Regional policy variation in Germany:the diversity of living conditions in a 'unitary federal state'

The German federal system is conventionally understood as highly co-ordinated between federal and regional governments and aimed at producing a 'uniformity' of living conditions. This view has increasingly been challenged as new work focuses on innovation and diversity at the regional level, and also as a consequence of reforms to the federal system that took place in 2006. This contribution attempts to establish a more systematic basis for assessing and explaining the scope and significance of regional policy variation in Germany. Our findings suggest that - despite institutional structures that foster intense co-ordination between central and regional governments and apparent popular preferences for uniformity of policy outcomes - the extent of policy variation in Germany is much greater than conventionally understood and driven both by structural factors and partisan choices at the regional level. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

The paradoxes of risk management in the banking sector

This paper uses empirical evidence to examine the operational dynamics and paradoxical nature of risk management systems in the banking sector. It demonstrates how a core paradox of market versus regulatory demands and an accompanying variety of performance, learning and belonging paradoxes underlie evident tensions in the interaction between front and back office staff in banks. Organisational responses to such paradoxes are found to range from passive to proactive, reflecting differing organisational, departmental and individual risk culture(s), and performance management systems. Nonetheless, a common feature of regulatory initiatives designed to secure a more structurally independent risk management function is that they have failed to rectify a critical imbalance of power - with the back office control functions continuing to be dominated by front office trading and investment functions. Ultimately, viewing the 'core' of risk management systems as a series of connected paradoxes rather than a set of assured, robust practices, requires a fundamental switch in emphasis away from a normative, standards-based approach to risk management to one which gives greater recognition to its behavioural dimensions.