ABSTRACT
The social sector in Germany has continuously undergone changes in the application of different insurance and welfare principles: in the scope of transfers and services provided; in the admission of participating and producing actors and the like. In addition to the establishment of a democratic political system in West Germany, the insistence of the Western Allies on a strictly federal construction of the German politico-administrative system has had a major influence on the polity and on the politics during the last fifty years. The social sector in Germany can be described as a highly fragmented system, and a complex welfare mix. The development of the personal service strategy as an additional systematic part of the German social sector also marked an innovation within the system design, which can be described as a reform process: the increase in bottom-up initiatives. The goals of reform are also much more defined in general crosscutting lines than in social policy related terms.
