CENTER FOR CIVIL SOCIETY STUDIES

WORKING PAPER SERIES

No13

CIVIC S OCIETY IN TRANSITION

T HE EAST GERMAN N ONPROFIT SeCTOR

S IX YEARS AFTER U NIFICATION

by

Helmul K Anheier Eckhard Priller and Annette Zimmer

copy Helmut K Anheier Eckhard PriUer amp Annetle Zimmer 1996

The Johns Hopkins Institute for Pol icy Studies distributes working papers of authors affiliated with the Center for Civil Society Studies in this series in the interest of timely dissemination of information and ideas The papers are not reviewed and views represented in these papers are solely those of the authors

The Johns Hopkins University Inslilute for Policy Studies Wyman Building 3400 N Charles Street Baltimore MD 21218-2696

Phone (410) 516-7174 Fax 1410 516-8233

Civic Society in Transition

The East German Nonprofit Sector Six Years after Unification

by Helmut K Anheier Eclillard Priller and Annette Zimmer

Abstract

This paper examines two competing views that have been put forward by policy analysts about the East Gennan nonprofit sector One view sees the nonprofit sector in East Germany as an expression of civil society that is rooted in an emerging democratic culture and based on a broadening base for social participation According to the other view the East German nonprofit sector is largely an eldension of West Gennan organizations that in the process of peaceful colonization created orgmizational sheUs without a corresponding embeddedness in local society The paper suggests that the way the policy of subsidiarity has been implemented in Germany may help account for such competing interpretations subsidiarity has created tendencies toward a bipartite nonprofit sedor with each pan differing in size scope and financial structure One part is relatively well-funded and state-supported the other characterized by small organizations and membership orientation The unification process has amplified these tendencies which in the context of public austerity budgets are having repercussions on the West German system of financing nonprofit organizations as a whole 10 closing the paper discusses the implications of this finding for nonprofit sector policies

1

Civic Society in Transition

The East German Nonprofit Sector Six Years After Unification

Introduction

In recent years the development of lhe nonprofit sector in the former Eastern Block countries has attracted special attention by poticy-makers and analysts alike Has the sector become an integral part of civil society or is it still functioning as a proxy of state institutions Six years after the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Gennan Democratic Republic (GOR) these two questions are still being discussed (Wollmann 1995) On the one hand the pacifist revolution the grass-roots movement of 1989 and the booming of new nonprofit organizations in the early 1990s are taken as evidence of the high acceptance and embeddeclness of the sector in local populations (BenzIer 1995) On the other hand the development of the East German nonprofit sector is primarily attributed to a massive institutional transfer of West German nonprofit organizations into East Germany According to this view the nonprofit sector in East Gennany merely a blueprint of the West German model has not become embedded in the civil society of the new states or Ltinder (Lehmbruch 1994)

Competing Views

[n the former GDR a nonprofit sector did not exist independently of the ruling state ideology However closely related to mass social organizations (gesellschaJtliche Massellshyorganisationen) were many member-serving clubs that fulfilled functions similar to those of nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of welfare sociaJ services sports culture and recreation Those organizations provided goods and services for their members as well as for a limited public (AnheierlPriller 1991) The same holds true for quite a number of clubs funded and run by state-owned enterprises

After the breakdown of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and the East Gennan regime local activists used their newly-won freedom and clubs and voluntary organizations mushroomed particularly in those fields which had not previously been tolerated by state ideology Cases in point are activities associated with the new social movements such as environmental groups pacifist groups and SOlidarity groups Based on this initial crop of voluntary associations East Germany has been able to build an institutional infrastructure capable of supporting and stabilizing a local civil society independent of the state According to this argument the nonprofit sector in the new Lttnder is based primarily upon member-serving organizations or clubs in the fields of recreation sports 3Jld culture but also upon advocacy groups that principally pursue political objectives

According to the competing view the nonprofit sector in former East Germany is predominantly shaped by West German organizations that have extended their scope of activity

2

into the Easte~ territory Supporters of this argument make several points First due to the long years of dictatorship East Gennans have no experience in self-organization and vOlunteering

Second the central associations of the West German nonprofit sector have taken advantage of unification to expand their business activities TlUs strategy of so-called peaceful colonization was supported politically as well as financiaJJy by the Federal Government in order to smooth the integration of the new lAnder into the Federal Republic Particularly in the fields of health and social services a significant amount of public money has been transferred to West German nonprofit organizations for sening up infratructure and for providing services in the new Liinder (Olk 1996)

Interestingly empirical evidence exists to back up either of the two seemingly contradictory thesis Whereas data taken from the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (Anheier and Priller 1995 Anheier and Seibel 1997) indicate that the nonprofit sector in East Germany is an integral part of civil society pons and population surveys reveal a low profile of civic culture in East Germany (Priller 1994) Whereas surveys carried out as part of the Johns Hopkins Project suggest a lower degree of financial state-dependency among East Gennan nonprofit organizations when compared to the West other studies emphasize the dominant position ofWes[ German nonprofit organizations in the former GDR (Angerhausen et al 1995)

Emerging Civil Society Growing Nonprofit Sector

Can the term nonprofit sector be used in the context of the fanner GDR (AnheierlPriller 1991 80) There is no simple answer to this question Even though the constitution of the GDR guaranteed its citizens the freedom to associate all organizations - politicaJ parties trade unions or voluntary organizations - had to submit to the supremacy of the SED party Consequently local organizations had to join one of the mass social organizations such as the Free German Youth (FDJ) with 23 million members the Kulturbund cultural association with 260000 members or the Demokratischer Frauenbund (Democratic Womens Association) with l5 million members (AnheierlPriller 1995 Table 22)

There were about 90 such mass social organizations in the fonner GD~ representing the character and objectives of the socialist system and playing an important role in disseminating the ideology of the ruling SED party On a limited scale however those organizations also functioned as mediators for various types of interest groups At the same time they along with the system of state-owned enterprises offered social services and leisure activities For example they ran kindergartens and day nurseries and provided facilities for sports and cultural activities In their daily routines these clubs functioned much like nonprofit organizations activities were primarily carned out by volunteers and the organizations were supported by dues and private donations as weD as by funds from the govenunent In other words in the former GD~ particularly at the local level there were de facto nonpr06t organizations but no nonprofit sector which was independent from state control and party ideology

3

Table 1 New ~Dtries io Sdeded Registers of Associations 1990 ~ 1994

Register of 1990 1991 Associations

(Location of County Court)

A Ldnder Capitals Berlinmiddot 509 I 021 Dresden 1237 102 Erfurt 536 76 Magdebur 554 121 Potsdam 469 279 Schwerin 287 128 B Other (1 industrial regjgn 2 rural areas Giirlitz 284 70 Malchin 81 15 Teterow 54 18

1992 1993

I 566 990 209 J95 141 233 139 165 248 78 178 116

21 40 22 24 8 18

1994

1 122 495 ISS 146 220

76

44 29 15

-Includes some West Berlin-based associarions Source Register ofAssoclarions 1990 - 1994

With the breakdown of SED rule both the context and the basic conditions of these clubs and groups changed radically Some were legally transfonned into registered association others reorganized or dissolved Importantly the transfonnation of old quasj~nonprofits into new nonprofit organizations combined with the numerous other founded associations and foundations to create a veritable association boom (see Hurtgen et aI 1994 HeinemannSchubert 1994) Many were small and financially weak (Baur et aI 1995 JaidelHille 1992) This burgeoning of associations is reflected in the number of associations registered with tbe local county cour1S (Table 1)

Results of the representative survey of nonprofit organizations carried out in 1992 vithin the framework of the Johns Hopkins Project portray a sector embedded in the civil50ciety of the new Li1nder (AnheierlPriller 1995) In Ihe fields of culture sports and recreation most public inshystitutions have been replaced by nonprofit organizations Smaller organizations with limited finanshycia resources now dominate Ihe sector Their main source of income is membership dues with public money playing only a minor role The majority of the organizations are run exclusively by volunteers while many of the employees hold so~called ABM jobs (ArbeitsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) which are subsidized with public money

4

are each judged as successful by 60 percent of the organizations The large majority of the organizations are optimistic about their future with only one out of ten organizations being pessirnistic in this regard

Figure 1 Selfmiddotassessment ofEast German Associations in Percent 1992

Statament NO YES

Sufficient VohrUeer lnptl

Services Offered are Used

Sufliciett Public Feedshy

Back

_ ~n

O~n sucessfii I I bull _

Anticipated FUIUre Soccess

-SO -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 SO 60 70

N=480 Percentage

Source Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonproftl ampClor Projecl Easl Germany Survey

However the establislunent of the sector in public perception and the populations readiness for voluntary work are viewed rather skeptically This pessimism is confirmed by the results of representative population surveys (priUer 1994) Moreover compared to West Gennany there are very fewer associations in small tollllS and in the countryside Particularly in the countryside voluntary organizations and clubs are struggling with a massive decline of

5

members (HeinemannSchubert 199482) Those claiming that the nonprofit sector is not finnly supported by the population of the new Ltinder base their arguments primarily on these empirical findings We will tum to this line of argument in the next section

uck of Civic Engagement

According to the findings of regular population surveys the level of participation in social activities in East Gennany is significantly below that of the West For example the percentage of people who are members in at least one voluntary organization is 50 percent in the old but only 26 percent in the new Uinder (Zimmer [996a 92-113) What is more membership numbers seem to be declining in the East (priller 1994 351) The bad economic situation and the development of the labor market are considered responsible for this trend In the former GDR most women were members of a trade union where membership was frequently linked to social service provision such as child care Since post-I990 unemployment figures are higher among women than among men the participation rate of women in trade-urnon related voluntary associations has declined dramatically pushing overall membership rates downward Compared to the Western part of the country East Gennans are far less engaged in volunteering In 1994 only nine percent of East Gennans volunteered at least once a month while the corresponding figure for West Gennany is 15 percent Due to the economic situation and the high unemployment rate in the new Under East Gennan donations range far below the West German level

Seen against these data the nonprofit sector in East Gennany seems not to be based on a strong foundation The weak social engagement at local levels is aggravated by the advantages that West Gennan nonprofit organizations have enjoyed in the process of unification

Institution Transfer

Apart from a few exceptions the legal and institutional system of the Federal Republic was transferred to the fonner GDR Ths included the principle of subsidiarity which underlies the countrys social welfare legislation (Anheier 1992) The principle of subsidiarity grounded in Catholic social thought assumes that the state should only undertake direct responsibility in social issues if smaller entities such as voluntary organizations or the family cannot adequately meet local demand

The principle of subsidiarity assigns a fundamental imponance to the nonprofit sector while at the same time guaranteeing public support both politically and financially Since World War II the principle of subsidjarity has become the cornerstone of the Gennan welfare state social services are not primaruy provided by state institutions but by nonprofit organizations (Anheier 1992) Therefore the principle of subsidiarity describes a special fonn of third-party governnient About 70 percent of the German nonprofit sector is financed by public money (AnheierlPriller 1995 SalamonlAnheier 1996) In other words the principle of subsidiarity ensures state support of the nonprofit sector in Gennany

Apart from the supply of goods and services the private-public pannersrup guided by the principle of subsidiarity also includes agenda setting and policy formulation The Gennan nonprofit sector is highJy structured and vertically integrated Significantly almost every nonprofit

6

organization in Gennany is a member of a peak association (Dachverband) ie nationally representative bodies like the Catholic Caritas the Protestant Diaiwnie the Workers Welfare Association the Red Cross or the Gennan Sports Association Deutsche SportverbandJ with several millionmembers (HeinemannSchubert 1994) These peak associations fonn the nodes

of the policy netWork that characterize the neo-corporatist way of policy-making and implementation in Gennany whereby state private interests and public administration are linked at various overlapping levels (Katzenstein 1987 ]5)

The peale associations of the Gennan nonprofit sector are n()t only politically important they are also big business This is especially true for the welfare associations in the fields of health and social services which together run more than 80000 institutions with over 900000 employees (RauschenbachSchilling 1995 330 336) For the welfare associations unification offered a good chance to enJarge their business and to expand activities into the territory of the fonner GDR The lobbying of the West German welfare associations was very successful as political forces from East Germany played only a small role in the process of unification Moreover the drafting of the unification treaty was highly centralized and carried out exclusively under the control of the Department of the Interior of the FederaJ Government in BaM The unification treacy in Articles 32 35 and 39 explicitly confirms the principle of subsidiarity for the fields of health and social services

Legitimized by the principle of subsidiarity FederaJ government funds were provided for the organization and consolidation of the nonprofit sector in the new Ltinder during the postshyunification period Nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services received the biggest ponion of the funds In accordance with the unification treaty they aJso received public money to build new inUastructure (Sozialpolitische Rundschau 385 1995) At the same time a great number of ABM jobs (ArbeilsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) were provided as an alternative to unemployment Many of these ABM jobs were located in nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of health and social services

The institutionaJ transfer of the West German system of organizing and funding nonprofit organizations to East Gennany has found many critical voices (Olk 1996 WiesenthallBialas 1992~ Tangemann 1995) Thanks to extensive public funding they argue the welfare associations headquartered in the West have successfully expanded their market as suppliers of health and social services into the new Lander The popUlation of the new Lttnder they suggest does not regard these institutions as independent nonprofit organizations but as public or quasi-public institutions This perception may account for the low profiJe of voluntarism and donations in East Germany

Furthermore the two biggest weLfare associations - Diakonie and Carlas - are churchshyaffiliatec institutions In contrast to West Germany where Catholics and Protestants combined account for close to 85 percent of the population only one quarter of the East German population are church members In fact East Germany is the most secular region of the Western world at least in terms of religious affiliation For critics the public support of Diakonie and Caritas in East Germany is seen as a peaceful colonization in an effort to re-christianize a secular society Summarizing this line of argument the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is not a vital

7

part of civil society but on the contrary a creation of the elates of the Federal Republic exponed to the new Ltinckr

A Paradox

We seem confronted with a paradox on the one hand the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is dominated by large organizations financed almost exclusively by public money on the other hand the majority of nonprofit organizations in the new lAnder are small associations financed primarily by membership dues and very government support The emerging nonprofit sector in East Germany appears as a false misplaced mirror image of the West according to one view and as an expression ofloca1 civil society according to the other As we have seen both positions find empirical support

The answer to this paradox lies in the policy-specific interpretation and application of the principle of subsidiarity According to West German law only welfare associations - ie nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services - have a right to public funding guaranteed by Jaw l In these two fields the principle of subsidiarity is fully implemented whereas in sports culture and recreation the principle is less prominent Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are eligible for public funds but state support is not guaranteed by law and awarded on a more competitive basis instead

Due to the way the subsidiarity principle has been applied in Germany the nonprofit sector in this country is really divided into two parts Those nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services are affiliated with the welfare associations and thoroughly integrated into the system of state funding that is the economic bedrock of that portion of the nonprofit sector This part of [he nonprofit sector is highly state-dependent The situation is different for associations in the fields of sports culture and recreation advocacy and environment they are predominantly member-serving organizations Well embedded in civil society and primarily financed by membership dues they receive much less goverrunent support in the fonn of grants and subsidies Numerically these voluntary organizations make up the majority of the sector in tenns of number of entities with their number estimated at about 250000 (Zimmer 1996a) However from an economic point of view taking into account the number of employees and volume of expenses such associations have far less impact than nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and sociaJ services (AnheierlPriller 1995)

