Sustainability in German family policy and politics.
| Verfasser | Ahrens, Regina |
1 Introduction
In the last few years, the term of sustainability is frequently used in the context of family policy in Germany. Emerged in forestry contexts, it originally stands for a lack of natural resources which had been pointed out especially by the Club of Rome (Meadows et al. 1972) in the 1970s. In its more recent version, sustainability does not necessarily deal with a lack of natural resources alone but also with economic or social ones--an understanding which results in a socio-economic-ecological triangle, representing the interdependencies between ecological, economic and social sphere (Nolting et al. 2004: 255). Since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 (Rio de Janeiro), the concept of sustainability has been expanded both geographically and concerning its content.
On a scientific level, sustainability research concentrates on the question of how sustainability concepts should be arranged. Its main findings are that they should include normative aspects as well as integrate all relevant dimensions. Last but not least, participation of all relevant actors in the elaboration as well as in the implementation process is considered to be important (Nolting et al. 2004).
To put it in a nutshell, sustainability concepts should consider normative, integrative and participative aspects. The concept's normative base should consist of criteria such as intra- and intergenerational justice, preservation of quality of life and persistence of the system. Furthermore, in the perspective of sustainability's integrative aspect, researchers stress the fact that one has to consider several dimensions when establishing a sustainability concept (e.g. an ecological, an economic and a social one). However, although there are research activities in this field, the concept of sustainability cannot be understood as a purely scientific one. It rather represents a kind of a politico-ethical, normative idea which is located at the intersection of science, politics, economics and the general public (Schafer 2008: 21f.). That is also why it is marked by its practical orientation concentrating on the formulation of sustainability concepts (Nolting et al. 2004: 254).
In Germany, questions of sustainability began to arise in the 1990s. Marked ecologically at first, the understanding became multidimensional only some time later. In 1998, the red-green government engaged in developing a national sustainability strategy which was accomplished in 2002 and set up the political landmarks for the following years (Bundesregierung 2002: 323). Only one year earlier, the red-green cabinet had appointed the German Council for Sustainable Development as well as a special committee for sustainable development at the chancellery. In 2004, the German Bundestag established a parliamentary advisory board for sustainable development (Deutscher Bundestag 2004) in which 22 deputies (September 2010) from all parliamentary groups work together (Bundesregierung 2008: 29). (2) As the red-green government underlined the cross sectional aspect of sustainability in its strategy (Bundesregierung 2002: 1), measures in every policy field should meet criteria of sustainability. This is also true for family policy.
Thus, over several decades this policy field has developed in a way very contrary to what theoretical requirements in terms of sustainability might suggest. In fact, it was rather marked by ideologization that reflected the differences between Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD) than by inter-partisan cooperation, aiming at defining and reaching goals in a consensual way. That is why until the end of the 1990s, new partisan constellations provoked changes concerning the policy's main foci. (3) Furthermore, its participative character was limited; interest groups for instance had a weak position in German family policy since family interests were for a long time considered to be a private matter (Gerlach 2010: 38f., 429ff.). Against this background, the policy field--in the discourse of which the term of sustainability plays a major role since the beginning of the new millennium--seems to have been very non sustainable in the decades before. However, ideologization became less important at the end of the 1990s, amongst others due to Constitutional Court's rulings, pointing out the importance of families' performances for the whole society. As a consequence, congruence between parties seems to have increased: At the changeover from the red-green (1998-2005) to the Grand coalition (2005-2009), several aspects have endured, e.g. the idea of an income-related parental benefit which was conceptualized under the red-green coalition and implemented by the Grand coalition. Concerning their goals, party programs seem to differ from each other in only a few aspects lately (Gerlach 2010: 156ff.). Parallel to this consistency, the Constitutional Court's rulings, high poverty rates as well as the demographic situation and its consequences led to changes in the understanding of family policy (Gerlach 2010: 156). Additionally, there have been changes concerning actor constellations (e.g. Ristau 2005) as well as changes in working style and in argumentation (Ostner 2007) of family policy actors. These changes are often referred to as being part of a 'new' family policy. As a synonym, the term of 'sustainable' family policy is frequently used in political, public and academic discourse since the beginning of the 21st century. Since family minister Renate Schmidt took office in 2002, there have been several expert's reports and commitments to this so called sustainable family policy.
However, the idea of sustainability in German family policy and politics remains rather nebulous. That is why this article aims at
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reflecting relevant actors' understanding of sustainability concerning sustainability's normative and integrative aspects;
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focusing on the participative aspect of sustainability by pointing out challenges concerning actors' cooperation mentioned by the interviewees. (4)
However, giving a concrete definition of sustainability or stating how German family policy and politics should be organized so that they can be considered as sustainable ones goes beyond the scope of this article which seeks to bring together actors' understanding of sustainability and to show the gap between their comprehension and the main theoretical requirements of sustainability (i.e. its integrative, normative and participative aspect).
Asking for actors' conceptions of a sustainable family policy, Chapter 2 refers to three of the most important publications dealing with sustainability in German family policy as well as to 18 interview transcripts. By pointing out normative and integrative aspects of sustainability, this chapter raises the question in how far scientific findings are integrated into actors' understanding of sustainability. Treating the topic of sustainability in German family politics, Chapter 3 concentrates on the participative aspect of sustainability by dealing with questions of cooperation and networks between relevant actors. Firstly, recent changes in German family politics are pointed out. Secondly, structural interdependencies between the federal levels (central state, federal states and local level) are emphasized. It is shown that although actors refer to good reasons for and instruments of cooperation, they also state that there are several factors which restrain the quality of cooperation. Chapter 4 gives a resume and asks for the reasons of sustainability discourse in German family policy. As will be shown, sustainability discourse seems to be connected to major societal and political developments that occurred at the turn of the new millennium. That is why it can even be argued that sustainability discourse in German family policy is not an end in itself but can also be considered as being a sort of means to other ends.
2 Sustainability in German family policy
Defining sustainability in the context of family policy is not easy. Contrary to other fields like environmental policy, it seems that questions of sustainability sort of have been imposed on family policy: Apparently, in the course of the formulation of a national sustainability strategy in 2002, political actors were more or less constrained to identify a link between sustainability and their own policy field. In German family policy, this is reflected in publications edited by the Federal Family Ministry dealing with sustainability in family policy. However, due to theoretical requirements concerning actors' participation, it is not enough to simply consider publications when trying to define sustainability. That is why this chapter also takes into consideration interviews conducted with political actors and scientists and their attitudes to a sustainable family policy. A first look seems to reveal that the understanding of sustainability has evolved into a more sophisticated one over the years. Thus, there is still no consistent understanding of sustainability in German family policy, although the term is frequently used in academic as well as in political and public discourse. Due to this missing comprehensive and broadly accepted definition, this article does not aim at contrasting a definition of sustainability in family policy with actors' understanding, but at applying a more inductive approach: It brings together actors' understanding of sustainability in family policy and contrasts their comprehension with the general theoretical requirements of sustainability research. (5) In a first step it is analyzed what experts and interviewees generally refer to when talking about sustainability in family policy. In a second step, the expert's reports as well as the interviews are analyzed concerning theoretical components: Is there any reference made to sustainability research criteria? Concretely, it is shown in how...
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