Klaus Lederer

Commodifying and Privatizing Public Services: Problems and Margins of Manoeuvre on the Municipal and State Level in Berlin

Structural changes in the post-Fordist competitive state determine local and state politics/policies in many ways. This starts with EU-legal demands concerning public services and does not end with changes in the Länder (state) and financial system of the Federal Republic of Germany. What does that mean for political stakeholders? How far, if at all, can they elude against the over-determined logics inherent to the current agenda? Is it still possible to serve the public beyond profit-driven imperatives? What are the basic inescapable parameters, and what does that mean for political agency? My contribution offers a review of the situation in Berlin and will shed light on political developments in other German Länder and municipalities.

Klaus Lederer is chairman of Die Linkle.PDS (Socialist Party) in Berlin and political scientist. Recent publication: Strukturwandel bei kommunalen Wasserdienstleistungen: eine Untersuchung aus verwaltungswissenschaftlicher Perspektive. BWV, Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004.

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