Cities are affected by the European Union (EU) in multiple ways, for example when using funding or implementing EU legislation. However, they need not be just passive recipients of rules or money: cities are increasingly recognised as an integral part of the EU as illustrated by the Lisbon Treaty’s new provisions on local government or programmatic developments like the Urban Agenda for the EU. But while research has focused on large cities in the EU, showing how they develop agency, for example, through lobbying for their interests, we know much less about small and medium-sized cities. Therefore, this paper asks how and under what conditions smaller cities, too, develop agency, despite less favourable conditions compared to their large counterparts. To answer these questions, the paper relies on a concept of agency that includes agency claims on the one hand and recognition of these claims on the other. Furthermore, it takes the concepts of uploading and horizontal networking from Europeanisation literature to distinguish who is addressed by agency claims. Empirically, the paper focuses on German cities, drawing on a quantitative survey and eight qualitative case studies (cities). The analysis shows that small and medium-sized cities are only partly engaged in uploading activities, but very active in horizontal networking. Through our theoretical lens, horizontal networking can be interpreted as a source of recognition that is often considered missing in uploading activities. By linking Europeanisation and city agency literatures, we also contribute to the broader literature on cities’ international agency.

Die Kommunen besitzen im deutschen Gesundheitssystem nur wenige Steuerungskompetenzen. Gleichzeitig betrachten Bürger*innen die Gesundheitsversorgung in Krankenhäusern und Praxen als einen Teil der örtlichen Daseinsvorsorge und Basisinfrastruktur. Der Beitrag diskutiert, in welcher Form die Kommunen tatsächlich Einfluss auf lokale Versorgungsstrukturen haben und in welcher Weise sich die Governance-Strukturen gewandelt haben. Obwohl Mitgestaltungsmöglichkeiten erweitert wurden, machen nur wenige Kommunen davon Gebrauch. Das liegt zum Teil auch an unzureichenden Ressourcen. Die historische Kernkompetenz von Kommunen, die bevölkerungsbezogene Prävention, hat seit 1945 an Bedeutung veloren. Die Gesundheitsversorgung ist auf kurative Medizin fokussiert. Wichtige Steuerungskompetenzen liegen bei der Selbstverwaltung der Sozialversicherungsträger.

In the process of Europeanisation, the local level takes an intermediary position between citizens and the European level. A special feature of local authorities’ European involvement is that many local Europe-related activities are developed and implemented not only for citizens, but to a considerable extent by them or in cooperation between civil society organisations and municipal actors. The paper presents fresh data from a research project focusing on the German case to examine the local level’s role in the European multi-level-governance system. We ask in this paper: How do civil society actors and municipalities interact in organising Europe-related bottom-up activities and what are the driving motives and ideas for these activities? In a first step, we investigate the variety of bottom-up mobilisation found at the local level and the role of local actors – city administrations, civil society associations and others – in creating opportunities for citizen engagement. In a second step, we trace forms of co-creation, i.e. local civil society involvement in municipal European policy-making, across the four dimensions of Europeanization. Third, we typologize the different local networks based on the type of underlying relation. In summary, Europe-related bottom-up mobilisation takes place through different citizen-oriented activities, often organised and implemented in local networks. The motives for this engagement are mainly based on a normative understanding of Europe as an idea, encompassing notions of European identity and society.

Town twinning comes with great expectations. Pursued after the Second World War as an instrument of reconciliation on the European continent, they are supposed to strengthen political and social cohesion in Europe. However, classic partnerships are undergoing changes. While some have died, others are used for new forms of cooperation. Is town twinning an outdated format? How can we capture and explain why some twinnings are very much “alive” while others “die”? Based on qualitative case studies in eight German cities, we identify institutional, actor-related and policy-related factors that contribute to the success or failure of town twinning as a form of horizontal Europeanization.

