Metropolitan governance in Germany: Normative, utilitarian, communicative and dramaturgical approaches

The article provides a theory-lead description of governance approaches in six German metropolitan areas (Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich). In order to analyse the historical transformation of governance approaches in metropolitan areas as well as to show the variety among the six regions in a theoretically meaningful way, a two-dimensional typology of forms of governance is developed in the first part of the article. With "theoretically meaningful" I mean that forms of governance should be conceptualised and analysed with reference to micro-foundations. In consequence, forms of governance are differentiated in a first dimension according to the underlying structural pattern of interaction (tight coupling versus loose coupling). In the second dimension forms of governance are differentiated according to their underlying action theory (norm-based, utilitarian, communicative and dramaturgical action). With the help of the resulting eight ideal-types of forms of governance it is shown in the empirical part of the article that until the 1970s norm-based governance approaches dominated in Germany; they were challenged in the 1980s by an utilitarian paradigm. From the beginning of the 1990s, a new wave of governance restructuring has reached the German metropolitan areas, the new approaches were based on communicative and dramaturgical concepts but lead to quite different institutional results in the six case study regions.