abstract

The change of Government Organizations has been neglected by the contemporary literature. On the one hand change is less obviously because it is not measurable in form of a policy output . The changes of Government Organizations take place in a long incremental process. On the other hand there is no consistent theory which can explain why public sector reforms on the national level are successful in one country and are refused in another European state. Besides economic factors, the starting position of a country (structure of the central government and administration) plays an important role in the reform process. Administrative culture and law traditions may determine the path dependency as well. Three approaches of the New Institutionalism should explain administrative reforms and discourses at the national level in Germany, Great Britain and Sweden. Which of these approaches is best suitable to explain the reform path in the three countries since the eighties? This thesis should contribute to the big scientific question, why divergent developments are still predominant in Western Europe.