• First, the decentralist intergovernmental fabric of the Federal Republids politic-administrative system should be called to mind — with a federal/central government level almost entirely lacking sub-federal executiveiadministrative functions and otfices of its own. with a strong regional (Lander) government level, with a pivotal role, in the entire intergovernmental policy implementation system, of local government operating on a territoriality-based multi-functional model and with the subsidiarity principle under which most of the social services have been provided by non-governmental organisations. So it can be well argued that some of the key demands of NPM (such as "agencification" in order to decentralize and deconcentrate oentralist government structures and "enabling" and “contracting-out" as a means to do away with a quasimonopoly of the public sector in service-provision) have functionally been realized, to a remarkable degree, since long in Germany's institutional tradition. (see Wollmann 1996: 3 ft., BenzlGoetz 1996: 6, Derlien 1996, Schroterlwollmann 199?). This institutional pattern and trajectory can even be interpreted as adding up to what might be called, somewhat pointedly, a distinct “modernisation lead" which Germany's institutional world had, with regard to these important dimensions, over Anglo-Saxon countries with (particularly in the cases of the U:K. and of New Zealand} (over-) centralised governmental structures and a dominance of public sector personnel in the delivery of social services and with an ensuing "modernisation deficits" which NPM was meant to overcome.