These differences in the scope and the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are the result of historical developments The current interpretation of the origins of the principle of subsidiarity goes back to the pre-Nazi period At that time German society was highly divided aJong ideologlcal and religious Jines In the fleld of social policy these facti ons were both bridged and institutionalized by the state Accepting the two church-related welfare associations as partners with the state in social policy-making and implementation the Catholic Carttas and the Protestant DiaJronie were transfonned into functional equivaJents of public sector institutions (Anheierl Seibel 1997 Zimmer 1996b)

I Recent legal changes and policies bave somewhat moved awat from lbc monopoly enjoyed by the free welfare associations in the past

8

In Gennany private-public partnership in the fields ofhealth and social services guided by the principle of subsidiarity differs fundamentaUy from the three-party govenunent in the United Kingdom (Kendall and Knapp 1996) and the United States (Salamon and Anheier 1997) Competition among nonprofit organizations has been almost unknown with changes just recently

introduced as pan of the long-tenn care insurance system The welfare associations work in highly segmented markets their fields of activity assigned by the state Competition for state funding and grnnts does not exist Moreover the welfare associations are highly integrated into the state planning system forming an integral part of the Gennan welfare state Therefore organizations affiliated with the welfare associations are regarded as semimiddotpublic or even shadowshystate institutions In contrast member-serving voluntary organizations or clubs are considered a vital part of civil society outside involvement by the state

This particular interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity has been transferred to the new Ldnder Public support of the welfare associations has been confirmed by law whereas pub tic assistance to voluntary organizations is not obligatory Nevertheless the nonprofit sector was granted an important role in the transformation process The FederaJ government explicitly supported the estabUshment and consolidation of the sectoT with special programs

The State-Sponsored Sector

In the state-sponsored sector of the new Lander there are three types of nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services traditional organizations founded under the former SED regime West German organizations which have expanded into the new Lttnder since 1990 and foundations and associations created locally during the earty unification period (AnheierlPriI1er 1991)

The Volkssolidaritat (peoples Solidarity) the Red Cross the church-related Diakonie and Caritas fonn the first group Diakonie and Caritas have profited most from the transfer of resources into the new Liinder In the former GDR they had been tolerated rather than supported Yet within a short period of time Dialconie and Caritas changed from marginal organizations into the most important service providers of the emerging welfare industry in East Germany The West German headquarters ofDiakonie and Cartas have forcefuUy promoted this process Their political clout has increased as weU their leadership has entered politics frequently promoting moral virtues and Christian thought However keeping in mind that Caritas and Diakonie operate in a very secular society their presence represents a culturally external element in East Germany (Angerhausen et aI 1995)

Unlike Diakonie and Carllas the VolkssolidarittJ( and the Red Cross had a more difficult time adjusting to the new political and social environment after unification at least initially The Volkssoliciarilat a genuine GDR organization without any councerpart in West Germany with leaders burdened with an SED past was at first largely rejected by the local population Nevertheless Volkssolidariltil and the Red Cross successfuUy managed to democratize and establish a new image Both organizations have become fairly established social service providers (Tangemann 1995)

9

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

Civic Society in Transition

The East German Nonprofit Sector Six Years after Unification

by Helmut K Anheier Eclillard Priller and Annette Zimmer

Abstract

This paper examines two competing views that have been put forward by policy analysts about the East Gennan nonprofit sector One view sees the nonprofit sector in East Germany as an expression of civil society that is rooted in an emerging democratic culture and based on a broadening base for social participation According to the other view the East German nonprofit sector is largely an eldension of West Gennan organizations that in the process of peaceful colonization created orgmizational sheUs without a corresponding embeddedness in local society The paper suggests that the way the policy of subsidiarity has been implemented in Germany may help account for such competing interpretations subsidiarity has created tendencies toward a bipartite nonprofit sedor with each pan differing in size scope and financial structure One part is relatively well-funded and state-supported the other characterized by small organizations and membership orientation The unification process has amplified these tendencies which in the context of public austerity budgets are having repercussions on the West German system of financing nonprofit organizations as a whole 10 closing the paper discusses the implications of this finding for nonprofit sector policies

1

Civic Society in Transition

The East German Nonprofit Sector Six Years After Unification

Introduction

In recent years the development of lhe nonprofit sector in the former Eastern Block countries has attracted special attention by poticy-makers and analysts alike Has the sector become an integral part of civil society or is it still functioning as a proxy of state institutions Six years after the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Gennan Democratic Republic (GOR) these two questions are still being discussed (Wollmann 1995) On the one hand the pacifist revolution the grass-roots movement of 1989 and the booming of new nonprofit organizations in the early 1990s are taken as evidence of the high acceptance and embeddeclness of the sector in local populations (BenzIer 1995) On the other hand the development of the East German nonprofit sector is primarily attributed to a massive institutional transfer of West German nonprofit organizations into East Germany According to this view the nonprofit sector in East Gennany merely a blueprint of the West German model has not become embedded in the civil society of the new states or Ltinder (Lehmbruch 1994)

Competing Views

[n the former GDR a nonprofit sector did not exist independently of the ruling state ideology However closely related to mass social organizations (gesellschaJtliche Massellshyorganisationen) were many member-serving clubs that fulfilled functions similar to those of nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of welfare sociaJ services sports culture and recreation Those organizations provided goods and services for their members as well as for a limited public (AnheierlPriller 1991) The same holds true for quite a number of clubs funded and run by state-owned enterprises

After the breakdown of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and the East Gennan regime local activists used their newly-won freedom and clubs and voluntary organizations mushroomed particularly in those fields which had not previously been tolerated by state ideology Cases in point are activities associated with the new social movements such as environmental groups pacifist groups and SOlidarity groups Based on this initial crop of voluntary associations East Germany has been able to build an institutional infrastructure capable of supporting and stabilizing a local civil society independent of the state According to this argument the nonprofit sector in the new Lttnder is based primarily upon member-serving organizations or clubs in the fields of recreation sports 3Jld culture but also upon advocacy groups that principally pursue political objectives

According to the competing view the nonprofit sector in former East Germany is predominantly shaped by West German organizations that have extended their scope of activity

2

into the Easte~ territory Supporters of this argument make several points First due to the long years of dictatorship East Gennans have no experience in self-organization and vOlunteering

Second the central associations of the West German nonprofit sector have taken advantage of unification to expand their business activities TlUs strategy of so-called peaceful colonization was supported politically as well as financiaJJy by the Federal Government in order to smooth the integration of the new lAnder into the Federal Republic Particularly in the fields of health and social services a significant amount of public money has been transferred to West German nonprofit organizations for sening up infratructure and for providing services in the new Liinder (Olk 1996)

Interestingly empirical evidence exists to back up either of the two seemingly contradictory thesis Whereas data taken from the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (Anheier and Priller 1995 Anheier and Seibel 1997) indicate that the nonprofit sector in East Germany is an integral part of civil society pons and population surveys reveal a low profile of civic culture in East Germany (Priller 1994) Whereas surveys carried out as part of the Johns Hopkins Project suggest a lower degree of financial state-dependency among East Gennan nonprofit organizations when compared to the West other studies emphasize the dominant position ofWes[ German nonprofit organizations in the former GDR (Angerhausen et al 1995)

Emerging Civil Society Growing Nonprofit Sector

Can the term nonprofit sector be used in the context of the fanner GDR (AnheierlPriller 1991 80) There is no simple answer to this question Even though the constitution of the GDR guaranteed its citizens the freedom to associate all organizations - politicaJ parties trade unions or voluntary organizations - had to submit to the supremacy of the SED party Consequently local organizations had to join one of the mass social organizations such as the Free German Youth (FDJ) with 23 million members the Kulturbund cultural association with 260000 members or the Demokratischer Frauenbund (Democratic Womens Association) with l5 million members (AnheierlPriller 1995 Table 22)

There were about 90 such mass social organizations in the fonner GD~ representing the character and objectives of the socialist system and playing an important role in disseminating the ideology of the ruling SED party On a limited scale however those organizations also functioned as mediators for various types of interest groups At the same time they along with the system of state-owned enterprises offered social services and leisure activities For example they ran kindergartens and day nurseries and provided facilities for sports and cultural activities In their daily routines these clubs functioned much like nonprofit organizations activities were primarily carned out by volunteers and the organizations were supported by dues and private donations as weD as by funds from the govenunent In other words in the former GD~ particularly at the local level there were de facto nonpr06t organizations but no nonprofit sector which was independent from state control and party ideology

3

Table 1 New ~Dtries io Sdeded Registers of Associations 1990 ~ 1994

Register of 1990 1991 Associations

(Location of County Court)

A Ldnder Capitals Berlinmiddot 509 I 021 Dresden 1237 102 Erfurt 536 76 Magdebur 554 121 Potsdam 469 279 Schwerin 287 128 B Other (1 industrial regjgn 2 rural areas Giirlitz 284 70 Malchin 81 15 Teterow 54 18

1992 1993

I 566 990 209 J95 141 233 139 165 248 78 178 116

21 40 22 24 8 18

1994

1 122 495 ISS 146 220

76

44 29 15

-Includes some West Berlin-based associarions Source Register ofAssoclarions 1990 - 1994

With the breakdown of SED rule both the context and the basic conditions of these clubs and groups changed radically Some were legally transfonned into registered association others reorganized or dissolved Importantly the transfonnation of old quasj~nonprofits into new nonprofit organizations combined with the numerous other founded associations and foundations to create a veritable association boom (see Hurtgen et aI 1994 HeinemannSchubert 1994) Many were small and financially weak (Baur et aI 1995 JaidelHille 1992) This burgeoning of associations is reflected in the number of associations registered with tbe local county cour1S (Table 1)

Results of the representative survey of nonprofit organizations carried out in 1992 vithin the framework of the Johns Hopkins Project portray a sector embedded in the civil50ciety of the new Li1nder (AnheierlPriller 1995) In Ihe fields of culture sports and recreation most public inshystitutions have been replaced by nonprofit organizations Smaller organizations with limited finanshycia resources now dominate Ihe sector Their main source of income is membership dues with public money playing only a minor role The majority of the organizations are run exclusively by volunteers while many of the employees hold so~called ABM jobs (ArbeitsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) which are subsidized with public money

4

are each judged as successful by 60 percent of the organizations The large majority of the organizations are optimistic about their future with only one out of ten organizations being pessirnistic in this regard

Figure 1 Selfmiddotassessment ofEast German Associations in Percent 1992

Statament NO YES

Sufficient VohrUeer lnptl

Services Offered are Used

Sufliciett Public Feedshy

Back

_ ~n

O~n sucessfii I I bull _

Anticipated FUIUre Soccess

-SO -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 SO 60 70

N=480 Percentage

Source Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonproftl ampClor Projecl Easl Germany Survey

However the establislunent of the sector in public perception and the populations readiness for voluntary work are viewed rather skeptically This pessimism is confirmed by the results of representative population surveys (priUer 1994) Moreover compared to West Gennany there are very fewer associations in small tollllS and in the countryside Particularly in the countryside voluntary organizations and clubs are struggling with a massive decline of

5

members (HeinemannSchubert 199482) Those claiming that the nonprofit sector is not finnly supported by the population of the new Ltinder base their arguments primarily on these empirical findings We will tum to this line of argument in the next section

uck of Civic Engagement

According to the findings of regular population surveys the level of participation in social activities in East Gennany is significantly below that of the West For example the percentage of people who are members in at least one voluntary organization is 50 percent in the old but only 26 percent in the new Uinder (Zimmer [996a 92-113) What is more membership numbers seem to be declining in the East (priller 1994 351) The bad economic situation and the development of the labor market are considered responsible for this trend In the former GDR most women were members of a trade union where membership was frequently linked to social service provision such as child care Since post-I990 unemployment figures are higher among women than among men the participation rate of women in trade-urnon related voluntary associations has declined dramatically pushing overall membership rates downward Compared to the Western part of the country East Gennans are far less engaged in volunteering In 1994 only nine percent of East Gennans volunteered at least once a month while the corresponding figure for West Gennany is 15 percent Due to the economic situation and the high unemployment rate in the new Under East Gennan donations range far below the West German level

Seen against these data the nonprofit sector in East Gennany seems not to be based on a strong foundation The weak social engagement at local levels is aggravated by the advantages that West Gennan nonprofit organizations have enjoyed in the process of unification

Institution Transfer

Apart from a few exceptions the legal and institutional system of the Federal Republic was transferred to the fonner GDR Ths included the principle of subsidiarity which underlies the countrys social welfare legislation (Anheier 1992) The principle of subsidiarity grounded in Catholic social thought assumes that the state should only undertake direct responsibility in social issues if smaller entities such as voluntary organizations or the family cannot adequately meet local demand

The principle of subsidiarity assigns a fundamental imponance to the nonprofit sector while at the same time guaranteeing public support both politically and financially Since World War II the principle of subsidjarity has become the cornerstone of the Gennan welfare state social services are not primaruy provided by state institutions but by nonprofit organizations (Anheier 1992) Therefore the principle of subsidiarity describes a special fonn of third-party governnient About 70 percent of the German nonprofit sector is financed by public money (AnheierlPriller 1995 SalamonlAnheier 1996) In other words the principle of subsidiarity ensures state support of the nonprofit sector in Gennany

Apart from the supply of goods and services the private-public pannersrup guided by the principle of subsidiarity also includes agenda setting and policy formulation The Gennan nonprofit sector is highJy structured and vertically integrated Significantly almost every nonprofit

6

organization in Gennany is a member of a peak association (Dachverband) ie nationally representative bodies like the Catholic Caritas the Protestant Diaiwnie the Workers Welfare Association the Red Cross or the Gennan Sports Association Deutsche SportverbandJ with several millionmembers (HeinemannSchubert 1994) These peak associations fonn the nodes

of the policy netWork that characterize the neo-corporatist way of policy-making and implementation in Gennany whereby state private interests and public administration are linked at various overlapping levels (Katzenstein 1987 ]5)

The peale associations of the Gennan nonprofit sector are n()t only politically important they are also big business This is especially true for the welfare associations in the fields of health and social services which together run more than 80000 institutions with over 900000 employees (RauschenbachSchilling 1995 330 336) For the welfare associations unification offered a good chance to enJarge their business and to expand activities into the territory of the fonner GDR The lobbying of the West German welfare associations was very successful as political forces from East Germany played only a small role in the process of unification Moreover the drafting of the unification treaty was highly centralized and carried out exclusively under the control of the Department of the Interior of the FederaJ Government in BaM The unification treacy in Articles 32 35 and 39 explicitly confirms the principle of subsidiarity for the fields of health and social services

Legitimized by the principle of subsidiarity FederaJ government funds were provided for the organization and consolidation of the nonprofit sector in the new Ltinder during the postshyunification period Nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services received the biggest ponion of the funds In accordance with the unification treaty they aJso received public money to build new inUastructure (Sozialpolitische Rundschau 385 1995) At the same time a great number of ABM jobs (ArbeilsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) were provided as an alternative to unemployment Many of these ABM jobs were located in nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of health and social services

The institutionaJ transfer of the West German system of organizing and funding nonprofit organizations to East Gennany has found many critical voices (Olk 1996 WiesenthallBialas 1992~ Tangemann 1995) Thanks to extensive public funding they argue the welfare associations headquartered in the West have successfully expanded their market as suppliers of health and social services into the new Lander The popUlation of the new Lttnder they suggest does not regard these institutions as independent nonprofit organizations but as public or quasi-public institutions This perception may account for the low profiJe of voluntarism and donations in East Germany

