Study: Administrative elites in new federal states are mostly from the West

The majority of all state secretaries in German state ministries come from the west. This also applies to eastern German states. Between the years 2000 and 2018, all state ministries in the Federal Republic appointed 921 new state secretaries. Only 98 of these, about 12 percent, were born in the new states.

"In the transitional period after German unification, it made sense to appoint top West German civil servants in the new states," says Prof. Dr. Sylvia Veit from the Department of Public Management at the University of Kassel. "However, the fact that the situation has hardly changed to this day is surprising," says the political scientist. However, the proportion of state secretaries born in eastern Germany is slowly rising, she said. "Among the top officials appointed between 2016 and 2018, as many as 15.7 percent were from the eastern states."

State secretaries are the highest-ranking civil servants in most German states. They report directly to ministers. The state governments decide what qualifications state secretaries must have.

The studies are part of the RegPol research project and offer other insights as well. "Women, for example, are still significantly underrepresented," says Stefanie Vedder, a research associate in the RegPol project. However, she adds, the percentage of women has also been steadily increasing since 2000.

In the RegPol project, political scientists Sylvia Veit and Stefanie Vedder examined the career paths of female state secretaries and state secretaries in all 16 German states. The researchers investigated how administrative elites are composed and what developments are discernible over time. In addition to origin and gender, Veit and her team also examined education, professional experience, proximity to politics and other factors.

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Sylvia Veit
University of Kassel
Department: Public Management
Tel:  +49 561 804-7786
E-Mail: sveit[at]uni-kassel[dot]de