Political practice and academic discourse similarly assume that the local level has the potential to strengthen political cohesion in the European Union: it is the tier closest to citizens and implements a large share of European legislation. But what political cohesion actually is and how it can be achieved is less clear. The paper addresses this gap by analysing the local framing of political cohesion in Europe. Drawing on case studies in eight German cities, local Europe-related networks are investigated, focusing on how their ideas about their role in crafting political cohesion links to their Europe-related activities.

Purpose Refugees’ access to psychotherapeutic care is insufficient in Germany. One factor particularly contributing to hindering their access to adequate therapeutic care is a lack of provision of language mediation. This paper aims to explore the institutional system in which the financing of language mediation in the context of the medical treatment of asylum seekers in Germany is located. It examines why the language barrier problem resulting from a lack of financing is not being solved, even though it has been well known for years as a structural problem of day-patient health care to refugees and migrants in Germany. Design/methodology/approach The financing of language mediation is analysed against the background of theories of the so-called “shunting yard”, in which public responsibilities for the assumption of costs are shifted from one level and actor to the other, thus preventing sustainable solutions being achieved. A mix of qualitative methods including the evaluation of official documents, reports and secondary literature, and of 23 expert interviews was used. Findings The financing of language mediation is a perfect example of the “shunting yard” phenomenon, with responsibilities being shifted between federal government, health insurance bodies and the municipalities in Germany. This paper argues that the specific financing structure in the German federal system can be viewed as a reason for the non-solution of the language barrier that hinders refugees’ access to health care. Originality/value The problem of the financing of language mediation in the context of health care has been rarely treated from a social sciences perspective. This paper contributes to addressing this gap.

Active social and employment services are a crucial infrastructure of the welfare state. As these services are designed to help people in need of support to overcome periods of insecurity in their life course, their effective provision has also been seen as an element of the implementation of the social investment (SI) welfare state. However, the transition to the SI state is linked to numerous preconditions. This is especially true with regard to vulnerable people like the long-term unemployed (LTU). The provision of social services that meet the specific needs of this group requires the actors responsible for implementing social and employment policies to have adequate operative capacities. This article compares Germany and France as two European welfare states that – confronted with persistently high long-term unemployment – have taken different reform paths over the last 20 years that partly run counter to their political-administrative systemic conditions and governance traditions to meet this challenge. Empirically, the article draws on a systematic content analysis of selected policy documents and secondary literature. It is shown that the recent German reform path of combining central steering responsibility with local scope for action can be a way to come closer to a social investment-oriented service policy for the LTU. However, the article also reveals that neither state (yet) has the necessary operative capacities for a shift towards an SI state. Overall, the changes in the understanding of the SI paradigm and the welfare state's constant reluctance to invest in implementation capacity make its sustainable application unlikely.

This Special Issue focuses on social services as the critical infrastructure of the social investment model of the welfare state. It addresses social services as a research topic that is still underexposed in comparative welfare state research and examines this topic with a systematising intention in a broad European comparative and methodologically diverse perspective. It brings together different strands of scholarly discussion that have hitherto been poorly connected – social services, critical infrastructure, social investment and the welfare state's capacity to strengthen social resilience through providing social services. The authors of the Special Issue undertake a critical examination of the development of the capacities to implement social service policies in different European welfare states and different service sectors over the last two decades. Taken together, the articles illustrate that – in practice and in contrast to the expectations of academic proponents of the social investment paradigm – there is (still) a bias towards investing, in particular, in those services which are anticipated as having significant economic and social ‘pay offs’ (e.g. early childhood education and care). Furthermore, the articles identify implementation challenges that pose severe obstacles to the realisation of the social investment model.

