Föderalismus als Innovationslabor?

The German education system is regulated on a federal level, which is often criticised. Does this federal structure possess any positive aspects, as claimed by theory, and does it create opportunities for the invention and diffusion of policy innovations? The study addresses this question through a policy granting non-traditional access to higher education. For a long time, regulations in the German states were very diverse, and then they surprisingly started to converge in the mid-2000s.
Based on process tracing of political decisions, this study shows that successful policy innovations are indeed diffused between the German states and that this is fostered by the conference of the ministers of education of the German states (KMK). Nevertheless, the productive potential of the federal structures is not fully exploited: regional features were of minor importance for the invention of the policy-innovation, and the political actors were not driven by the wish to harmonise the education system.