Furthermore the two biggest weLfare associations - Diakonie and Carlas - are churchshyaffiliatec institutions In contrast to West Germany where Catholics and Protestants combined account for close to 85 percent of the population only one quarter of the East German population are church members In fact East Germany is the most secular region of the Western world at least in terms of religious affiliation For critics the public support of Diakonie and Caritas in East Germany is seen as a peaceful colonization in an effort to re-christianize a secular society Summarizing this line of argument the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is not a vital

7

part of civil society but on the contrary a creation of the elates of the Federal Republic exponed to the new Ltinckr

A Paradox

We seem confronted with a paradox on the one hand the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is dominated by large organizations financed almost exclusively by public money on the other hand the majority of nonprofit organizations in the new lAnder are small associations financed primarily by membership dues and very government support The emerging nonprofit sector in East Germany appears as a false misplaced mirror image of the West according to one view and as an expression ofloca1 civil society according to the other As we have seen both positions find empirical support

The answer to this paradox lies in the policy-specific interpretation and application of the principle of subsidiarity According to West German law only welfare associations - ie nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services - have a right to public funding guaranteed by Jaw l In these two fields the principle of subsidiarity is fully implemented whereas in sports culture and recreation the principle is less prominent Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are eligible for public funds but state support is not guaranteed by law and awarded on a more competitive basis instead

Due to the way the subsidiarity principle has been applied in Germany the nonprofit sector in this country is really divided into two parts Those nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services are affiliated with the welfare associations and thoroughly integrated into the system of state funding that is the economic bedrock of that portion of the nonprofit sector This part of [he nonprofit sector is highly state-dependent The situation is different for associations in the fields of sports culture and recreation advocacy and environment they are predominantly member-serving organizations Well embedded in civil society and primarily financed by membership dues they receive much less goverrunent support in the fonn of grants and subsidies Numerically these voluntary organizations make up the majority of the sector in tenns of number of entities with their number estimated at about 250000 (Zimmer 1996a) However from an economic point of view taking into account the number of employees and volume of expenses such associations have far less impact than nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and sociaJ services (AnheierlPriller 1995)

These differences in the scope and the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are the result of historical developments The current interpretation of the origins of the principle of subsidiarity goes back to the pre-Nazi period At that time German society was highly divided aJong ideologlcal and religious Jines In the fleld of social policy these facti ons were both bridged and institutionalized by the state Accepting the two church-related welfare associations as partners with the state in social policy-making and implementation the Catholic Carttas and the Protestant DiaJronie were transfonned into functional equivaJents of public sector institutions (Anheierl Seibel 1997 Zimmer 1996b)

I Recent legal changes and policies bave somewhat moved awat from lbc monopoly enjoyed by the free welfare associations in the past

8

In Gennany private-public partnership in the fields ofhealth and social services guided by the principle of subsidiarity differs fundamentaUy from the three-party govenunent in the United Kingdom (Kendall and Knapp 1996) and the United States (Salamon and Anheier 1997) Competition among nonprofit organizations has been almost unknown with changes just recently

introduced as pan of the long-tenn care insurance system The welfare associations work in highly segmented markets their fields of activity assigned by the state Competition for state funding and grnnts does not exist Moreover the welfare associations are highly integrated into the state planning system forming an integral part of the Gennan welfare state Therefore organizations affiliated with the welfare associations are regarded as semimiddotpublic or even shadowshystate institutions In contrast member-serving voluntary organizations or clubs are considered a vital part of civil society outside involvement by the state

This particular interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity has been transferred to the new Ldnder Public support of the welfare associations has been confirmed by law whereas pub tic assistance to voluntary organizations is not obligatory Nevertheless the nonprofit sector was granted an important role in the transformation process The FederaJ government explicitly supported the estabUshment and consolidation of the sectoT with special programs

The State-Sponsored Sector

In the state-sponsored sector of the new Lander there are three types of nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services traditional organizations founded under the former SED regime West German organizations which have expanded into the new Lttnder since 1990 and foundations and associations created locally during the earty unification period (AnheierlPriI1er 1991)

The Volkssolidaritat (peoples Solidarity) the Red Cross the church-related Diakonie and Caritas fonn the first group Diakonie and Caritas have profited most from the transfer of resources into the new Liinder In the former GDR they had been tolerated rather than supported Yet within a short period of time Dialconie and Caritas changed from marginal organizations into the most important service providers of the emerging welfare industry in East Germany The West German headquarters ofDiakonie and Cartas have forcefuUy promoted this process Their political clout has increased as weU their leadership has entered politics frequently promoting moral virtues and Christian thought However keeping in mind that Caritas and Diakonie operate in a very secular society their presence represents a culturally external element in East Germany (Angerhausen et aI 1995)

Unlike Diakonie and Carllas the VolkssolidarittJ( and the Red Cross had a more difficult time adjusting to the new political and social environment after unification at least initially The Volkssoliciarilat a genuine GDR organization without any councerpart in West Germany with leaders burdened with an SED past was at first largely rejected by the local population Nevertheless Volkssolidariltil and the Red Cross successfuUy managed to democratize and establish a new image Both organizations have become fairly established social service providers (Tangemann 1995)

9

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

Civic Society in Transition

The East German Nonprofit Sector Six Years After Unification

Introduction

In recent years the development of lhe nonprofit sector in the former Eastern Block countries has attracted special attention by poticy-makers and analysts alike Has the sector become an integral part of civil society or is it still functioning as a proxy of state institutions Six years after the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Gennan Democratic Republic (GOR) these two questions are still being discussed (Wollmann 1995) On the one hand the pacifist revolution the grass-roots movement of 1989 and the booming of new nonprofit organizations in the early 1990s are taken as evidence of the high acceptance and embeddeclness of the sector in local populations (BenzIer 1995) On the other hand the development of the East German nonprofit sector is primarily attributed to a massive institutional transfer of West German nonprofit organizations into East Germany According to this view the nonprofit sector in East Gennany merely a blueprint of the West German model has not become embedded in the civil society of the new states or Ltinder (Lehmbruch 1994)

Competing Views

[n the former GDR a nonprofit sector did not exist independently of the ruling state ideology However closely related to mass social organizations (gesellschaJtliche Massellshyorganisationen) were many member-serving clubs that fulfilled functions similar to those of nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of welfare sociaJ services sports culture and recreation Those organizations provided goods and services for their members as well as for a limited public (AnheierlPriller 1991) The same holds true for quite a number of clubs funded and run by state-owned enterprises

After the breakdown of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) and the East Gennan regime local activists used their newly-won freedom and clubs and voluntary organizations mushroomed particularly in those fields which had not previously been tolerated by state ideology Cases in point are activities associated with the new social movements such as environmental groups pacifist groups and SOlidarity groups Based on this initial crop of voluntary associations East Germany has been able to build an institutional infrastructure capable of supporting and stabilizing a local civil society independent of the state According to this argument the nonprofit sector in the new Lttnder is based primarily upon member-serving organizations or clubs in the fields of recreation sports 3Jld culture but also upon advocacy groups that principally pursue political objectives

According to the competing view the nonprofit sector in former East Germany is predominantly shaped by West German organizations that have extended their scope of activity

2

into the Easte~ territory Supporters of this argument make several points First due to the long years of dictatorship East Gennans have no experience in self-organization and vOlunteering

Second the central associations of the West German nonprofit sector have taken advantage of unification to expand their business activities TlUs strategy of so-called peaceful colonization was supported politically as well as financiaJJy by the Federal Government in order to smooth the integration of the new lAnder into the Federal Republic Particularly in the fields of health and social services a significant amount of public money has been transferred to West German nonprofit organizations for sening up infratructure and for providing services in the new Liinder (Olk 1996)

Interestingly empirical evidence exists to back up either of the two seemingly contradictory thesis Whereas data taken from the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (Anheier and Priller 1995 Anheier and Seibel 1997) indicate that the nonprofit sector in East Germany is an integral part of civil society pons and population surveys reveal a low profile of civic culture in East Germany (Priller 1994) Whereas surveys carried out as part of the Johns Hopkins Project suggest a lower degree of financial state-dependency among East Gennan nonprofit organizations when compared to the West other studies emphasize the dominant position ofWes[ German nonprofit organizations in the former GDR (Angerhausen et al 1995)

Emerging Civil Society Growing Nonprofit Sector

Can the term nonprofit sector be used in the context of the fanner GDR (AnheierlPriller 1991 80) There is no simple answer to this question Even though the constitution of the GDR guaranteed its citizens the freedom to associate all organizations - politicaJ parties trade unions or voluntary organizations - had to submit to the supremacy of the SED party Consequently local organizations had to join one of the mass social organizations such as the Free German Youth (FDJ) with 23 million members the Kulturbund cultural association with 260000 members or the Demokratischer Frauenbund (Democratic Womens Association) with l5 million members (AnheierlPriller 1995 Table 22)

There were about 90 such mass social organizations in the fonner GD~ representing the character and objectives of the socialist system and playing an important role in disseminating the ideology of the ruling SED party On a limited scale however those organizations also functioned as mediators for various types of interest groups At the same time they along with the system of state-owned enterprises offered social services and leisure activities For example they ran kindergartens and day nurseries and provided facilities for sports and cultural activities In their daily routines these clubs functioned much like nonprofit organizations activities were primarily carned out by volunteers and the organizations were supported by dues and private donations as weD as by funds from the govenunent In other words in the former GD~ particularly at the local level there were de facto nonpr06t organizations but no nonprofit sector which was independent from state control and party ideology

3

Table 1 New ~Dtries io Sdeded Registers of Associations 1990 ~ 1994

Register of 1990 1991 Associations

(Location of County Court)

A Ldnder Capitals Berlinmiddot 509 I 021 Dresden 1237 102 Erfurt 536 76 Magdebur 554 121 Potsdam 469 279 Schwerin 287 128 B Other (1 industrial regjgn 2 rural areas Giirlitz 284 70 Malchin 81 15 Teterow 54 18

1992 1993

I 566 990 209 J95 141 233 139 165 248 78 178 116

21 40 22 24 8 18

1994

1 122 495 ISS 146 220

76

44 29 15

-Includes some West Berlin-based associarions Source Register ofAssoclarions 1990 - 1994

With the breakdown of SED rule both the context and the basic conditions of these clubs and groups changed radically Some were legally transfonned into registered association others reorganized or dissolved Importantly the transfonnation of old quasj~nonprofits into new nonprofit organizations combined with the numerous other founded associations and foundations to create a veritable association boom (see Hurtgen et aI 1994 HeinemannSchubert 1994) Many were small and financially weak (Baur et aI 1995 JaidelHille 1992) This burgeoning of associations is reflected in the number of associations registered with tbe local county cour1S (Table 1)

Results of the representative survey of nonprofit organizations carried out in 1992 vithin the framework of the Johns Hopkins Project portray a sector embedded in the civil50ciety of the new Li1nder (AnheierlPriller 1995) In Ihe fields of culture sports and recreation most public inshystitutions have been replaced by nonprofit organizations Smaller organizations with limited finanshycia resources now dominate Ihe sector Their main source of income is membership dues with public money playing only a minor role The majority of the organizations are run exclusively by volunteers while many of the employees hold so~called ABM jobs (ArbeitsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) which are subsidized with public money

4

are each judged as successful by 60 percent of the organizations The large majority of the organizations are optimistic about their future with only one out of ten organizations being pessirnistic in this regard

Figure 1 Selfmiddotassessment ofEast German Associations in Percent 1992

Statament NO YES

Sufficient VohrUeer lnptl

Services Offered are Used

Sufliciett Public Feedshy

Back

_ ~n

O~n sucessfii I I bull _

Anticipated FUIUre Soccess

-SO -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 SO 60 70

N=480 Percentage

Source Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonproftl ampClor Projecl Easl Germany Survey

However the establislunent of the sector in public perception and the populations readiness for voluntary work are viewed rather skeptically This pessimism is confirmed by the results of representative population surveys (priUer 1994) Moreover compared to West Gennany there are very fewer associations in small tollllS and in the countryside Particularly in the countryside voluntary organizations and clubs are struggling with a massive decline of

5

members (HeinemannSchubert 199482) Those claiming that the nonprofit sector is not finnly supported by the population of the new Ltinder base their arguments primarily on these empirical findings We will tum to this line of argument in the next section

uck of Civic Engagement

According to the findings of regular population surveys the level of participation in social activities in East Gennany is significantly below that of the West For example the percentage of people who are members in at least one voluntary organization is 50 percent in the old but only 26 percent in the new Uinder (Zimmer [996a 92-113) What is more membership numbers seem to be declining in the East (priller 1994 351) The bad economic situation and the development of the labor market are considered responsible for this trend In the former GDR most women were members of a trade union where membership was frequently linked to social service provision such as child care Since post-I990 unemployment figures are higher among women than among men the participation rate of women in trade-urnon related voluntary associations has declined dramatically pushing overall membership rates downward Compared to the Western part of the country East Gennans are far less engaged in volunteering In 1994 only nine percent of East Gennans volunteered at least once a month while the corresponding figure for West Gennany is 15 percent Due to the economic situation and the high unemployment rate in the new Under East Gennan donations range far below the West German level

Seen against these data the nonprofit sector in East Gennany seems not to be based on a strong foundation The weak social engagement at local levels is aggravated by the advantages that West Gennan nonprofit organizations have enjoyed in the process of unification

Institution Transfer

Apart from a few exceptions the legal and institutional system of the Federal Republic was transferred to the fonner GDR Ths included the principle of subsidiarity which underlies the countrys social welfare legislation (Anheier 1992) The principle of subsidiarity grounded in Catholic social thought assumes that the state should only undertake direct responsibility in social issues if smaller entities such as voluntary organizations or the family cannot adequately meet local demand

The principle of subsidiarity assigns a fundamental imponance to the nonprofit sector while at the same time guaranteeing public support both politically and financially Since World War II the principle of subsidjarity has become the cornerstone of the Gennan welfare state social services are not primaruy provided by state institutions but by nonprofit organizations (Anheier 1992) Therefore the principle of subsidiarity describes a special fonn of third-party governnient About 70 percent of the German nonprofit sector is financed by public money (AnheierlPriller 1995 SalamonlAnheier 1996) In other words the principle of subsidiarity ensures state support of the nonprofit sector in Gennany

Apart from the supply of goods and services the private-public pannersrup guided by the principle of subsidiarity also includes agenda setting and policy formulation The Gennan nonprofit sector is highJy structured and vertically integrated Significantly almost every nonprofit

6

organization in Gennany is a member of a peak association (Dachverband) ie nationally representative bodies like the Catholic Caritas the Protestant Diaiwnie the Workers Welfare Association the Red Cross or the Gennan Sports Association Deutsche SportverbandJ with several millionmembers (HeinemannSchubert 1994) These peak associations fonn the nodes

of the policy netWork that characterize the neo-corporatist way of policy-making and implementation in Gennany whereby state private interests and public administration are linked at various overlapping levels (Katzenstein 1987 ]5)