‘Social investment’ as an idea to justify social policy reforms has become more and more accepted in recent years and has decisively shaped agenda setting and policy formulation in European welfare states. The effectiveness of this new welfare state model, however, depends highly on the capacity to provide social services. Social services – job training, counselling and support for care work – are a key component of the social investment model. Drawing on the policy capacity approach, the article provides an analytical framework to study the ‘operational core’ of the social investment state. This implementation perspective allows us to assess whether governance actors actually have the resources to fulfil the social investment idea of enhancing citizens’ freedom to act. Empirically, the article concentrates on two selected European welfare states, Germany and France, countries with similar welfare systems but very different politico-administrative systems, and on two fields of social service provision that are addressed differently in the social investment debate: early childhood education and care (ECEC) and elderly care. Empirically, we use systematic content analysis to intensively study policy documents and secondary analyses. We show that both countries (still) lack policy capacities in these two sectors as a basis for resilient implementation of the social investment paradigm.

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the public and scientific debate about the state of unification has regained considerable momentum. The debate stresses in particular the persistent, returning, and even deepened East-West differences which refer to central elements and promises of representative democracy. However, it is a controversial and so far unanswered question whether and in which way this poses a challenge to the legitimacy and functioning of representative democracy in Germany. Therefore, this Special Issue focuses on the representative democracy by concentrating on its central dimensions, actors, and institutions (citizens, political parties and parliaments, and elites). The introduction outlines the three key questions which are addressed by the contributors regarding (1) to the status of unification in longitudinal and in cross-sectional perspective, (2) the causes and determinants for ongoing differences and divides between East and West, and (3) the implications for representative democracy in Germany. Moreover, it summarises the results of the contributions and discusses research desiterata for future research on the state of unification and representative democracy in Germany.

Article 21 of the recast Reception Conditions Directive 2013/33/EU (RCD) stipulates that member states shall consider the special needs of asylum seekers with, inter alia, mental illnesses. Similar to other member states, Germany failed to transpose the RCD into national law within the two years prescribed. Due to the inactivity of the federal legislator, the Directive became directly applicable. In the German system of cooperative federalism, this means that the application of the RCD moved downstream to the responsibility of the German Länder (states), which have since found themselves with vague responsibilities, lacking a clear regulation cascade from the federal level. How do Länder implement the RCD and how is its implementation in Germany affected by the federal institutional setting? The objective of this article is to analyse and systematise the patterns of the RCD’s implementation on the subnational level in Germany. On the one hand, the findings suggest that the open formulation of the RCD and the federal government’s inactivity allow for a higher degree of liberty in applying the Directive on the subnational level. On the other hand, most measures taken hitherto have been rather small and ad‐hoc and some Länder have even failed to adopt any significant changes at all. The RCD’s implementation in Germany has consisted of a “tinkering” process, generating an incoherent patchwork of policy outputs. The resulting unequal standards in the reception of asylum seekers displaying mental illnesses present far‐reaching consequences for the people affected.

Abstract The article examines how the German welfare state has been responding to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the basis of various fields of social services, it asks how non-governmental social service providers adapted their services to the situation to keep them accessible for citizens. Moreover, it analyses under which conditions they were able to access and use the support instruments provided by different levels of government during the pandemic. The article applies a theoretical framework from implementation and evaluation research. Using empirical findings from three forms of social services (individual counselling, services in the form of group measures and assisted living) it examines comparatively which factors filter service providers’ access to welfare state support instruments in the pandemic.

