Bulletin n. 3/2015
January 2016
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Golemboski David
    Federalism and the Catholic Principle of Subsidiarity
    in Publius: The Journal of Federalism , vol. 45, n. 4. Fall ,  2015 ,  526-551
    With the adoption of subsidiarity as a key norm in governance structures of the European Union, the principle has gained a degree of public currency. In this article, I consider subsidiarity as it has been invoked in support of decentralization and federalist political arrangements generally. I note that prevailing conceptions of subsidiarity have tended to neglect or only superficially appreciate its foundations in Catholic social doctrine. This, I contend, is no mere genealogical oversight: the separation of subsidiarity from its theological grounding obscures important features of the normative principle. These features—principally assumptions regarding social ontology and the normative function of civil associations—ultimately render the Catholic principle of subsidiarity incompatible with some of the prescriptive conclusions it is regularly alleged to support.
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