Local Government in Germany

This chapter sets out the first international examination of local government finance practice, focusing on Germany. Local government finance in Germany is an example of a complex adaptive system that continually evolves to account for regional and local variation and circumstance. Local autonomy is embedded into the German Basic Law. It affords local government the right to self-administration through the principle of republicanism while principles of connexity and financial equivalence are central components of the constitution. This means that German local government finance is not specifically autonomous, in the sense that a given local government unit will not act independently of all other local government units and structures. Rather, German local government is an example of what the authors present as embedded autonomy. Autonomy is located within, and supported by, continual system-based intergovernmental cooperation and interstate relations. Where the system provides resource and certainty for each local government to engage in a degree of autonomous practice.