AbstractDer Artikel diskutiert anhand der Ergebnisse eines Forschungsprojektes zum Wandel sozialer Dienstleistungen in der Corona-Pandemie Herausforderungen, die sich aus der Digitalisierung sozialer Dienstleistungen für deren Governance durch die Leistungsträger ergeben. Es wird ein Analyserahmen entwickelt und exemplarisch auf die Soziale Schuldnerberatung als freigemeinnützig bereitgestellte soziale Dienstleistung angewendet. Wir unterscheiden drei GovernanceDimensionen: Finanzierung, Organisation und Zugang.Die Digitalisierung initiiert Prozesse der Trans-Territorialisierung. Die institutionellen Regelungsstrukturen, innerhalb derer die Governance sozialer Dienstleistungen erfolgt, können infolgedessen ihre strukturierenden Effekte nicht mehr voll entfalten. Institutionentheoretisch gesprochen kommt es zu einer „drift“-Situation. Der Artikel diskutiert am Beispiel der Schuldnerberatung, wie dem resultierenden Bedarf institutioneller Anpassung in allen drei GovernanceDimensionen begegnet werden kann.Based on the results of a recent research project on the transformation of social services during the Corona pandemic, the article discusses challenges arising from the digitalization of social services for their governance by the public service principal. In this context, we develop an analytical framework and apply it exemplarily to social debt counseling as a social service provided by non-profit service providers. We distinguish three governance dimensions: financing, organization and access.Digitalization sets in motion processes of the trans-territorialization of social services. As a result, the institutional regulatory structures within which the governance of social services has taken place can no longer fully unfold their structuring effects. In terms of institutional theory, this leads to a „drift“ situation.This article discusses how the resulting need for institutional adaptation can be addressed in all three governance dimensions.

Sprachmittlung ist für Chancengleichheit beim Zugang zum Gesundheitssystem von großer praktischer Bedeutung, findet jedoch in der politik- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung bislang kaum Beachtung. Die Bedeutung von Sprachmittlung hat sich zuletzt insbesondere beim Zugang von Menschen mit Fluchterfahrung zu psychotherapeutischer Gesundheitsversorgung gezeigt, die – in einem noch viel höheren Maß als die Versorgung rein körperlicher Erkrankungen – von einer gemeinsamen sprachlichen Verständigungsebene abhängt. In diesem Artikel fragen wir danach, inwieweit deutsche Kommunen Sprachmittlung für Asylbewerber*innen, die eine Psychotherapie aufnehmen möchten, finanzieren. Wir stellen dabei anknüpfend an theoretische Erkenntnisse aus der Implementations- und der Kommunalforschung Faktoren dar, die zum Verständnis der kommunalen (Nicht-)Finanzierung von Sprachmittlung beitragen. Auf Grundlage einer deutschlandweiten Befragung kommen wir zu dem Ergebnis, dass bei der Sprachmittlungsfinanzierung eine große kommunale Varianz vorherrscht, wodurch der Zugang zu dieser Leistung – und damit auch zur psychotherapeutischen Versorgung – zu einer wohnortabhängigen Glückssache wird. Ursächlich hierfür sind insbesondere die klassischen, von Lipsky identifizierten Rahmenbedingungen. So hängt die Entscheidung über Sprachmittlungsfinanzierungsanträge häufig vom Wissen sowie den individuellen Einstellungen der Sachbearbeitenden auf der kommunalen Entscheidungsebene ab.

This cross-country comparison of administrative responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in France, Germany and Sweden is aimed at exploring how institutional contexts and administrative cultures have shaped strategies of problem-solving and governance modes during the pandemic, and to what extent the crisis has been used for opportunity management. The article shows that in France, the central government reacted determinedly and hierarchically, with tough containment measures. By contrast, the response in Germany was characterized by an initial bottom-up approach that gave way to remarkable federal unity in the further course of the crisis, followed again by a return to regional variance and local discretion. In Sweden, there was a continuation of ‘normal governance’ and a strategy of relying on voluntary compliance largely based on recommendations and less – as in Germany and France – on a strategy of imposing legally binding regulations. The comparative analysis also reveals that relevant stakeholders in all three countries have used the crisis as an opportunity for changes in the institutional settings and administrative procedures. Points for practitioners COVID-19 has shown that national political and administrative standard operating procedures in preparation for crises are, at best, partially helpful. Notwithstanding the fact that dealing with the unpredictable is a necessary part of crisis management, a need to further improve the institutional preparedness for pandemic crises in all three countries examined here has also become clear. This should be done particularly by way of shifting resources to the health and care sectors, strengthening the decentralized management of health emergencies, stocking and/or self-producing protection material, assessing the effects of crisis measures, and opening the scientific discourse to broader arenas of experts.