The peale associations of the Gennan nonprofit sector are n()t only politically important they are also big business This is especially true for the welfare associations in the fields of health and social services which together run more than 80000 institutions with over 900000 employees (RauschenbachSchilling 1995 330 336) For the welfare associations unification offered a good chance to enJarge their business and to expand activities into the territory of the fonner GDR The lobbying of the West German welfare associations was very successful as political forces from East Germany played only a small role in the process of unification Moreover the drafting of the unification treaty was highly centralized and carried out exclusively under the control of the Department of the Interior of the FederaJ Government in BaM The unification treacy in Articles 32 35 and 39 explicitly confirms the principle of subsidiarity for the fields of health and social services

Legitimized by the principle of subsidiarity FederaJ government funds were provided for the organization and consolidation of the nonprofit sector in the new Ltinder during the postshyunification period Nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services received the biggest ponion of the funds In accordance with the unification treaty they aJso received public money to build new inUastructure (Sozialpolitische Rundschau 385 1995) At the same time a great number of ABM jobs (ArbeilsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) were provided as an alternative to unemployment Many of these ABM jobs were located in nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of health and social services

The institutionaJ transfer of the West German system of organizing and funding nonprofit organizations to East Gennany has found many critical voices (Olk 1996 WiesenthallBialas 1992~ Tangemann 1995) Thanks to extensive public funding they argue the welfare associations headquartered in the West have successfully expanded their market as suppliers of health and social services into the new Lander The popUlation of the new Lttnder they suggest does not regard these institutions as independent nonprofit organizations but as public or quasi-public institutions This perception may account for the low profiJe of voluntarism and donations in East Germany

Furthermore the two biggest weLfare associations - Diakonie and Carlas - are churchshyaffiliatec institutions In contrast to West Germany where Catholics and Protestants combined account for close to 85 percent of the population only one quarter of the East German population are church members In fact East Germany is the most secular region of the Western world at least in terms of religious affiliation For critics the public support of Diakonie and Caritas in East Germany is seen as a peaceful colonization in an effort to re-christianize a secular society Summarizing this line of argument the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is not a vital

7

part of civil society but on the contrary a creation of the elates of the Federal Republic exponed to the new Ltinckr

A Paradox

We seem confronted with a paradox on the one hand the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is dominated by large organizations financed almost exclusively by public money on the other hand the majority of nonprofit organizations in the new lAnder are small associations financed primarily by membership dues and very government support The emerging nonprofit sector in East Germany appears as a false misplaced mirror image of the West according to one view and as an expression ofloca1 civil society according to the other As we have seen both positions find empirical support

The answer to this paradox lies in the policy-specific interpretation and application of the principle of subsidiarity According to West German law only welfare associations - ie nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services - have a right to public funding guaranteed by Jaw l In these two fields the principle of subsidiarity is fully implemented whereas in sports culture and recreation the principle is less prominent Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are eligible for public funds but state support is not guaranteed by law and awarded on a more competitive basis instead

Due to the way the subsidiarity principle has been applied in Germany the nonprofit sector in this country is really divided into two parts Those nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services are affiliated with the welfare associations and thoroughly integrated into the system of state funding that is the economic bedrock of that portion of the nonprofit sector This part of [he nonprofit sector is highly state-dependent The situation is different for associations in the fields of sports culture and recreation advocacy and environment they are predominantly member-serving organizations Well embedded in civil society and primarily financed by membership dues they receive much less goverrunent support in the fonn of grants and subsidies Numerically these voluntary organizations make up the majority of the sector in tenns of number of entities with their number estimated at about 250000 (Zimmer 1996a) However from an economic point of view taking into account the number of employees and volume of expenses such associations have far less impact than nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and sociaJ services (AnheierlPriller 1995)

These differences in the scope and the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are the result of historical developments The current interpretation of the origins of the principle of subsidiarity goes back to the pre-Nazi period At that time German society was highly divided aJong ideologlcal and religious Jines In the fleld of social policy these facti ons were both bridged and institutionalized by the state Accepting the two church-related welfare associations as partners with the state in social policy-making and implementation the Catholic Carttas and the Protestant DiaJronie were transfonned into functional equivaJents of public sector institutions (Anheierl Seibel 1997 Zimmer 1996b)

I Recent legal changes and policies bave somewhat moved awat from lbc monopoly enjoyed by the free welfare associations in the past

8

In Gennany private-public partnership in the fields ofhealth and social services guided by the principle of subsidiarity differs fundamentaUy from the three-party govenunent in the United Kingdom (Kendall and Knapp 1996) and the United States (Salamon and Anheier 1997) Competition among nonprofit organizations has been almost unknown with changes just recently

introduced as pan of the long-tenn care insurance system The welfare associations work in highly segmented markets their fields of activity assigned by the state Competition for state funding and grnnts does not exist Moreover the welfare associations are highly integrated into the state planning system forming an integral part of the Gennan welfare state Therefore organizations affiliated with the welfare associations are regarded as semimiddotpublic or even shadowshystate institutions In contrast member-serving voluntary organizations or clubs are considered a vital part of civil society outside involvement by the state

This particular interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity has been transferred to the new Ldnder Public support of the welfare associations has been confirmed by law whereas pub tic assistance to voluntary organizations is not obligatory Nevertheless the nonprofit sector was granted an important role in the transformation process The FederaJ government explicitly supported the estabUshment and consolidation of the sectoT with special programs

The State-Sponsored Sector

In the state-sponsored sector of the new Lander there are three types of nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services traditional organizations founded under the former SED regime West German organizations which have expanded into the new Lttnder since 1990 and foundations and associations created locally during the earty unification period (AnheierlPriI1er 1991)

The Volkssolidaritat (peoples Solidarity) the Red Cross the church-related Diakonie and Caritas fonn the first group Diakonie and Caritas have profited most from the transfer of resources into the new Liinder In the former GDR they had been tolerated rather than supported Yet within a short period of time Dialconie and Caritas changed from marginal organizations into the most important service providers of the emerging welfare industry in East Germany The West German headquarters ofDiakonie and Cartas have forcefuUy promoted this process Their political clout has increased as weU their leadership has entered politics frequently promoting moral virtues and Christian thought However keeping in mind that Caritas and Diakonie operate in a very secular society their presence represents a culturally external element in East Germany (Angerhausen et aI 1995)

Unlike Diakonie and Carllas the VolkssolidarittJ( and the Red Cross had a more difficult time adjusting to the new political and social environment after unification at least initially The Volkssoliciarilat a genuine GDR organization without any councerpart in West Germany with leaders burdened with an SED past was at first largely rejected by the local population Nevertheless Volkssolidariltil and the Red Cross successfuUy managed to democratize and establish a new image Both organizations have become fairly established social service providers (Tangemann 1995)

9

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

into the Easte~ territory Supporters of this argument make several points First due to the long years of dictatorship East Gennans have no experience in self-organization and vOlunteering

Second the central associations of the West German nonprofit sector have taken advantage of unification to expand their business activities TlUs strategy of so-called peaceful colonization was supported politically as well as financiaJJy by the Federal Government in order to smooth the integration of the new lAnder into the Federal Republic Particularly in the fields of health and social services a significant amount of public money has been transferred to West German nonprofit organizations for sening up infratructure and for providing services in the new Liinder (Olk 1996)

Interestingly empirical evidence exists to back up either of the two seemingly contradictory thesis Whereas data taken from the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (Anheier and Priller 1995 Anheier and Seibel 1997) indicate that the nonprofit sector in East Germany is an integral part of civil society pons and population surveys reveal a low profile of civic culture in East Germany (Priller 1994) Whereas surveys carried out as part of the Johns Hopkins Project suggest a lower degree of financial state-dependency among East Gennan nonprofit organizations when compared to the West other studies emphasize the dominant position ofWes[ German nonprofit organizations in the former GDR (Angerhausen et al 1995)

Emerging Civil Society Growing Nonprofit Sector

Can the term nonprofit sector be used in the context of the fanner GDR (AnheierlPriller 1991 80) There is no simple answer to this question Even though the constitution of the GDR guaranteed its citizens the freedom to associate all organizations - politicaJ parties trade unions or voluntary organizations - had to submit to the supremacy of the SED party Consequently local organizations had to join one of the mass social organizations such as the Free German Youth (FDJ) with 23 million members the Kulturbund cultural association with 260000 members or the Demokratischer Frauenbund (Democratic Womens Association) with l5 million members (AnheierlPriller 1995 Table 22)

There were about 90 such mass social organizations in the fonner GD~ representing the character and objectives of the socialist system and playing an important role in disseminating the ideology of the ruling SED party On a limited scale however those organizations also functioned as mediators for various types of interest groups At the same time they along with the system of state-owned enterprises offered social services and leisure activities For example they ran kindergartens and day nurseries and provided facilities for sports and cultural activities In their daily routines these clubs functioned much like nonprofit organizations activities were primarily carned out by volunteers and the organizations were supported by dues and private donations as weD as by funds from the govenunent In other words in the former GD~ particularly at the local level there were de facto nonpr06t organizations but no nonprofit sector which was independent from state control and party ideology

3

Table 1 New ~Dtries io Sdeded Registers of Associations 1990 ~ 1994

Register of 1990 1991 Associations

(Location of County Court)

A Ldnder Capitals Berlinmiddot 509 I 021 Dresden 1237 102 Erfurt 536 76 Magdebur 554 121 Potsdam 469 279 Schwerin 287 128 B Other (1 industrial regjgn 2 rural areas Giirlitz 284 70 Malchin 81 15 Teterow 54 18

1992 1993

I 566 990 209 J95 141 233 139 165 248 78 178 116

21 40 22 24 8 18

1994

1 122 495 ISS 146 220

76

44 29 15

-Includes some West Berlin-based associarions Source Register ofAssoclarions 1990 - 1994

With the breakdown of SED rule both the context and the basic conditions of these clubs and groups changed radically Some were legally transfonned into registered association others reorganized or dissolved Importantly the transfonnation of old quasj~nonprofits into new nonprofit organizations combined with the numerous other founded associations and foundations to create a veritable association boom (see Hurtgen et aI 1994 HeinemannSchubert 1994) Many were small and financially weak (Baur et aI 1995 JaidelHille 1992) This burgeoning of associations is reflected in the number of associations registered with tbe local county cour1S (Table 1)

Results of the representative survey of nonprofit organizations carried out in 1992 vithin the framework of the Johns Hopkins Project portray a sector embedded in the civil50ciety of the new Li1nder (AnheierlPriller 1995) In Ihe fields of culture sports and recreation most public inshystitutions have been replaced by nonprofit organizations Smaller organizations with limited finanshycia resources now dominate Ihe sector Their main source of income is membership dues with public money playing only a minor role The majority of the organizations are run exclusively by volunteers while many of the employees hold so~called ABM jobs (ArbeitsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) which are subsidized with public money

4

are each judged as successful by 60 percent of the organizations The large majority of the organizations are optimistic about their future with only one out of ten organizations being pessirnistic in this regard

Figure 1 Selfmiddotassessment ofEast German Associations in Percent 1992

Statament NO YES

Sufficient VohrUeer lnptl

Services Offered are Used

Sufliciett Public Feedshy

Back

_ ~n

O~n sucessfii I I bull _

Anticipated FUIUre Soccess

-SO -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 SO 60 70

N=480 Percentage

Source Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonproftl ampClor Projecl Easl Germany Survey

However the establislunent of the sector in public perception and the populations readiness for voluntary work are viewed rather skeptically This pessimism is confirmed by the results of representative population surveys (priUer 1994) Moreover compared to West Gennany there are very fewer associations in small tollllS and in the countryside Particularly in the countryside voluntary organizations and clubs are struggling with a massive decline of

5

members (HeinemannSchubert 199482) Those claiming that the nonprofit sector is not finnly supported by the population of the new Ltinder base their arguments primarily on these empirical findings We will tum to this line of argument in the next section

uck of Civic Engagement

According to the findings of regular population surveys the level of participation in social activities in East Gennany is significantly below that of the West For example the percentage of people who are members in at least one voluntary organization is 50 percent in the old but only 26 percent in the new Uinder (Zimmer [996a 92-113) What is more membership numbers seem to be declining in the East (priller 1994 351) The bad economic situation and the development of the labor market are considered responsible for this trend In the former GDR most women were members of a trade union where membership was frequently linked to social service provision such as child care Since post-I990 unemployment figures are higher among women than among men the participation rate of women in trade-urnon related voluntary associations has declined dramatically pushing overall membership rates downward Compared to the Western part of the country East Gennans are far less engaged in volunteering In 1994 only nine percent of East Gennans volunteered at least once a month while the corresponding figure for West Gennany is 15 percent Due to the economic situation and the high unemployment rate in the new Under East Gennan donations range far below the West German level

Seen against these data the nonprofit sector in East Gennany seems not to be based on a strong foundation The weak social engagement at local levels is aggravated by the advantages that West Gennan nonprofit organizations have enjoyed in the process of unification

Institution Transfer

Apart from a few exceptions the legal and institutional system of the Federal Republic was transferred to the fonner GDR Ths included the principle of subsidiarity which underlies the countrys social welfare legislation (Anheier 1992) The principle of subsidiarity grounded in Catholic social thought assumes that the state should only undertake direct responsibility in social issues if smaller entities such as voluntary organizations or the family cannot adequately meet local demand

The principle of subsidiarity assigns a fundamental imponance to the nonprofit sector while at the same time guaranteeing public support both politically and financially Since World War II the principle of subsidjarity has become the cornerstone of the Gennan welfare state social services are not primaruy provided by state institutions but by nonprofit organizations (Anheier 1992) Therefore the principle of subsidiarity describes a special fonn of third-party governnient About 70 percent of the German nonprofit sector is financed by public money (AnheierlPriller 1995 SalamonlAnheier 1996) In other words the principle of subsidiarity ensures state support of the nonprofit sector in Gennany

Apart from the supply of goods and services the private-public pannersrup guided by the principle of subsidiarity also includes agenda setting and policy formulation The Gennan nonprofit sector is highJy structured and vertically integrated Significantly almost every nonprofit

6

organization in Gennany is a member of a peak association (Dachverband) ie nationally representative bodies like the Catholic Caritas the Protestant Diaiwnie the Workers Welfare Association the Red Cross or the Gennan Sports Association Deutsche SportverbandJ with several millionmembers (HeinemannSchubert 1994) These peak associations fonn the nodes

of the policy netWork that characterize the neo-corporatist way of policy-making and implementation in Gennany whereby state private interests and public administration are linked at various overlapping levels (Katzenstein 1987 ]5)

The peale associations of the Gennan nonprofit sector are n()t only politically important they are also big business This is especially true for the welfare associations in the fields of health and social services which together run more than 80000 institutions with over 900000 employees (RauschenbachSchilling 1995 330 336) For the welfare associations unification offered a good chance to enJarge their business and to expand activities into the territory of the fonner GDR The lobbying of the West German welfare associations was very successful as political forces from East Germany played only a small role in the process of unification Moreover the drafting of the unification treaty was highly centralized and carried out exclusively under the control of the Department of the Interior of the FederaJ Government in BaM The unification treacy in Articles 32 35 and 39 explicitly confirms the principle of subsidiarity for the fields of health and social services

Legitimized by the principle of subsidiarity FederaJ government funds were provided for the organization and consolidation of the nonprofit sector in the new Ltinder during the postshyunification period Nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services received the biggest ponion of the funds In accordance with the unification treaty they aJso received public money to build new inUastructure (Sozialpolitische Rundschau 385 1995) At the same time a great number of ABM jobs (ArbeilsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) were provided as an alternative to unemployment Many of these ABM jobs were located in nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of health and social services

