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Contributions from
the Column
Books and Media
A guide to the world’s most critical resource
How Members of
Parliament influence development policy
The causes of war: interpretations overstretched
studies on the end of textile quota system
Trade Union case
studies on the end of textile quota system
New World Bank study on Latin America
02/2005 |
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How Members of
Parliament influence development policy
Ulrike Taschbach-Hörsch:
Der Einfluss des Bundestagsausschusses für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit auf die bilaterale Entwicklungspolitik der Bundesregierung von 1980 bis 1987 (The influence of the German Parliamentary Committee for Economic Cooperation on the German government's bilateral development policy from 1980 to 1987).
Aachen, Shaker Verlag 2003, 238 pp,
Euro 49.80, ISBN 3-8322-1516-6
(also available as a PDF for Euro 4.98 at http://www.shaker.de/Online-Gesamtkatalog)
“The Committee for Economic Cooperation did not cause any spectacular changes in German development policy that the media would have been interested in. Rather, its members worked together to expand the Committee’s leeway by means of concerted action, building up continuity and expertise to exercise influence and initiate change. The Committee’s task was to do the right thing at the right time.”
Taschbach-Hörsch’s analysis of the work done by the Committee for Economic Cooperation (AwZ) of the 9th and 10th Bundestag (Germany’s Federal Parliament) is only superficially a history of development policy in the 1980s. The book goes deeper, pointing out the implications for the current state of German development cooperation by maintaining a practice-oriented approach.
Taschbach-Hörsch believes that the problems of the 1980s remain germane today. Standing at the threshold between the social-liberal coalition and conservative-liberal coalition, the AwZ used the professional expertise and commitment of its members in working up solutions and guidelines, acting as a role model even for today’s standards. Now as then, the Committee is the only institution able to influence the German government’s development policy directly by controlling the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation (BMZ), according to Taschenbach-hörsch, as it commands the necessary parliamentary instruments.
The book explains institutional frameworks, the focus of cooperative work, and the discussions concerning the goals of development policy. It deals with the annual consultations for the itemised budget for the BMZ and describes specific issues in bilateral cooperation such as the restructuring of training for experts from developing countries, the reform of the German Investment and Development Company (DEG), the controversial provision of emergency and economic aid for Turkey, and the type of cooperation with Bhutan. Taschbach-Hörsch analyses the foundations of German development policy set back then, especially the parliamentary resolution passed by all parties in 1982 on the principles of development policy, which set the course for the future. However, she does criticise the lack of enforcement of this resolution in current development policy.
Overall, the book focuses far more on practice than its rather dry title might suggest. The author’s theses are supported by an analysis of numerous interviews with members of the Bundestag, such as current Parliamentary Secretary for the BMZ Uschi Eid and the head of the BMZ in the 1980s Jürgen Warnke.
Regine Reim
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