The proverbial and convincingly explained resistance of the German welfare state against rising internal and external pressures has been challenged by recent reform activities especially in Labour Market Policy. The Fourth Law for Modern Labour Market Services (Hartz IV) is one of the widest-reaching and most-contested welfare reforms in Post-Reunification-Germany. The duration of the earnings-related Unemployment Benefit (now ALG I) has been shortened while the less generous but also earnings-related unemployment assistance merged with social assistance to the flat-rate and means-tested Unemployment Benefit II (ALG II). The definition of “reasonable” employment has been tightened and mostly negative incentives have been introduced to foster labour market integration. The path breaking character of the reform needs explanation and communicative actions of policy makers have received more and more attention. Different authors have argued that besides constructing an “objective” imperative (Cox 2001), reform discourses have to link the political instruments to existing societal values in order to be successful (Schmidt 2002). But the analysis of a large pool of political statements of the reform entrepreneurs reveals a surprising lack of both discursive strategies. Neither did the German Social Democrats tried to objectify the need for the reform via an appeal to globalization nor did they bring the reform in line with one of the most important issues/ values linked to the party: social justice. The interpretation of this finding is twofold. First, reform entrepreneurs have to use a justification profile compatible to the veto-players’ justification profiles to be successful during policy formulation in German quasi-consociationalism (Lehmbruch 2002), second, it has to be compatible to their traditional justification profile to avoid to be punished electorally. The argument is illustrated by the German Social Democrats for whom electoral punishment followed hard on the heels of the ironically counterintuitive implementation of Hartz IV.
