ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out to provide an empirical overview of the current state of politicization in the German ministerial administration (for earlier full accounts see in particular Mayntz and Derlien 1989; a more recent account of the German senior civil service is Goetz 1997, 1999). In doing so, its focus is mainly on the federal level of government; however, in view of the significant role that Länder administrations play in the decentralized German political system, where appropriate available information from ministerial departments of the federal states will be included, too. In order to identify how the situation has developed over time, the analysis seeks – as a rough guide – to cover a time span from the early 1970s to the recent turn of the century. In view of the scope of this chapter, however, the survey of the literature aims at the ‘larger picture’, so that the abovementioned portrait will be sketched only in a broad-brush manner.
