Is the Welfare Partnership’s End in Sight?

Graf Strachwitz, Rupert and Toepler, Stefan (2025) Is the Welfare Partnership’s End in Sight? INSTITUTIONES ADMINISTRATIONIS - JOURNAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES, 5 (2). pp. 6-24. ISSN 2786-1929

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Abstract

This article provides an overview of how German social welfare nonprofits in health and human services fared during the COVID-19 pandemic to gauge whether the historically strong complementary relationship between the sectors has continued to hold. Conceptually, we use third-party governance theory to frame German social welfare policy and see what the pandemic experience suggests about government/nonprofit relations. Using an exploratory approach, the analysis is based on a national CAWI survey, conducted in late 2020, covering initial effects of the pandemic and nonprofit countermeasures; financial and non-financial impacts; and the uptake of support programs. The survey data presents the first attempt to analyze the pandemic effects on the most crucial component of Germany’s social welfare infrastructure. The findings suggest that while the traditional partnership still exists, the government showed little interest in addressing the needs of nonprofits. This raises questions as to whether neo-liberal policies have undercut the sense that government is as dependent on nonprofits in social welfare service provision as nonprofits are on government support.

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