The institutionaJ transfer of the West German system of organizing and funding nonprofit organizations to East Gennany has found many critical voices (Olk 1996 WiesenthallBialas 1992~ Tangemann 1995) Thanks to extensive public funding they argue the welfare associations headquartered in the West have successfully expanded their market as suppliers of health and social services into the new Lander The popUlation of the new Lttnder they suggest does not regard these institutions as independent nonprofit organizations but as public or quasi-public institutions This perception may account for the low profiJe of voluntarism and donations in East Germany

Furthermore the two biggest weLfare associations - Diakonie and Carlas - are churchshyaffiliatec institutions In contrast to West Germany where Catholics and Protestants combined account for close to 85 percent of the population only one quarter of the East German population are church members In fact East Germany is the most secular region of the Western world at least in terms of religious affiliation For critics the public support of Diakonie and Caritas in East Germany is seen as a peaceful colonization in an effort to re-christianize a secular society Summarizing this line of argument the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is not a vital

7

part of civil society but on the contrary a creation of the elates of the Federal Republic exponed to the new Ltinckr

A Paradox

We seem confronted with a paradox on the one hand the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is dominated by large organizations financed almost exclusively by public money on the other hand the majority of nonprofit organizations in the new lAnder are small associations financed primarily by membership dues and very government support The emerging nonprofit sector in East Germany appears as a false misplaced mirror image of the West according to one view and as an expression ofloca1 civil society according to the other As we have seen both positions find empirical support

The answer to this paradox lies in the policy-specific interpretation and application of the principle of subsidiarity According to West German law only welfare associations - ie nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services - have a right to public funding guaranteed by Jaw l In these two fields the principle of subsidiarity is fully implemented whereas in sports culture and recreation the principle is less prominent Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are eligible for public funds but state support is not guaranteed by law and awarded on a more competitive basis instead

Due to the way the subsidiarity principle has been applied in Germany the nonprofit sector in this country is really divided into two parts Those nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services are affiliated with the welfare associations and thoroughly integrated into the system of state funding that is the economic bedrock of that portion of the nonprofit sector This part of [he nonprofit sector is highly state-dependent The situation is different for associations in the fields of sports culture and recreation advocacy and environment they are predominantly member-serving organizations Well embedded in civil society and primarily financed by membership dues they receive much less goverrunent support in the fonn of grants and subsidies Numerically these voluntary organizations make up the majority of the sector in tenns of number of entities with their number estimated at about 250000 (Zimmer 1996a) However from an economic point of view taking into account the number of employees and volume of expenses such associations have far less impact than nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and sociaJ services (AnheierlPriller 1995)

These differences in the scope and the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are the result of historical developments The current interpretation of the origins of the principle of subsidiarity goes back to the pre-Nazi period At that time German society was highly divided aJong ideologlcal and religious Jines In the fleld of social policy these facti ons were both bridged and institutionalized by the state Accepting the two church-related welfare associations as partners with the state in social policy-making and implementation the Catholic Carttas and the Protestant DiaJronie were transfonned into functional equivaJents of public sector institutions (Anheierl Seibel 1997 Zimmer 1996b)

I Recent legal changes and policies bave somewhat moved awat from lbc monopoly enjoyed by the free welfare associations in the past

8

In Gennany private-public partnership in the fields ofhealth and social services guided by the principle of subsidiarity differs fundamentaUy from the three-party govenunent in the United Kingdom (Kendall and Knapp 1996) and the United States (Salamon and Anheier 1997) Competition among nonprofit organizations has been almost unknown with changes just recently

introduced as pan of the long-tenn care insurance system The welfare associations work in highly segmented markets their fields of activity assigned by the state Competition for state funding and grnnts does not exist Moreover the welfare associations are highly integrated into the state planning system forming an integral part of the Gennan welfare state Therefore organizations affiliated with the welfare associations are regarded as semimiddotpublic or even shadowshystate institutions In contrast member-serving voluntary organizations or clubs are considered a vital part of civil society outside involvement by the state

This particular interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity has been transferred to the new Ldnder Public support of the welfare associations has been confirmed by law whereas pub tic assistance to voluntary organizations is not obligatory Nevertheless the nonprofit sector was granted an important role in the transformation process The FederaJ government explicitly supported the estabUshment and consolidation of the sectoT with special programs

The State-Sponsored Sector

In the state-sponsored sector of the new Lander there are three types of nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services traditional organizations founded under the former SED regime West German organizations which have expanded into the new Lttnder since 1990 and foundations and associations created locally during the earty unification period (AnheierlPriI1er 1991)

The Volkssolidaritat (peoples Solidarity) the Red Cross the church-related Diakonie and Caritas fonn the first group Diakonie and Caritas have profited most from the transfer of resources into the new Liinder In the former GDR they had been tolerated rather than supported Yet within a short period of time Dialconie and Caritas changed from marginal organizations into the most important service providers of the emerging welfare industry in East Germany The West German headquarters ofDiakonie and Cartas have forcefuUy promoted this process Their political clout has increased as weU their leadership has entered politics frequently promoting moral virtues and Christian thought However keeping in mind that Caritas and Diakonie operate in a very secular society their presence represents a culturally external element in East Germany (Angerhausen et aI 1995)

Unlike Diakonie and Carllas the VolkssolidarittJ( and the Red Cross had a more difficult time adjusting to the new political and social environment after unification at least initially The Volkssoliciarilat a genuine GDR organization without any councerpart in West Germany with leaders burdened with an SED past was at first largely rejected by the local population Nevertheless Volkssolidariltil and the Red Cross successfuUy managed to democratize and establish a new image Both organizations have become fairly established social service providers (Tangemann 1995)

9

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

Table 1 New ~Dtries io Sdeded Registers of Associations 1990 ~ 1994

Register of 1990 1991 Associations

(Location of County Court)

A Ldnder Capitals Berlinmiddot 509 I 021 Dresden 1237 102 Erfurt 536 76 Magdebur 554 121 Potsdam 469 279 Schwerin 287 128 B Other (1 industrial regjgn 2 rural areas Giirlitz 284 70 Malchin 81 15 Teterow 54 18

1992 1993

I 566 990 209 J95 141 233 139 165 248 78 178 116

21 40 22 24 8 18

1994

1 122 495 ISS 146 220

76

44 29 15

-Includes some West Berlin-based associarions Source Register ofAssoclarions 1990 - 1994

With the breakdown of SED rule both the context and the basic conditions of these clubs and groups changed radically Some were legally transfonned into registered association others reorganized or dissolved Importantly the transfonnation of old quasj~nonprofits into new nonprofit organizations combined with the numerous other founded associations and foundations to create a veritable association boom (see Hurtgen et aI 1994 HeinemannSchubert 1994) Many were small and financially weak (Baur et aI 1995 JaidelHille 1992) This burgeoning of associations is reflected in the number of associations registered with tbe local county cour1S (Table 1)

Results of the representative survey of nonprofit organizations carried out in 1992 vithin the framework of the Johns Hopkins Project portray a sector embedded in the civil50ciety of the new Li1nder (AnheierlPriller 1995) In Ihe fields of culture sports and recreation most public inshystitutions have been replaced by nonprofit organizations Smaller organizations with limited finanshycia resources now dominate Ihe sector Their main source of income is membership dues with public money playing only a minor role The majority of the organizations are run exclusively by volunteers while many of the employees hold so~called ABM jobs (ArbeitsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) which are subsidized with public money

4

are each judged as successful by 60 percent of the organizations The large majority of the organizations are optimistic about their future with only one out of ten organizations being pessirnistic in this regard

Figure 1 Selfmiddotassessment ofEast German Associations in Percent 1992

Statament NO YES

Sufficient VohrUeer lnptl

Services Offered are Used

Sufliciett Public Feedshy

Back

_ ~n

O~n sucessfii I I bull _

Anticipated FUIUre Soccess

-SO -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 SO 60 70

N=480 Percentage

Source Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonproftl ampClor Projecl Easl Germany Survey

However the establislunent of the sector in public perception and the populations readiness for voluntary work are viewed rather skeptically This pessimism is confirmed by the results of representative population surveys (priUer 1994) Moreover compared to West Gennany there are very fewer associations in small tollllS and in the countryside Particularly in the countryside voluntary organizations and clubs are struggling with a massive decline of

5

members (HeinemannSchubert 199482) Those claiming that the nonprofit sector is not finnly supported by the population of the new Ltinder base their arguments primarily on these empirical findings We will tum to this line of argument in the next section

uck of Civic Engagement

According to the findings of regular population surveys the level of participation in social activities in East Gennany is significantly below that of the West For example the percentage of people who are members in at least one voluntary organization is 50 percent in the old but only 26 percent in the new Uinder (Zimmer [996a 92-113) What is more membership numbers seem to be declining in the East (priller 1994 351) The bad economic situation and the development of the labor market are considered responsible for this trend In the former GDR most women were members of a trade union where membership was frequently linked to social service provision such as child care Since post-I990 unemployment figures are higher among women than among men the participation rate of women in trade-urnon related voluntary associations has declined dramatically pushing overall membership rates downward Compared to the Western part of the country East Gennans are far less engaged in volunteering In 1994 only nine percent of East Gennans volunteered at least once a month while the corresponding figure for West Gennany is 15 percent Due to the economic situation and the high unemployment rate in the new Under East Gennan donations range far below the West German level

Seen against these data the nonprofit sector in East Gennany seems not to be based on a strong foundation The weak social engagement at local levels is aggravated by the advantages that West Gennan nonprofit organizations have enjoyed in the process of unification

Institution Transfer

Apart from a few exceptions the legal and institutional system of the Federal Republic was transferred to the fonner GDR Ths included the principle of subsidiarity which underlies the countrys social welfare legislation (Anheier 1992) The principle of subsidiarity grounded in Catholic social thought assumes that the state should only undertake direct responsibility in social issues if smaller entities such as voluntary organizations or the family cannot adequately meet local demand

The principle of subsidiarity assigns a fundamental imponance to the nonprofit sector while at the same time guaranteeing public support both politically and financially Since World War II the principle of subsidjarity has become the cornerstone of the Gennan welfare state social services are not primaruy provided by state institutions but by nonprofit organizations (Anheier 1992) Therefore the principle of subsidiarity describes a special fonn of third-party governnient About 70 percent of the German nonprofit sector is financed by public money (AnheierlPriller 1995 SalamonlAnheier 1996) In other words the principle of subsidiarity ensures state support of the nonprofit sector in Gennany

Apart from the supply of goods and services the private-public pannersrup guided by the principle of subsidiarity also includes agenda setting and policy formulation The Gennan nonprofit sector is highJy structured and vertically integrated Significantly almost every nonprofit

6

organization in Gennany is a member of a peak association (Dachverband) ie nationally representative bodies like the Catholic Caritas the Protestant Diaiwnie the Workers Welfare Association the Red Cross or the Gennan Sports Association Deutsche SportverbandJ with several millionmembers (HeinemannSchubert 1994) These peak associations fonn the nodes

of the policy netWork that characterize the neo-corporatist way of policy-making and implementation in Gennany whereby state private interests and public administration are linked at various overlapping levels (Katzenstein 1987 ]5)

The peale associations of the Gennan nonprofit sector are n()t only politically important they are also big business This is especially true for the welfare associations in the fields of health and social services which together run more than 80000 institutions with over 900000 employees (RauschenbachSchilling 1995 330 336) For the welfare associations unification offered a good chance to enJarge their business and to expand activities into the territory of the fonner GDR The lobbying of the West German welfare associations was very successful as political forces from East Germany played only a small role in the process of unification Moreover the drafting of the unification treaty was highly centralized and carried out exclusively under the control of the Department of the Interior of the FederaJ Government in BaM The unification treacy in Articles 32 35 and 39 explicitly confirms the principle of subsidiarity for the fields of health and social services

Legitimized by the principle of subsidiarity FederaJ government funds were provided for the organization and consolidation of the nonprofit sector in the new Ltinder during the postshyunification period Nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services received the biggest ponion of the funds In accordance with the unification treaty they aJso received public money to build new inUastructure (Sozialpolitische Rundschau 385 1995) At the same time a great number of ABM jobs (ArbeilsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) were provided as an alternative to unemployment Many of these ABM jobs were located in nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of health and social services

The institutionaJ transfer of the West German system of organizing and funding nonprofit organizations to East Gennany has found many critical voices (Olk 1996 WiesenthallBialas 1992~ Tangemann 1995) Thanks to extensive public funding they argue the welfare associations headquartered in the West have successfully expanded their market as suppliers of health and social services into the new Lander The popUlation of the new Lttnder they suggest does not regard these institutions as independent nonprofit organizations but as public or quasi-public institutions This perception may account for the low profiJe of voluntarism and donations in East Germany

Furthermore the two biggest weLfare associations - Diakonie and Carlas - are churchshyaffiliatec institutions In contrast to West Germany where Catholics and Protestants combined account for close to 85 percent of the population only one quarter of the East German population are church members In fact East Germany is the most secular region of the Western world at least in terms of religious affiliation For critics the public support of Diakonie and Caritas in East Germany is seen as a peaceful colonization in an effort to re-christianize a secular society Summarizing this line of argument the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is not a vital

7

part of civil society but on the contrary a creation of the elates of the Federal Republic exponed to the new Ltinckr

A Paradox

We seem confronted with a paradox on the one hand the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is dominated by large organizations financed almost exclusively by public money on the other hand the majority of nonprofit organizations in the new lAnder are small associations financed primarily by membership dues and very government support The emerging nonprofit sector in East Germany appears as a false misplaced mirror image of the West according to one view and as an expression ofloca1 civil society according to the other As we have seen both positions find empirical support

The answer to this paradox lies in the policy-specific interpretation and application of the principle of subsidiarity According to West German law only welfare associations - ie nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services - have a right to public funding guaranteed by Jaw l In these two fields the principle of subsidiarity is fully implemented whereas in sports culture and recreation the principle is less prominent Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are eligible for public funds but state support is not guaranteed by law and awarded on a more competitive basis instead

Due to the way the subsidiarity principle has been applied in Germany the nonprofit sector in this country is really divided into two parts Those nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services are affiliated with the welfare associations and thoroughly integrated into the system of state funding that is the economic bedrock of that portion of the nonprofit sector This part of [he nonprofit sector is highly state-dependent The situation is different for associations in the fields of sports culture and recreation advocacy and environment they are predominantly member-serving organizations Well embedded in civil society and primarily financed by membership dues they receive much less goverrunent support in the fonn of grants and subsidies Numerically these voluntary organizations make up the majority of the sector in tenns of number of entities with their number estimated at about 250000 (Zimmer 1996a) However from an economic point of view taking into account the number of employees and volume of expenses such associations have far less impact than nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and sociaJ services (AnheierlPriller 1995)

These differences in the scope and the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are the result of historical developments The current interpretation of the origins of the principle of subsidiarity goes back to the pre-Nazi period At that time German society was highly divided aJong ideologlcal and religious Jines In the fleld of social policy these facti ons were both bridged and institutionalized by the state Accepting the two church-related welfare associations as partners with the state in social policy-making and implementation the Catholic Carttas and the Protestant DiaJronie were transfonned into functional equivaJents of public sector institutions (Anheierl Seibel 1997 Zimmer 1996b)

