This article explains the zigzag of the stepwise federalism reform in Germany by accessing the theoretical concept of institutional incongruity. It is argued that the existing imbalance between competencies, policy problems and fiscal resources was further exacerbated as actors adopted inconsistent institutional 'layers' during the sequential reform. Two case studies on higher education and unemployment policy reveal that actors finally reverted to joint decisionmaking and revived ideas of solidarity in order to remedy inconsistent reform results, although 'disentanglement' and competition had been the leitmotivs underlying the first reform step. The article confirms that institutional congruity is hardly attainable in federations. Reform attempts aiming at disentangling responsibilities and fiscal resources encounter insuperable difficulties, because policy issues more than ever transcend the borders of single territorial units and need joint financing. The study concludes by discussing the question whether joint decision-making-compared to dual resp. 'layer-cake' federalism-owns a specific democratic quality. KEYWORDS Joint decision making; federalism refonn; unempl<7fment policy; higher education; Germany We modernize the federal system, which in itself contains the imperative to cooperate .... we realize that we now enter a period in which we need more cooperation ...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.