Portfolio design in Germany

Despite frequent assumptions of stability, the structure and jurisdictions of government ministries witness considerable change as cabinets redesign government portfolios in pursuit of office and policy goals. This chapter introduces comprehensive time-series data that allows tracing changes in the organisation of federal ministries and the allocation of specific jurisdictions over the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. Analyses indicate that the size of the ministerial bureaucracy underwent significant changes over time. Overall growth and the relative gains vary between ministries. Finally, policy areas differ in the degree to which pertinent jurisdictions are concentrated in a single ministry or spread across different ministries, which has implications for the ability of coalition partners to control one another. Beyond reporting these patterns, we illustrate the usefulness of the data for studying individual reforms in more detail using the portfolio design reform at the start of the Scholz cabinet in 2021.