Federalism and the Catholic Principle of Subsidiarity

The principle of subsidiarity: A democratic reinterpretation

“…According to Joseph Drew and Bligh Grant (, p. 523), “the Catholic Natural Law tradition…asserts that there are universally evident and universally binding existential ends for people which can be discerned by reason, the order of nature, and the ordinance of G‐d.” Theological subsidiarity's justification is therefore drawn from Catholic social doctrine's distinctive social ontology. According to Catholic social doctrine, “certain tasks, or categories of tasks, belong properly to the corresponding social entities, and not to others” (Golemboski, , p. 529). Certain tasks belong to certain social units (individuals, organizations, the state, etc.)…”

“…Secular subsidiarity is codified as a legal principle in the European Union (Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, , p. 18). The second interpretation, what I refer to as theological subsidiarity (because of its origins in Catholic social doctrine) “recognizes that certain social tasks belong most properly to particular kinds of entities [and] prescribes the distribution of authority and responsibility accordingly” (Golemboski, , p. 529).…”

Against Subsidiarity

“…18 In short, Catholic "subsidiarity does not inherently prescribe a downward shift in responsibilities and powers, nor does it presume centralized control as the default." 19 Thus, subsidiarity in Catholic doctrine and secular subsidiarity are different principles, despite sharing a label and a history. This article raises objections to secular subsidiarity's presumption in favor of assigning tasks to lower-level units.…”

“…Rather, the inconclusive, weak, and contradictory results one finds in the empirical literature are very much what one would expect given the inconclusive, weak, and contradictory arguments such work aims to test." 55 With respect to experimentation in particular, Hongbin Cai and Daniel Treisman "did not find support for the common belief that political decentralization 52 Gordon Tullock explains why externalities are ubiquitous: "Any geographically delimited governmental unit must have a border, and if its function is to deal with an externality producing activity, then its actions just inside the border will normally produce an externality just outside the boundary"; "Federalism: problems of scale," Public Choice, 6 (1969), 19-29, at p. 19. 53 Bednar, "The political science of federalism," p. 272.…”

Requirements, Principles, and Performance of Corporate Federalism: A Case of MNC-SME Alliance

“…The three functions of political federalism applied to corporate federalism are the executive function, the judicial function, and the legislative function [10]. Thus, corporate federalism offers management a framework for a strategic alliance, as the shared power and authority between the central organization and their various operating units are regulated through these three functions [11,12]. Moreover, the corporate federalism framework resolves the conflict between the goals of each participating organization and of the strategic alliance as a whole [10,13].…”