I Recent legal changes and policies bave somewhat moved awat from lbc monopoly enjoyed by the free welfare associations in the past

8

In Gennany private-public partnership in the fields ofhealth and social services guided by the principle of subsidiarity differs fundamentaUy from the three-party govenunent in the United Kingdom (Kendall and Knapp 1996) and the United States (Salamon and Anheier 1997) Competition among nonprofit organizations has been almost unknown with changes just recently

introduced as pan of the long-tenn care insurance system The welfare associations work in highly segmented markets their fields of activity assigned by the state Competition for state funding and grnnts does not exist Moreover the welfare associations are highly integrated into the state planning system forming an integral part of the Gennan welfare state Therefore organizations affiliated with the welfare associations are regarded as semimiddotpublic or even shadowshystate institutions In contrast member-serving voluntary organizations or clubs are considered a vital part of civil society outside involvement by the state

This particular interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity has been transferred to the new Ldnder Public support of the welfare associations has been confirmed by law whereas pub tic assistance to voluntary organizations is not obligatory Nevertheless the nonprofit sector was granted an important role in the transformation process The FederaJ government explicitly supported the estabUshment and consolidation of the sectoT with special programs

The State-Sponsored Sector

In the state-sponsored sector of the new Lander there are three types of nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services traditional organizations founded under the former SED regime West German organizations which have expanded into the new Lttnder since 1990 and foundations and associations created locally during the earty unification period (AnheierlPriI1er 1991)

The Volkssolidaritat (peoples Solidarity) the Red Cross the church-related Diakonie and Caritas fonn the first group Diakonie and Caritas have profited most from the transfer of resources into the new Liinder In the former GDR they had been tolerated rather than supported Yet within a short period of time Dialconie and Caritas changed from marginal organizations into the most important service providers of the emerging welfare industry in East Germany The West German headquarters ofDiakonie and Cartas have forcefuUy promoted this process Their political clout has increased as weU their leadership has entered politics frequently promoting moral virtues and Christian thought However keeping in mind that Caritas and Diakonie operate in a very secular society their presence represents a culturally external element in East Germany (Angerhausen et aI 1995)

Unlike Diakonie and Carllas the VolkssolidarittJ( and the Red Cross had a more difficult time adjusting to the new political and social environment after unification at least initially The Volkssoliciarilat a genuine GDR organization without any councerpart in West Germany with leaders burdened with an SED past was at first largely rejected by the local population Nevertheless Volkssolidariltil and the Red Cross successfuUy managed to democratize and establish a new image Both organizations have become fairly established social service providers (Tangemann 1995)

9

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

are each judged as successful by 60 percent of the organizations The large majority of the organizations are optimistic about their future with only one out of ten organizations being pessirnistic in this regard

Figure 1 Selfmiddotassessment ofEast German Associations in Percent 1992

Statament NO YES

Sufficient VohrUeer lnptl

Services Offered are Used

Sufliciett Public Feedshy

Back

_ ~n

O~n sucessfii I I bull _

Anticipated FUIUre Soccess

-SO -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 SO 60 70

N=480 Percentage

Source Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonproftl ampClor Projecl Easl Germany Survey

However the establislunent of the sector in public perception and the populations readiness for voluntary work are viewed rather skeptically This pessimism is confirmed by the results of representative population surveys (priUer 1994) Moreover compared to West Gennany there are very fewer associations in small tollllS and in the countryside Particularly in the countryside voluntary organizations and clubs are struggling with a massive decline of

5

members (HeinemannSchubert 199482) Those claiming that the nonprofit sector is not finnly supported by the population of the new Ltinder base their arguments primarily on these empirical findings We will tum to this line of argument in the next section

uck of Civic Engagement

According to the findings of regular population surveys the level of participation in social activities in East Gennany is significantly below that of the West For example the percentage of people who are members in at least one voluntary organization is 50 percent in the old but only 26 percent in the new Uinder (Zimmer [996a 92-113) What is more membership numbers seem to be declining in the East (priller 1994 351) The bad economic situation and the development of the labor market are considered responsible for this trend In the former GDR most women were members of a trade union where membership was frequently linked to social service provision such as child care Since post-I990 unemployment figures are higher among women than among men the participation rate of women in trade-urnon related voluntary associations has declined dramatically pushing overall membership rates downward Compared to the Western part of the country East Gennans are far less engaged in volunteering In 1994 only nine percent of East Gennans volunteered at least once a month while the corresponding figure for West Gennany is 15 percent Due to the economic situation and the high unemployment rate in the new Under East Gennan donations range far below the West German level

Seen against these data the nonprofit sector in East Gennany seems not to be based on a strong foundation The weak social engagement at local levels is aggravated by the advantages that West Gennan nonprofit organizations have enjoyed in the process of unification

Institution Transfer

Apart from a few exceptions the legal and institutional system of the Federal Republic was transferred to the fonner GDR Ths included the principle of subsidiarity which underlies the countrys social welfare legislation (Anheier 1992) The principle of subsidiarity grounded in Catholic social thought assumes that the state should only undertake direct responsibility in social issues if smaller entities such as voluntary organizations or the family cannot adequately meet local demand

The principle of subsidiarity assigns a fundamental imponance to the nonprofit sector while at the same time guaranteeing public support both politically and financially Since World War II the principle of subsidjarity has become the cornerstone of the Gennan welfare state social services are not primaruy provided by state institutions but by nonprofit organizations (Anheier 1992) Therefore the principle of subsidiarity describes a special fonn of third-party governnient About 70 percent of the German nonprofit sector is financed by public money (AnheierlPriller 1995 SalamonlAnheier 1996) In other words the principle of subsidiarity ensures state support of the nonprofit sector in Gennany

Apart from the supply of goods and services the private-public pannersrup guided by the principle of subsidiarity also includes agenda setting and policy formulation The Gennan nonprofit sector is highJy structured and vertically integrated Significantly almost every nonprofit

6

organization in Gennany is a member of a peak association (Dachverband) ie nationally representative bodies like the Catholic Caritas the Protestant Diaiwnie the Workers Welfare Association the Red Cross or the Gennan Sports Association Deutsche SportverbandJ with several millionmembers (HeinemannSchubert 1994) These peak associations fonn the nodes

of the policy netWork that characterize the neo-corporatist way of policy-making and implementation in Gennany whereby state private interests and public administration are linked at various overlapping levels (Katzenstein 1987 ]5)

The peale associations of the Gennan nonprofit sector are n()t only politically important they are also big business This is especially true for the welfare associations in the fields of health and social services which together run more than 80000 institutions with over 900000 employees (RauschenbachSchilling 1995 330 336) For the welfare associations unification offered a good chance to enJarge their business and to expand activities into the territory of the fonner GDR The lobbying of the West German welfare associations was very successful as political forces from East Germany played only a small role in the process of unification Moreover the drafting of the unification treaty was highly centralized and carried out exclusively under the control of the Department of the Interior of the FederaJ Government in BaM The unification treacy in Articles 32 35 and 39 explicitly confirms the principle of subsidiarity for the fields of health and social services

Legitimized by the principle of subsidiarity FederaJ government funds were provided for the organization and consolidation of the nonprofit sector in the new Ltinder during the postshyunification period Nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services received the biggest ponion of the funds In accordance with the unification treaty they aJso received public money to build new inUastructure (Sozialpolitische Rundschau 385 1995) At the same time a great number of ABM jobs (ArbeilsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) were provided as an alternative to unemployment Many of these ABM jobs were located in nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of health and social services

The institutionaJ transfer of the West German system of organizing and funding nonprofit organizations to East Gennany has found many critical voices (Olk 1996 WiesenthallBialas 1992~ Tangemann 1995) Thanks to extensive public funding they argue the welfare associations headquartered in the West have successfully expanded their market as suppliers of health and social services into the new Lander The popUlation of the new Lttnder they suggest does not regard these institutions as independent nonprofit organizations but as public or quasi-public institutions This perception may account for the low profiJe of voluntarism and donations in East Germany

Furthermore the two biggest weLfare associations - Diakonie and Carlas - are churchshyaffiliatec institutions In contrast to West Germany where Catholics and Protestants combined account for close to 85 percent of the population only one quarter of the East German population are church members In fact East Germany is the most secular region of the Western world at least in terms of religious affiliation For critics the public support of Diakonie and Caritas in East Germany is seen as a peaceful colonization in an effort to re-christianize a secular society Summarizing this line of argument the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is not a vital

7

part of civil society but on the contrary a creation of the elates of the Federal Republic exponed to the new Ltinckr

A Paradox

We seem confronted with a paradox on the one hand the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is dominated by large organizations financed almost exclusively by public money on the other hand the majority of nonprofit organizations in the new lAnder are small associations financed primarily by membership dues and very government support The emerging nonprofit sector in East Germany appears as a false misplaced mirror image of the West according to one view and as an expression ofloca1 civil society according to the other As we have seen both positions find empirical support

The answer to this paradox lies in the policy-specific interpretation and application of the principle of subsidiarity According to West German law only welfare associations - ie nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services - have a right to public funding guaranteed by Jaw l In these two fields the principle of subsidiarity is fully implemented whereas in sports culture and recreation the principle is less prominent Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are eligible for public funds but state support is not guaranteed by law and awarded on a more competitive basis instead

Due to the way the subsidiarity principle has been applied in Germany the nonprofit sector in this country is really divided into two parts Those nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services are affiliated with the welfare associations and thoroughly integrated into the system of state funding that is the economic bedrock of that portion of the nonprofit sector This part of [he nonprofit sector is highly state-dependent The situation is different for associations in the fields of sports culture and recreation advocacy and environment they are predominantly member-serving organizations Well embedded in civil society and primarily financed by membership dues they receive much less goverrunent support in the fonn of grants and subsidies Numerically these voluntary organizations make up the majority of the sector in tenns of number of entities with their number estimated at about 250000 (Zimmer 1996a) However from an economic point of view taking into account the number of employees and volume of expenses such associations have far less impact than nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and sociaJ services (AnheierlPriller 1995)

These differences in the scope and the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are the result of historical developments The current interpretation of the origins of the principle of subsidiarity goes back to the pre-Nazi period At that time German society was highly divided aJong ideologlcal and religious Jines In the fleld of social policy these facti ons were both bridged and institutionalized by the state Accepting the two church-related welfare associations as partners with the state in social policy-making and implementation the Catholic Carttas and the Protestant DiaJronie were transfonned into functional equivaJents of public sector institutions (Anheierl Seibel 1997 Zimmer 1996b)

I Recent legal changes and policies bave somewhat moved awat from lbc monopoly enjoyed by the free welfare associations in the past

8

In Gennany private-public partnership in the fields ofhealth and social services guided by the principle of subsidiarity differs fundamentaUy from the three-party govenunent in the United Kingdom (Kendall and Knapp 1996) and the United States (Salamon and Anheier 1997) Competition among nonprofit organizations has been almost unknown with changes just recently

introduced as pan of the long-tenn care insurance system The welfare associations work in highly segmented markets their fields of activity assigned by the state Competition for state funding and grnnts does not exist Moreover the welfare associations are highly integrated into the state planning system forming an integral part of the Gennan welfare state Therefore organizations affiliated with the welfare associations are regarded as semimiddotpublic or even shadowshystate institutions In contrast member-serving voluntary organizations or clubs are considered a vital part of civil society outside involvement by the state

This particular interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity has been transferred to the new Ldnder Public support of the welfare associations has been confirmed by law whereas pub tic assistance to voluntary organizations is not obligatory Nevertheless the nonprofit sector was granted an important role in the transformation process The FederaJ government explicitly supported the estabUshment and consolidation of the sectoT with special programs

The State-Sponsored Sector

In the state-sponsored sector of the new Lander there are three types of nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services traditional organizations founded under the former SED regime West German organizations which have expanded into the new Lttnder since 1990 and foundations and associations created locally during the earty unification period (AnheierlPriI1er 1991)

The Volkssolidaritat (peoples Solidarity) the Red Cross the church-related Diakonie and Caritas fonn the first group Diakonie and Caritas have profited most from the transfer of resources into the new Liinder In the former GDR they had been tolerated rather than supported Yet within a short period of time Dialconie and Caritas changed from marginal organizations into the most important service providers of the emerging welfare industry in East Germany The West German headquarters ofDiakonie and Cartas have forcefuUy promoted this process Their political clout has increased as weU their leadership has entered politics frequently promoting moral virtues and Christian thought However keeping in mind that Caritas and Diakonie operate in a very secular society their presence represents a culturally external element in East Germany (Angerhausen et aI 1995)

Unlike Diakonie and Carllas the VolkssolidarittJ( and the Red Cross had a more difficult time adjusting to the new political and social environment after unification at least initially The Volkssoliciarilat a genuine GDR organization without any councerpart in West Germany with leaders burdened with an SED past was at first largely rejected by the local population Nevertheless Volkssolidariltil and the Red Cross successfuUy managed to democratize and establish a new image Both organizations have become fairly established social service providers (Tangemann 1995)

9

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

members (HeinemannSchubert 199482) Those claiming that the nonprofit sector is not finnly supported by the population of the new Ltinder base their arguments primarily on these empirical findings We will tum to this line of argument in the next section

uck of Civic Engagement

According to the findings of regular population surveys the level of participation in social activities in East Gennany is significantly below that of the West For example the percentage of people who are members in at least one voluntary organization is 50 percent in the old but only 26 percent in the new Uinder (Zimmer [996a 92-113) What is more membership numbers seem to be declining in the East (priller 1994 351) The bad economic situation and the development of the labor market are considered responsible for this trend In the former GDR most women were members of a trade union where membership was frequently linked to social service provision such as child care Since post-I990 unemployment figures are higher among women than among men the participation rate of women in trade-urnon related voluntary associations has declined dramatically pushing overall membership rates downward Compared to the Western part of the country East Gennans are far less engaged in volunteering In 1994 only nine percent of East Gennans volunteered at least once a month while the corresponding figure for West Gennany is 15 percent Due to the economic situation and the high unemployment rate in the new Under East Gennan donations range far below the West German level

Seen against these data the nonprofit sector in East Gennany seems not to be based on a strong foundation The weak social engagement at local levels is aggravated by the advantages that West Gennan nonprofit organizations have enjoyed in the process of unification

Institution Transfer

Apart from a few exceptions the legal and institutional system of the Federal Republic was transferred to the fonner GDR Ths included the principle of subsidiarity which underlies the countrys social welfare legislation (Anheier 1992) The principle of subsidiarity grounded in Catholic social thought assumes that the state should only undertake direct responsibility in social issues if smaller entities such as voluntary organizations or the family cannot adequately meet local demand

The principle of subsidiarity assigns a fundamental imponance to the nonprofit sector while at the same time guaranteeing public support both politically and financially Since World War II the principle of subsidjarity has become the cornerstone of the Gennan welfare state social services are not primaruy provided by state institutions but by nonprofit organizations (Anheier 1992) Therefore the principle of subsidiarity describes a special fonn of third-party governnient About 70 percent of the German nonprofit sector is financed by public money (AnheierlPriller 1995 SalamonlAnheier 1996) In other words the principle of subsidiarity ensures state support of the nonprofit sector in Gennany

