»Local Self-Government in Rural Areas: Are ›Verbandsgemeinden, Samtgemeinden‹ and ›Verwaltungsgemeinschaften‹ Compatible with the Constitutional model of Self-Government?« The thesis deals with ›Verbandsgemeinden, Samtgemeinden‹ and ›Verwaltungsgemeinschaften‹ as a particular German phenomenon of local self-government in rural areas. By comparing different legal regimes on self-government in the ›Länder«, characteristic structures are developed. Afterwards, these structures are subjected to a constitutional review: Are the multi-level structures of local self government still compatible which the functional idea of a ›commune‹ as contained in the German constitution?weiterlesen