Change of position within the German government as an arena of rivalling public interest groups—The case of the German buyer's premium as regulatory instrument for the purchase of electric cars in Germany

• Published date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1961
• Date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Johannes Pütz

ACADEMIC PAPER

Change of position within the German government as an arena

of rivalling public interest groups—The case of the German

buyer's premium as regulatory instrument for the purchase of

electric cars in Germany

Johannes Pütz

Fakultät für Gesellschaftswissenschaften,

NRW School of Governance, Universität

Duisburg‐Essen (DE), Duisburg, Germany

Correspondence

Johannes Pütz, NRW School of Governance,

Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Universität

Duisburg‐Essen (DE), Lotharstr. 53 (Gebäude

LS), Duisburg 47057, Germany.

Email: johannes.puetz@uni‐due.de

The present article deals with the role of the German federal government on promoting

the increased production of electric cars in Germany. It shows the changing positions of

different stakeholders in the Berlin arena, their interests, positions, and alliances. It

examines the question of why and how the stakeholders, especially within the govern-

ment, change their positions in the arena of electromobility. The paper refers to the

principal‐agent theory associated with the empirical field of arena analysis. The empir-

ical basis of this study comprises five high‐level expert interviews with key‐decision

players in the electromobility arena: two former federal state secretaries of the Ministry

of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), Mr. Bomba, and the Ministry of Econ-

omy and Energie (BMWi), Mr. Machnig; the acting state secretary in the Ministry of

Finance (BMF), Mr. Gatzer, and, in addition, the head of the Berlin representative office

of a major German automobile manufacturer and the chairman of the National Platform

on Electric Mobility. In addition to these interviews, a lot of participating observation

was done between 2012 and 2013, as a major German automobile manufacturer

provided insights into the group's representation in Berlin, the decision‐making process

between the corporate headquarters and the public affairs managers in Berlin and

Brussels, and the cooperation with the ministries in Berlin. The paper tries to fill a

research gap: Scholarly research on the impact of the German federal government as

an arena of rivalling public interest groups is scarce in Germany. The leading view takes

the federal government as a monolith, which view is more based on “how it should act”

as on empirical evidence (“how it acts”). Inductive evidence shows that the government

does not exist, as it is a subarena of itself. The consequences of this observation for the

theorization of the role of the government in the larger society, as being only one out of

many players, are discussed in the text.

1|PUBLIC AFFAIRS FROM TWO SIDES OF

THE SAME COIN: PUBLIC VERSUS PRIVATE

AND INFLUENCE VERSUS POWER

Machiavelli and some political analysts emphasize that interest groups

wanting to influence a government first have to do a lot of research

on its strength and weaknesses (Bitonti & Harris, 2017, p. 6; van

Schendelen, 2010, Van Schendelen, 2012). Governments are often

strong on the use of formal powers but weak on influencing other inter-

est groups. One shortcoming of those in power is that they have to be

accountable for their exercise of power in public, and another is that

by believing in powers, they forget their supply side to interest groups

Received: 1 April 2019 Accepted: 2 April 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1961

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1961.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1961

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of10