Apart from the supply of goods and services the private-public pannersrup guided by the principle of subsidiarity also includes agenda setting and policy formulation The Gennan nonprofit sector is highJy structured and vertically integrated Significantly almost every nonprofit

6

organization in Gennany is a member of a peak association (Dachverband) ie nationally representative bodies like the Catholic Caritas the Protestant Diaiwnie the Workers Welfare Association the Red Cross or the Gennan Sports Association Deutsche SportverbandJ with several millionmembers (HeinemannSchubert 1994) These peak associations fonn the nodes

of the policy netWork that characterize the neo-corporatist way of policy-making and implementation in Gennany whereby state private interests and public administration are linked at various overlapping levels (Katzenstein 1987 ]5)

The peale associations of the Gennan nonprofit sector are n()t only politically important they are also big business This is especially true for the welfare associations in the fields of health and social services which together run more than 80000 institutions with over 900000 employees (RauschenbachSchilling 1995 330 336) For the welfare associations unification offered a good chance to enJarge their business and to expand activities into the territory of the fonner GDR The lobbying of the West German welfare associations was very successful as political forces from East Germany played only a small role in the process of unification Moreover the drafting of the unification treaty was highly centralized and carried out exclusively under the control of the Department of the Interior of the FederaJ Government in BaM The unification treacy in Articles 32 35 and 39 explicitly confirms the principle of subsidiarity for the fields of health and social services

Legitimized by the principle of subsidiarity FederaJ government funds were provided for the organization and consolidation of the nonprofit sector in the new Ltinder during the postshyunification period Nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services received the biggest ponion of the funds In accordance with the unification treaty they aJso received public money to build new inUastructure (Sozialpolitische Rundschau 385 1995) At the same time a great number of ABM jobs (ArbeilsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) were provided as an alternative to unemployment Many of these ABM jobs were located in nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of health and social services

The institutionaJ transfer of the West German system of organizing and funding nonprofit organizations to East Gennany has found many critical voices (Olk 1996 WiesenthallBialas 1992~ Tangemann 1995) Thanks to extensive public funding they argue the welfare associations headquartered in the West have successfully expanded their market as suppliers of health and social services into the new Lander The popUlation of the new Lttnder they suggest does not regard these institutions as independent nonprofit organizations but as public or quasi-public institutions This perception may account for the low profiJe of voluntarism and donations in East Germany

Furthermore the two biggest weLfare associations - Diakonie and Carlas - are churchshyaffiliatec institutions In contrast to West Germany where Catholics and Protestants combined account for close to 85 percent of the population only one quarter of the East German population are church members In fact East Germany is the most secular region of the Western world at least in terms of religious affiliation For critics the public support of Diakonie and Caritas in East Germany is seen as a peaceful colonization in an effort to re-christianize a secular society Summarizing this line of argument the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is not a vital

7

part of civil society but on the contrary a creation of the elates of the Federal Republic exponed to the new Ltinckr

A Paradox

We seem confronted with a paradox on the one hand the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is dominated by large organizations financed almost exclusively by public money on the other hand the majority of nonprofit organizations in the new lAnder are small associations financed primarily by membership dues and very government support The emerging nonprofit sector in East Germany appears as a false misplaced mirror image of the West according to one view and as an expression ofloca1 civil society according to the other As we have seen both positions find empirical support

The answer to this paradox lies in the policy-specific interpretation and application of the principle of subsidiarity According to West German law only welfare associations - ie nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services - have a right to public funding guaranteed by Jaw l In these two fields the principle of subsidiarity is fully implemented whereas in sports culture and recreation the principle is less prominent Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are eligible for public funds but state support is not guaranteed by law and awarded on a more competitive basis instead

Due to the way the subsidiarity principle has been applied in Germany the nonprofit sector in this country is really divided into two parts Those nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services are affiliated with the welfare associations and thoroughly integrated into the system of state funding that is the economic bedrock of that portion of the nonprofit sector This part of [he nonprofit sector is highly state-dependent The situation is different for associations in the fields of sports culture and recreation advocacy and environment they are predominantly member-serving organizations Well embedded in civil society and primarily financed by membership dues they receive much less goverrunent support in the fonn of grants and subsidies Numerically these voluntary organizations make up the majority of the sector in tenns of number of entities with their number estimated at about 250000 (Zimmer 1996a) However from an economic point of view taking into account the number of employees and volume of expenses such associations have far less impact than nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and sociaJ services (AnheierlPriller 1995)

These differences in the scope and the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are the result of historical developments The current interpretation of the origins of the principle of subsidiarity goes back to the pre-Nazi period At that time German society was highly divided aJong ideologlcal and religious Jines In the fleld of social policy these facti ons were both bridged and institutionalized by the state Accepting the two church-related welfare associations as partners with the state in social policy-making and implementation the Catholic Carttas and the Protestant DiaJronie were transfonned into functional equivaJents of public sector institutions (Anheierl Seibel 1997 Zimmer 1996b)

I Recent legal changes and policies bave somewhat moved awat from lbc monopoly enjoyed by the free welfare associations in the past

8

In Gennany private-public partnership in the fields ofhealth and social services guided by the principle of subsidiarity differs fundamentaUy from the three-party govenunent in the United Kingdom (Kendall and Knapp 1996) and the United States (Salamon and Anheier 1997) Competition among nonprofit organizations has been almost unknown with changes just recently

introduced as pan of the long-tenn care insurance system The welfare associations work in highly segmented markets their fields of activity assigned by the state Competition for state funding and grnnts does not exist Moreover the welfare associations are highly integrated into the state planning system forming an integral part of the Gennan welfare state Therefore organizations affiliated with the welfare associations are regarded as semimiddotpublic or even shadowshystate institutions In contrast member-serving voluntary organizations or clubs are considered a vital part of civil society outside involvement by the state

This particular interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity has been transferred to the new Ldnder Public support of the welfare associations has been confirmed by law whereas pub tic assistance to voluntary organizations is not obligatory Nevertheless the nonprofit sector was granted an important role in the transformation process The FederaJ government explicitly supported the estabUshment and consolidation of the sectoT with special programs

The State-Sponsored Sector

In the state-sponsored sector of the new Lander there are three types of nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services traditional organizations founded under the former SED regime West German organizations which have expanded into the new Lttnder since 1990 and foundations and associations created locally during the earty unification period (AnheierlPriI1er 1991)

The Volkssolidaritat (peoples Solidarity) the Red Cross the church-related Diakonie and Caritas fonn the first group Diakonie and Caritas have profited most from the transfer of resources into the new Liinder In the former GDR they had been tolerated rather than supported Yet within a short period of time Dialconie and Caritas changed from marginal organizations into the most important service providers of the emerging welfare industry in East Germany The West German headquarters ofDiakonie and Cartas have forcefuUy promoted this process Their political clout has increased as weU their leadership has entered politics frequently promoting moral virtues and Christian thought However keeping in mind that Caritas and Diakonie operate in a very secular society their presence represents a culturally external element in East Germany (Angerhausen et aI 1995)

Unlike Diakonie and Carllas the VolkssolidarittJ( and the Red Cross had a more difficult time adjusting to the new political and social environment after unification at least initially The Volkssoliciarilat a genuine GDR organization without any councerpart in West Germany with leaders burdened with an SED past was at first largely rejected by the local population Nevertheless Volkssolidariltil and the Red Cross successfuUy managed to democratize and establish a new image Both organizations have become fairly established social service providers (Tangemann 1995)

9

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

organization in Gennany is a member of a peak association (Dachverband) ie nationally representative bodies like the Catholic Caritas the Protestant Diaiwnie the Workers Welfare Association the Red Cross or the Gennan Sports Association Deutsche SportverbandJ with several millionmembers (HeinemannSchubert 1994) These peak associations fonn the nodes

of the policy netWork that characterize the neo-corporatist way of policy-making and implementation in Gennany whereby state private interests and public administration are linked at various overlapping levels (Katzenstein 1987 ]5)

The peale associations of the Gennan nonprofit sector are n()t only politically important they are also big business This is especially true for the welfare associations in the fields of health and social services which together run more than 80000 institutions with over 900000 employees (RauschenbachSchilling 1995 330 336) For the welfare associations unification offered a good chance to enJarge their business and to expand activities into the territory of the fonner GDR The lobbying of the West German welfare associations was very successful as political forces from East Germany played only a small role in the process of unification Moreover the drafting of the unification treaty was highly centralized and carried out exclusively under the control of the Department of the Interior of the FederaJ Government in BaM The unification treacy in Articles 32 35 and 39 explicitly confirms the principle of subsidiarity for the fields of health and social services

Legitimized by the principle of subsidiarity FederaJ government funds were provided for the organization and consolidation of the nonprofit sector in the new Ltinder during the postshyunification period Nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services received the biggest ponion of the funds In accordance with the unification treaty they aJso received public money to build new inUastructure (Sozialpolitische Rundschau 385 1995) At the same time a great number of ABM jobs (ArbeilsbeschaffungsmajJnahmen) were provided as an alternative to unemployment Many of these ABM jobs were located in nonprofit organizations particularly in the fields of health and social services

The institutionaJ transfer of the West German system of organizing and funding nonprofit organizations to East Gennany has found many critical voices (Olk 1996 WiesenthallBialas 1992~ Tangemann 1995) Thanks to extensive public funding they argue the welfare associations headquartered in the West have successfully expanded their market as suppliers of health and social services into the new Lander The popUlation of the new Lttnder they suggest does not regard these institutions as independent nonprofit organizations but as public or quasi-public institutions This perception may account for the low profiJe of voluntarism and donations in East Germany

Furthermore the two biggest weLfare associations - Diakonie and Carlas - are churchshyaffiliatec institutions In contrast to West Germany where Catholics and Protestants combined account for close to 85 percent of the population only one quarter of the East German population are church members In fact East Germany is the most secular region of the Western world at least in terms of religious affiliation For critics the public support of Diakonie and Caritas in East Germany is seen as a peaceful colonization in an effort to re-christianize a secular society Summarizing this line of argument the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is not a vital

7

part of civil society but on the contrary a creation of the elates of the Federal Republic exponed to the new Ltinckr

A Paradox

We seem confronted with a paradox on the one hand the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is dominated by large organizations financed almost exclusively by public money on the other hand the majority of nonprofit organizations in the new lAnder are small associations financed primarily by membership dues and very government support The emerging nonprofit sector in East Germany appears as a false misplaced mirror image of the West according to one view and as an expression ofloca1 civil society according to the other As we have seen both positions find empirical support

The answer to this paradox lies in the policy-specific interpretation and application of the principle of subsidiarity According to West German law only welfare associations - ie nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services - have a right to public funding guaranteed by Jaw l In these two fields the principle of subsidiarity is fully implemented whereas in sports culture and recreation the principle is less prominent Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are eligible for public funds but state support is not guaranteed by law and awarded on a more competitive basis instead

Due to the way the subsidiarity principle has been applied in Germany the nonprofit sector in this country is really divided into two parts Those nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services are affiliated with the welfare associations and thoroughly integrated into the system of state funding that is the economic bedrock of that portion of the nonprofit sector This part of [he nonprofit sector is highly state-dependent The situation is different for associations in the fields of sports culture and recreation advocacy and environment they are predominantly member-serving organizations Well embedded in civil society and primarily financed by membership dues they receive much less goverrunent support in the fonn of grants and subsidies Numerically these voluntary organizations make up the majority of the sector in tenns of number of entities with their number estimated at about 250000 (Zimmer 1996a) However from an economic point of view taking into account the number of employees and volume of expenses such associations have far less impact than nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and sociaJ services (AnheierlPriller 1995)

These differences in the scope and the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are the result of historical developments The current interpretation of the origins of the principle of subsidiarity goes back to the pre-Nazi period At that time German society was highly divided aJong ideologlcal and religious Jines In the fleld of social policy these facti ons were both bridged and institutionalized by the state Accepting the two church-related welfare associations as partners with the state in social policy-making and implementation the Catholic Carttas and the Protestant DiaJronie were transfonned into functional equivaJents of public sector institutions (Anheierl Seibel 1997 Zimmer 1996b)

I Recent legal changes and policies bave somewhat moved awat from lbc monopoly enjoyed by the free welfare associations in the past

8

In Gennany private-public partnership in the fields ofhealth and social services guided by the principle of subsidiarity differs fundamentaUy from the three-party govenunent in the United Kingdom (Kendall and Knapp 1996) and the United States (Salamon and Anheier 1997) Competition among nonprofit organizations has been almost unknown with changes just recently

introduced as pan of the long-tenn care insurance system The welfare associations work in highly segmented markets their fields of activity assigned by the state Competition for state funding and grnnts does not exist Moreover the welfare associations are highly integrated into the state planning system forming an integral part of the Gennan welfare state Therefore organizations affiliated with the welfare associations are regarded as semimiddotpublic or even shadowshystate institutions In contrast member-serving voluntary organizations or clubs are considered a vital part of civil society outside involvement by the state

This particular interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity has been transferred to the new Ldnder Public support of the welfare associations has been confirmed by law whereas pub tic assistance to voluntary organizations is not obligatory Nevertheless the nonprofit sector was granted an important role in the transformation process The FederaJ government explicitly supported the estabUshment and consolidation of the sectoT with special programs

The State-Sponsored Sector

In the state-sponsored sector of the new Lander there are three types of nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services traditional organizations founded under the former SED regime West German organizations which have expanded into the new Lttnder since 1990 and foundations and associations created locally during the earty unification period (AnheierlPriI1er 1991)

The Volkssolidaritat (peoples Solidarity) the Red Cross the church-related Diakonie and Caritas fonn the first group Diakonie and Caritas have profited most from the transfer of resources into the new Liinder In the former GDR they had been tolerated rather than supported Yet within a short period of time Dialconie and Caritas changed from marginal organizations into the most important service providers of the emerging welfare industry in East Germany The West German headquarters ofDiakonie and Cartas have forcefuUy promoted this process Their political clout has increased as weU their leadership has entered politics frequently promoting moral virtues and Christian thought However keeping in mind that Caritas and Diakonie operate in a very secular society their presence represents a culturally external element in East Germany (Angerhausen et aI 1995)

Unlike Diakonie and Carllas the VolkssolidarittJ( and the Red Cross had a more difficult time adjusting to the new political and social environment after unification at least initially The Volkssoliciarilat a genuine GDR organization without any councerpart in West Germany with leaders burdened with an SED past was at first largely rejected by the local population Nevertheless Volkssolidariltil and the Red Cross successfuUy managed to democratize and establish a new image Both organizations have become fairly established social service providers (Tangemann 1995)

9

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

part of civil society but on the contrary a creation of the elates of the Federal Republic exponed to the new Ltinckr

A Paradox

We seem confronted with a paradox on the one hand the nonprofit sector in East Gennany is dominated by large organizations financed almost exclusively by public money on the other hand the majority of nonprofit organizations in the new lAnder are small associations financed primarily by membership dues and very government support The emerging nonprofit sector in East Germany appears as a false misplaced mirror image of the West according to one view and as an expression ofloca1 civil society according to the other As we have seen both positions find empirical support

The answer to this paradox lies in the policy-specific interpretation and application of the principle of subsidiarity According to West German law only welfare associations - ie nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services - have a right to public funding guaranteed by Jaw l In these two fields the principle of subsidiarity is fully implemented whereas in sports culture and recreation the principle is less prominent Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are eligible for public funds but state support is not guaranteed by law and awarded on a more competitive basis instead

