Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 8-31-2025

Department

Political Science

Department

Political Science

Abstract

Subsidiarity frustrates. It admits of clear articulation as an ideal (‘vest authority as close as feasible to those most affected’) but then invites conflicting interpretations and elaborations. As a workable principle, subsidiarity seems to founder exactly when we need it: when we ask what, precisely, that principle regulates. As a regulative moral precept, subsidiarity promises a politics sensitive to diverse needs and responsive to local knowledge, yet in practice any implementation of the ideal pulls us back toward an authoritative center to regulate disputes and coordinate all of this local wisdom. I love subsidiarity for these frustrations and ambiguities. In this respect, it is the perfect moral maxim for the real worlds of political institutions and practices, where we muddle through the messy day-to-day complexities of living together, while leaving space for dissent and resistance. Perhaps we will be less frustrated with subsidiarity if we see it not primarily as a decision rule or principle of institutional design, but instead as an essential challenge to the dominant vocabulary of the sovereign territorial state?

Comments

Copyright belongs to the Author.

Originally published in Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 56, Issue 3, Special Issue: Subsidiarity, Fall 2025. https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.70014 

Download

Additional files available below

Share

COinS