Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 17th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Main Conference Theme Author(s) Walter Bartl Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg Halle (Saale) Germany Title Adapting to a changing world: Municipal response to declining population numbers File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract Demographic change provides social sciences with quasi-experimental designs for research on the adaptability of social systems in general and public administration in particular. After the initial major decisions of the transformation process, most countries in Central and Eastern Europe have seen a remarkable decline in fertility rates. This macroscopic demographic trend was diversified regionally through suburbanisation and migration processes. The result has been a coexistence of municipalities with growing and shrinking population numbers. To fully take advantage of this quasi-experimental situation, a narrowing of the research focus is necessary. Good indicators for the adaptability of public administration in a changing environment are its staffing policy and related decisions. Whereas urban population growth usually leads to a quite proportional growth in the personnel staffs of local public administrations, it is less clear how municipalities react to a decline of their “natural” demand. A population decline is considered to be problematic because it goes hand in hand with a decline in municipal revenues. Expenditures, in contrast, depend on decisions of municipal governments and local public administration managers. How do municipalities act in situations of decline? Population ecology theory of organisations, threat-rigidity theory, and theories of the public sector labour market would lead one to expect a disproportionate response to declining markets in the sense of structural inertia. On the other hand there are stress theories that lead one to expect a variety of responses depending on the level of aspiration and perceived organisational resources. The paper draws on descriptive statistics and expert interviews conducted with decision makers in 21 municipalities in East Germany, West Germany and Poland in the year 2006. The focus of comparison is on personnel-related strategies in the “demographically sensitive” fields of child care, kindergartens, and schools on the one hand and the general local administration on the other. Results show that decision-makers in East Germany consider the population decline to be a serious problem. They respond with reductive strategies that are highly innovative for the public sector. In West-Germany the population decline is generally seen as far less problematic. In the field of child care and early education it is even seen as a chance to expand municipal services. Although population developments in Poland were similar to those in East Germany the perception of and the responses to these developments, surprisingly, resemble the perceptions and responses in West Germany more closely. Generally, the population decline in Polish municipalities is seen as a cyclical phenomenon without major repercussions on personnel questions. Overall, the main concerns are investments in infrastructures and local economic development. Possible problems in the education sector were mostly softened through an expansive education policy and led to personnel layoffs only in some cases. Population ecology theory of organisations explains only the relative stability of personnel structures in the core public administration in all three contexts of comparison. An institutionally informed theory of stress can account for the different coping strategies that have been found in “demographically sensitive” sectors: reductive in East Germany, and expansive in West Germany, and Poland. The contexts of comparison differ in perceived municipal resources relevant to each level of aspiration. Other levels of government play a crucial role in this appraisal of the municipal situation. The variety of responses shows that the public administration’s short term capacity to adapt to changing circumstances is underestimated to some extent. However, the intended and unintended consequences of particular response patterns will provide public administration with new challenges in the long run.