Due to the way the subsidiarity principle has been applied in Germany the nonprofit sector in this country is really divided into two parts Those nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services are affiliated with the welfare associations and thoroughly integrated into the system of state funding that is the economic bedrock of that portion of the nonprofit sector This part of [he nonprofit sector is highly state-dependent The situation is different for associations in the fields of sports culture and recreation advocacy and environment they are predominantly member-serving organizations Well embedded in civil society and primarily financed by membership dues they receive much less goverrunent support in the fonn of grants and subsidies Numerically these voluntary organizations make up the majority of the sector in tenns of number of entities with their number estimated at about 250000 (Zimmer 1996a) However from an economic point of view taking into account the number of employees and volume of expenses such associations have far less impact than nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and sociaJ services (AnheierlPriller 1995)

These differences in the scope and the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are the result of historical developments The current interpretation of the origins of the principle of subsidiarity goes back to the pre-Nazi period At that time German society was highly divided aJong ideologlcal and religious Jines In the fleld of social policy these facti ons were both bridged and institutionalized by the state Accepting the two church-related welfare associations as partners with the state in social policy-making and implementation the Catholic Carttas and the Protestant DiaJronie were transfonned into functional equivaJents of public sector institutions (Anheierl Seibel 1997 Zimmer 1996b)

I Recent legal changes and policies bave somewhat moved awat from lbc monopoly enjoyed by the free welfare associations in the past

8

In Gennany private-public partnership in the fields ofhealth and social services guided by the principle of subsidiarity differs fundamentaUy from the three-party govenunent in the United Kingdom (Kendall and Knapp 1996) and the United States (Salamon and Anheier 1997) Competition among nonprofit organizations has been almost unknown with changes just recently

introduced as pan of the long-tenn care insurance system The welfare associations work in highly segmented markets their fields of activity assigned by the state Competition for state funding and grnnts does not exist Moreover the welfare associations are highly integrated into the state planning system forming an integral part of the Gennan welfare state Therefore organizations affiliated with the welfare associations are regarded as semimiddotpublic or even shadowshystate institutions In contrast member-serving voluntary organizations or clubs are considered a vital part of civil society outside involvement by the state

This particular interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity has been transferred to the new Ldnder Public support of the welfare associations has been confirmed by law whereas pub tic assistance to voluntary organizations is not obligatory Nevertheless the nonprofit sector was granted an important role in the transformation process The FederaJ government explicitly supported the estabUshment and consolidation of the sectoT with special programs

The State-Sponsored Sector

In the state-sponsored sector of the new Lander there are three types of nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services traditional organizations founded under the former SED regime West German organizations which have expanded into the new Lttnder since 1990 and foundations and associations created locally during the earty unification period (AnheierlPriI1er 1991)

The Volkssolidaritat (peoples Solidarity) the Red Cross the church-related Diakonie and Caritas fonn the first group Diakonie and Caritas have profited most from the transfer of resources into the new Liinder In the former GDR they had been tolerated rather than supported Yet within a short period of time Dialconie and Caritas changed from marginal organizations into the most important service providers of the emerging welfare industry in East Germany The West German headquarters ofDiakonie and Cartas have forcefuUy promoted this process Their political clout has increased as weU their leadership has entered politics frequently promoting moral virtues and Christian thought However keeping in mind that Caritas and Diakonie operate in a very secular society their presence represents a culturally external element in East Germany (Angerhausen et aI 1995)

Unlike Diakonie and Carllas the VolkssolidarittJ( and the Red Cross had a more difficult time adjusting to the new political and social environment after unification at least initially The Volkssoliciarilat a genuine GDR organization without any councerpart in West Germany with leaders burdened with an SED past was at first largely rejected by the local population Nevertheless Volkssolidariltil and the Red Cross successfuUy managed to democratize and establish a new image Both organizations have become fairly established social service providers (Tangemann 1995)

9

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

In Gennany private-public partnership in the fields ofhealth and social services guided by the principle of subsidiarity differs fundamentaUy from the three-party govenunent in the United Kingdom (Kendall and Knapp 1996) and the United States (Salamon and Anheier 1997) Competition among nonprofit organizations has been almost unknown with changes just recently

introduced as pan of the long-tenn care insurance system The welfare associations work in highly segmented markets their fields of activity assigned by the state Competition for state funding and grnnts does not exist Moreover the welfare associations are highly integrated into the state planning system forming an integral part of the Gennan welfare state Therefore organizations affiliated with the welfare associations are regarded as semimiddotpublic or even shadowshystate institutions In contrast member-serving voluntary organizations or clubs are considered a vital part of civil society outside involvement by the state

This particular interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity has been transferred to the new Ldnder Public support of the welfare associations has been confirmed by law whereas pub tic assistance to voluntary organizations is not obligatory Nevertheless the nonprofit sector was granted an important role in the transformation process The FederaJ government explicitly supported the estabUshment and consolidation of the sectoT with special programs

The State-Sponsored Sector

In the state-sponsored sector of the new Lander there are three types of nonprofit organizations active in the fields of health and social services traditional organizations founded under the former SED regime West German organizations which have expanded into the new Lttnder since 1990 and foundations and associations created locally during the earty unification period (AnheierlPriI1er 1991)

The Volkssolidaritat (peoples Solidarity) the Red Cross the church-related Diakonie and Caritas fonn the first group Diakonie and Caritas have profited most from the transfer of resources into the new Liinder In the former GDR they had been tolerated rather than supported Yet within a short period of time Dialconie and Caritas changed from marginal organizations into the most important service providers of the emerging welfare industry in East Germany The West German headquarters ofDiakonie and Cartas have forcefuUy promoted this process Their political clout has increased as weU their leadership has entered politics frequently promoting moral virtues and Christian thought However keeping in mind that Caritas and Diakonie operate in a very secular society their presence represents a culturally external element in East Germany (Angerhausen et aI 1995)

Unlike Diakonie and Carllas the VolkssolidarittJ( and the Red Cross had a more difficult time adjusting to the new political and social environment after unification at least initially The Volkssoliciarilat a genuine GDR organization without any councerpart in West Germany with leaders burdened with an SED past was at first largely rejected by the local population Nevertheless Volkssolidariltil and the Red Cross successfuUy managed to democratize and establish a new image Both organizations have become fairly established social service providers (Tangemann 1995)

9

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

Whereas some traditional organizations like Volkssolidarittil appear to be successfully adapting some West Gennan organizations along with newer organizations founded during the early period of transformation are having severe difficulties adjusting to the new situation The AWO (Arbeiterwohllahrt) the West Gennan welfare association closely affiliated with the SPD

(Social Democratic Party) as weU as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund are cases in point The social democratic orientation of these organizations is not widely shared among local populations Nevertheless the Arbeiter-Sconariter-Bund has developed into a strictly service providing organization primarily in the field of rescue service By contrast AWO has been less successful and currently hardly manages to survive particularly in smaller towns (Olk 1996)

Finally the majority of those service providers and welfare associations established immediately after the breakdown of the GDR are currently struggling with serious organizational problems Characterized as ltI empty sheUs (Wiesenthal et a1 1992) some may be forced to cease their activities in the near future Two examples are the Arbeitslosenverband (Unemployed Peoples Association) and the Unabhtingiger Frauenverband (Independent Womens Association) (Zimmer and Priller 1996) However there are some poslt1ve examples like the Behinderterrverband (Handicapped Peoples Association) a coalition of various relatively independent local groups and initiatives (Schulz 995)

AJehough local authorities are obliged by law to support nonprofit organizations active in health and social services these organizations are also encountering severe financial problems While the principle of subsidiarity legally obliges the organizations be funded it does not determine the extent of the allocation of funds In reaction to this situation nonprofit organizations active in welfare have started to adopt new fund-raising and management techrtiques frequently modeled after those in the United States and the United Kingdom By gradually giving up their specific identities and by shedding their underlying ideological and religious orientations Volkssolidaritat Diakonie and CarUas may be becoming more and more alike (Angerhausen et al 1995 Rauschenbach et al 1995)

Conclusion

Two controversial points of view have been posited by researchers and policy~makers about the nonprofit sector in fonner East Gennany since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the breakdown of the SED According to the institutional transfer position there is no East Gennan nonprofit sector that is independent from West German resources and expertise White some evidence seems to support this view there is also evidence for that points to a very different conclusion According to the latter the newly won freedom to associate has been used effectively The rapid expansion in the number of voluntary organizations is taken as striking proof of the diversiy as weU as the embeddedness of the sector in East German society

In cities like Berlin Leipzig and Dresden environmental peace and advocacy groups have grown out of the citizens movements of 1989 that helped topple the SED regime Yet they have not become a general driving force in polit ics in the new Lander Well established as service providers and voluntary organizations the groups have gjven up their political grassroots orientation Nevertheless they are active sponsors of local initiatives and related activities that form a vital part ofciviJ society (Rucht 1995 12 Blattert et al 1994 Rink 1995)

10

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

We suggest that the resolution of these contrasting positions lies in the specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity In the fields of health and social services the principle is powerfully at work Nonprofit organizations active in those fields are in practice semi-public institutions rather than private organizations In sports culture recreation and

bull advocacy subsidiarity is less prominent Therefore sports clubs socio-cultural initiatives and environmental groups are membership-oriented society-centered private organizations Thls holds true for East Germany as well as for West Gennany

What the findings of population surveys suggest is that membersrup rates for particular population groups are not only expanding or contracting overall more importantly they point Our attention to the a fundamental restructwing of the associational landscape in East Germany-trends which affect various population segments in different ways and which are linked to political factors (freedom of association emergence of new interest) as well as to economic issues such as unemployment

Lacking financial resources and recent origin the nonprofit sector of the new Ltinder is less developed than in West Germany Due to the expiration of various major funding programs sponsored by the Federal goverrunent nonprofit organizations are likely to face severe financial problems in the future

Given current and future public austerity budgets we may expect that nonprofit organizations in the East are likely to follow paths different from those in the West Tltis has already happened in the political party system which is evolving rather differently from that in West Germany We may expect that the East German nonprofit sector over time may differ significantly from the general central European model in which nonprofit are frequently Linked to political and religious ideologies (Htirtgen et al 1995) By contrast East German nonprofit organizations in the fields of sports recreation and cultural activities tend to be apolitical promoting an image of purely private rather than political or ideological associations Even nonprofit organizations in heaJth and social services are less politically conscious than the service providers in West Germany nor are they as tightly integrated into their respective peak associations

This suggest that the East German and the West Gennan nonprofit sector wiU become more alike and more dissimilar at the same time The institutional transfer of the West German model into an economic envirorunent and a political culture for which it was illmiddotsuited particiular under revailing conditions of public austerity We are witnessing the emergence of an East German nonprofit sector whose organizations are more dynamic more modem than their West German counterparts which remain entrenched in an increasingly outdated policy formulation based on the principle of subsidiarity The contradictory views that policy-makers and analysts have put forward when examining the East German nonprofit sector may well be an indication for this very process

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

References

Ackennann Manfred (1995) Ein Anker fur die Einheit der Deutschen in Europa Kultur in Kulturpolitische Mjtteilungen 703 12-18

Angerhausen SusanneIBackhaus-Maul HolgerlSchiebel Martina (1995) Zwischen neuen Herausforderungen und nachwirkenden Traditionen Aufgaben- und Leisrungsverst1ndnis von Wohlfahrtsverbanden in den neuen Bundeslandem in Thomas RauschenbachlChristoph Sach3elThomas Olk (Eds) Von der Wertegemeinschaft zum Dienstleistungsuntemehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkarnp 377-403

Helmut K Anheier (1992) An Elaborate Network Profiling the Third Sector in Germany In Government and the Nonprofil Sector Emerging Relationships in Welfare States edited by Benjamin Gidron Ralph Kramer and Lester M Salamon pp 31middot56 San Francisco Jossey-Bass

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (1991) The Non-Profit Sector in East Geonany before and after Unification in Voluntas International Journal of Voluntary and NonmiddotProfit Organisations Vol 2 No I 78-94

Anheier Helmut KlPriller Eckhard (I995) Der Nonprofil-Sektor in Deutschland Eine SozialshyOkonorrUsche Strukturbeschreibung The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project Summary

Baur JlirgenIKoch UweITelschow Stephan (1995) Sponvereine irn Dbergang die Vereinslandschaft in Ostdeutschland Aachen Meyer amp Meyer Verlag

Benzler Susanne (1995) Chancen der ZivilgeseUschaft in den neuen BundesHindern in Susanne BenzlerlUdo BullmannlDieter EiBei (Eds) Deutschland-Ost vor Ort Anflinge der lokalen Politik in den neuen Bundeslltndem Opladen Leske+Budrich 13-47

Blattert BarbaralRink DieterlRucht Dieter (1994) Von den Oppositionsgruppen der DDR zu den neuen sozialen Bewegungen in Ostdeutschland in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 36 19 Heft 3 397-422

Heinemann KJausiSchube[ Manfred (1994) Der Sportverein Schomdorf Verlag Klaus Hofmann

Hurtgen Renate et al (1994) Sozialpolitische Interessenvermittlungsstrukturen im Transformationsprozef3 in den regionaIen Zentren Frankfiut (Oder) und Jena in ffilrrud NaBmacheriOskar NiedermayerlHeUmut WoUmann (Eds) Politische Strukturen Un Umbruch Opladen Leske+Budrich 17-118

laide WalterlBaroara Hille (Eds) (1992) lugend und Sport in den neuen BundesHrndem bpladen Leske+Budrich

Katzenstein Peter 1 (1987) Policy and Politics in West Germany The Growth of the Semisovereign State Philadelphia Temple University Press

Lehmbruch Gerhard (1994) Instirutiooen Interessen und sektoraIe Variationen in der Transformationsdynamik der politischen Okonomie Ostdeutschlands in Journal fur Sozialforschung Vol 34 No 1 21-44

12

one Thomas (1996) Wohlfahrtsverbande Un Transformationsprozel3 Ostdeutschlands in Raj KOllmorgenlRolf ReiBiglJohannes WeiB (Ed) SoziaJer Wandel und Akteure in Ostdeutschland Oplden Leske+Budrich 179-216

Priller Eckhaid (1994) Demokrarieentwicklung und geselJschaftliche Mirwirkung in Ingrid Kurz-ScherflGunnar WtnkJer (Eds) Sozialreport 1994 Daten und Fakten rur sozialen Lage in den neuen Bundeslandem Bonn 301-330

Rauschenbch ThomaslSachJJe ChristophOlk Thomas (Ed) (1995) Von der Wertegemeinschaft rum Dienstleistungsunternehmen Jugend und Wohlfahrtsverbande im Umbruch Frankfurt bull M Suhrkamp

Rauschenbach ThomasSchilling Matthias ( 1995) Die Dienstleistenden in Thomas RauschenbachiChristoph SachfielThomas Olk (Eds) Von cler Wertegemeinschaft rum Dienstleistungsunternehmen Jugend- und Wohlfahrtsverbande im Umbruch Frankfurt a M Suhrkamp 321-355

Rink Dieter (1995) Neue Bewegungen im Osten Zur EntwickJung im ostdeutschen Bewegungsshysektor nach clem Ende der BUrgerbewegungen in ForschungsjoumaJ Neue Soziale Bewegungen Heft 4 20-26

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