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The profile of general German administrative law is changing under the influence of a new theoretical approach that focuses on the controlling effects developed by administrative law instruments (“new jurisprudence of administrative law”). This conceptually comprehensive and supposedly realist approach has been criticized, especially for failing to live up to the empirically challenging demands of its theoretical design. A recent and more modest alternative approach based on “governance” tries to avoid the problematic characteristics of the “new jurisprudence”. Sceptical of the success of its flawed empirical orientation, the “governance“ approach instead concentrates on the observable interactions of administrative law instruments. This has a heuristic purpose as “governance” is designed to identify the reciprocal effects as specific problems of administrative law. The regulation of the labour market through Sozialrecht (social security law) provides a highly relevant example of how general principles of German administrative law can change by reflecting the reciprocal effects of legal instruments. Thus, Sozialrecht, once again, acts as an impulse for innovation in general administrative law.
