How does germanys government work

The state of Hessen offers highlights for anyone traveling through Germany. It is the home of the Brothers Grimm's fairytale landscapes as well as the banking metropolis of Frankfurt on the river Main. Hessen has 6. Wiesbaden is the capital. The Saarland in western Germany is a small state with an interesting past. It borders on both France and Luxembourg. European lifestyle is part of everyday life here.

The state has just over one million inhabitants. Overlooking the Baltic and the North Sea, this state is strongly influenced by maritime life. The fabulous beaches, islands and port towns are more than convincing reasons to visit Schleswig-Holstein. Around 2. The capital is Kiel. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern also has its share of the Baltic Sea coasts. The state was once part of East Germany and now belongs to the five German states formed after the reunification of the country in Around 1.

Brandenburg neighbors the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Berliners love to go out to Brandenburg on day trips to enjoy its natural beauty, as it is within easy reach. The region has just 2. The capital of Brandenburg is Potsdam. Saxony, in the East of Germany, has about four million inhabitants and covers 18, square kilometers, placing it somewhere in the middle of the list of German states.

There is so much to see: The beautiful baroque architecture of its capital, Dresden, is just one example. The region has around 2. The capital is Magdeburg. Thuringia is located right in the middle of the country. This state has around 2. But from the beginning, there were also concerns and structural flaws that posed major problems for German federalism. The size and economic power of the states were — and still are — extremely unequal: In modern Germany, population alone varies from North Rhine-Westphalia with over 17 million inhabitants to the city-state of Bremen with barely , The Allies had already recognized the need for changes in the divisions of the states in the s and had urged the federal government to take action.

But no attempt to reform state boundaries has been successful. The most recent occurred in , when the city-state of Berlin and the state of Brandenburg, which surrounds it, held a referendum to unify. The people voted against it. Since the s, there have also been several attempts to reorganize the division of powers between the federal and state governments.

But neither a government commission on constitutional reform nor a constitutional commission of the German parliament in the s could agree on effective changes. But many believe that reforming federalism is still vital.

Under Germany's proportional electoral system, coalition governments are the norm. That means each of the 16 states, plus the federal government, have their own constellation of coalition partners in power at any one time — making unified governing, at times, virtually impossible. To try to solve some of these problems, under Chancellor Angela Merkel the federal coalition of the center-right Christian Democrats, the Bavarian Christian Social Union, and the center-left Social Democrats passed a reform package in This took powers away from the states but simultaneously guaranteed them a continued strong say.

This applies above all to education policy, which is exclusively regulated at a state level. It sees itself as a bridge between the latest university insights and industry-specific product and process improvements. It also generates a great deal of knowledge in its own laboratories. Fraunhofer institutes undertake 6, to 8, projects annually. Most are small, short-term efforts. Projects rarely last longer than two years and focus on immediate, applicable results.

Because Fraunhofer's funding has steadily grown over the years, it has been able work with its industry partners to generate the incremental improvements that translate into sustained competitive advantages.

While Fraunhofer is an independent nongovernmental entity, its distributed structure keeps it focused on practical results. Each Fraunhofer institute is linked with a German university. The institutes pick their own research fields, select their own projects, and decide how to handle project results. More important, institutes balance their own budgets.

That means generating contract research, which accounts for up to two thirds of the Fraunhofer budget. In addition to its scale and distribution structure, there are several other factors that account for Fraunhofer's success:. SMEs are often called the Mittelstand, or "middle class," but the two terms are not synonymous. They are typically family businesses located in small towns and rural areas.

Their roots stretch back for many decades, often generations, and they plan for the very long term. As community leaders, their strong sense of social obligation makes them less likely to outsource or move offshore.

Companies of the Mittelstand generally focus on niche products and markets, rather than go head to head with multinational giants. In many cases, continual incremental improvements in products and production methods have enabled them to dominate their chosen specialties.

Without Fraunhofer, it seems that many of these firms would not have remained as competitive in global markets. Fraunhofer also works with such large, vertically integrated corporations as Siemens, Daimler-Benz, and Volkswagen. Research projects with large companies tend to last longer, involve more institutes, and bring in more revenue than SME contracts.

German manufacturers have realized many successes. Not only do their multinational companies thrive in an increasingly competitive global market, but their SMEs often dominate their market niches. Yet Germany's innovation system is not a perfect model. It has significant weaknesses, and its strengths may not translate easily to other cultures. Fraunhofer's most glaring weakness arises from its greatest strength: Its laser-like focus on established industries has kept it from pioneering new technologies.

There are no German counterparts for Intel, Apple, Google, Facebook, or the dozens of large bioscience companies spawned in the United States. While Fraunhofer spins off companies, most have remained small. Fraunhofer established seven institutes in the United States and research subsidiaries in Chile, Austria, Portugal, and Italy.

In some cases the model adapts well to the local innovation system, while in other cases it does not. It is worth keeping in mind, however, that Fraunhofer also takes a strategic approach to establishing institutes, funding them partly to learn about technology development in other parts of the world. While Fraunhofer's approach does not seem to encourage radical, paradigm-shattering change, it nonetheless demonstrates that a high-cost, high-wage country can compete effectively in global markets through the systematic and continuous application of knowledge.

He is thus in a position to manage not only domestic but also international financial policy for Germany and to coordinate the two.

The minister for economics, once the government's chief economic policy maker especially when the minister was Ludwig Erhard , has gradually lost power as many of the important functions have been transferred to other ministries--including new ministries concerned with environment and research.

Since the s, the minister for economics has functioned more like a United States secretary of commerce, remaining a principal channel for contact with industry, labor, and semipublic associations. But several of the ministers have complained in bitter frustration that they were not able to carry out the policies they wanted. The Bundeskartellamt Federal Cartel Office is the institution specifically instructed and empowered to prevent a return to the monopolies and cartels that periodically controlled much of the German economy between the s and s.

The policies of the office, like the office itself, have been controversial, with some Germans wanting it to have greater power and others believing that it is already abusing its existing authority.

The Bundeskartellamt was established in Many, including Erhard, believed that it had not been given enough authority to restrict cartels and other monopolistic practices.

The Western Allies had insisted that the fledgling Federal Republic have such a law, but West German business associations used their influence to undercut the authority of the Bundeskartellamt to the point where it has sometimes been described as a "Swiss cheese with countless holes.

In retrospect, the laws and the office have performed a central and useful function, but they have not been able to prevent a gradual shift toward ever larger companies in Germany. The number of mergers in West Germany increased rapidly during the late s, rising to over 1, per year. And the Bundes-kartellamt has not been effective in curtailing the countless informal contacts and discussions that have characterized the German system like other European systems and that would be suspect and perhaps illegal in the United States.

Because the Bundeskartellamt tends to use nonconfrontational tactics, the office has often been denounced as ineffective. Critics contend that the office has actually blocked very few mergers or other forms of cooperation. They also assert that hidden monopolistic or oligopolistic practices have been creeping back into the German economy.

But others argue that the very existence of the Bundeskartellamt has enhanced competition and that the office's predilection for solving problems through nonjudicial processes fits properly into the German system and is therefore effective in that system.

Despite its title, the Bundeskartellamt does not have the final authority over German mergers and acquisitions. That authority is reserved for the political level, the Ministry for Economics, which on more than one occasion has overruled the Bundeskartellamt.