The role of experimental regionalism in rescaling the German state

“Experimental regionalism” refers to state-induced programmes to instigate regions to cooperate for commonly governed processes of regional development. The research questions refer to whether such an approach is particularly appropriate in a “stalled” federal system with high transaction costs of change and if “experimental regionalism” could be attributed to “rescaling the state”. The argument first outlines the particular German difficulties in establishing “regionalism” then goes on to outline the main approaches to “experimental regionalism” and finally discusses the results addressing “innovation in a sclerotic system”, ramification effects of the model projects and state rescaling. The article comes to the conclusion that experimental regionalism triggered off learning processes in regionalization, that it had effects on paradigm changes of local politicians but that it hardly would contribute to “rescaling”, rather induce more joint-policy-making with regions becoming more self-asserting towards Land governments.