German Pork? Legislators’ Strategies in German Bundesrat and U.S. Congress.

The German government needed to gain support from a majority in the Bundesrat to pass parts of the tax and retirement reform packages that were dependent on Bundesrat approval. However, the opposition parties opposed the reforms and sought to kill the bill in Bundesrat. Since the ruling coalition and opposition parties could not agree on compromises, the government made financial offers to a few state governments ruled by coalitions to change their voting behavior and thus secure a majority in Bundesrat. Not surprisingly, this strategy was quickly compared to U.S. style pork barreling. This article takes up this comparison and comes to the conclusion that the government used the prevalent Parteienlogik to secure passage in Bundestag. In Bundesrat, however, the federal government’s strategy of distributive politics providing pork projects to state coalition governments ran counter to the Parteienlogik. This dual strategy has serious potential of undermining two fundamental institutions in German politics - consensus-orientation of the system as a whole and objectivity (Sachorientierung) in Bundesrat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]