The regional level has been strengthened in many democracies over the last decades, often in reaction to exogenous drivers such as globalization and Europeanization. Yet, regional parliaments make use of the newly acquired rights differently. While some regions enact laws that are specific to their region, other regions decide to remain within the policy mainstream, i.e. the policies most other regions pass. To explain these patterns, the literature has so far focused on the active role of regions with strong national identities. This paper, however, addresses the less researched question of which factors drive policy divergence in federal states that lack such regional ethnic minorities. The federalism reform of 2006 in Germany presents a crucial case in this regard. It provided the German Länder with 16 new exclusive legislative competences.
We created a database that includes all laws passed by the Länder in these new domains. To quantify the differences between these laws we create indexes for each new competence. We find that some Länder mostly stick with the policy mainstream while others systematically enact deviating laws.
Based on a panel data analysis that covers the time period 2006-2013 we find that larger Länder deviate more from the policy mainstream than smaller ones. This confirms our hypothesis that larger Länder have a greater confidence in federal matters as they resemble typical European national states. Moreover, Länder that have a long-lasting history of statehood deviate more from the policy mainstream than Länder lacking historic territorial integrity.
Our contribution to the literature is to systematically test assumptions in (German) federalism research which have yet been based on mere anecdotal or policy specific evidence.
