Talk:Subsidiarity

Article 9
"Article 9 of the proposed European constitution"

Is this refering to the new draft constitution? (as of 12 June 2004)


 * The constitution proposal is a historical curiosity now and it fails wp:trivia to keep it in the article, so I have deleted the reference. --Red King (talk) 13:17, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Quadragesimo Anno
Some anonymous user removed the quotation of paragraphs 79 and 80 of Quadragesimo Anno without giving the reason. Please do not do this again. – Kaihsu 22:47, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Added link to Distributism - a subsidiarity/CST based political movement. Collincentre 04:50, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Subsidiarity vs. Globalization
It would be interesting if we had valid material discussing the relationship between globalization and subsidiarity. The social structure of the Middle Ages was strongly marked by the doctrine of subsidiarity, and therefore some social scientists have argued that the medieval period had already gone through an archaic form of globalization. The European Union has officially adopted subsidiarity into its official structures, which still maintains a political influence to this to this day. And yet, it could be argued that globalization is the exact opposite of subsidiarity because decisions and policies are always adopted at the highest possible level, such as G-8, WTO and World Bank meetings. ADM (talk) 11:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The article Localism may be what you want. --Red King (talk) 11:22, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Subsidiarity contradiction in the article
The very first paragraph it states: "Subsidiarity is, ideally or in principle, one of the features of federalism."

This statemant is simply an oxymoron as even the following sentence, in the 2nd paragraph, states that subsidiartiy is the concept behind the Tenth Ammendment to the US Constitution where it limits the powers of the FEDERAL gov't relative to the States. Whereas Federalism concentrates power in a Central Federal Gov't. subsidiarity limits the powers of centralized government ti the more local state/local goverments.Micael (talk) 14:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)


 * How do you reach the conclusion that "Federalism concentrates power in a Central Federal Gov't"? The key difference between a federal system (even more so a confederation) is that power is not concentrated at the centre but rather that the centre only has those powers that the member states choose to delegate to it, so that it may act on their behalf in those matters where joint action is more effective than several action. If subsidiary does not exist, it is an autocracy not a federation. --Red King (talk) 17:22, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to remove template "Social teachings of the popes" from the side bar or move the Catholic teaching to second place.
As the article stands, the 'Social teachings of the popes' side bar goes down beside the European Union law, which is offensive to many EU residents (athiests, protestants, jews, muslims) and misleading because it implies an association that does not exist. There are two solutions to this.
 * 1) remove the template
 * 2) move the catholic teaching section behind the EU law section.

Personally I'd prefer the first, because it leaves the historicity intact, but the second is acceptable if the template must remain. --Red King (talk) 17:32, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you answered your own question. It is obvious the format of the article is based on the chronological history and whether a template is included or not really makes no difference. This has no political or religious implications, but as to what is related to the subject of the article. Making such a change, would make it a polical/religious issue...not to mention make it difficult to present when fact is it is a concept integrally associated with Catholic Social Teaching and many Papal documents as is quite obvious.

The lone other alternatives are 1)Leaving a large space between the two sections or 2)Widening the template so as to minimize the space between the articles.

Though I comprehend your issue. The true problem is simply that there are tooo many Papal documents regarding the subject. Perhaps they can play with the font size/spaces. Micael (talk) 05:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to demerge this article
We have two major uses of the term subsidiarity - the Roman Catholic one and the European Union one. I seems to me quite wrong to cram them into a single article, just because they use the same word that could be in Wiktionary. I propose that we demerge this article into Subsidiarity (European Union law) and Subsidiarity (Canon law) with a disambiguation article to point people to the correct one. Comments? --Red King (talk) 19:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Or the Catholic one could be moved into a new section of Parochialism, leaving this one as a Eurolegal article with a hatnote to the canon article. Jim.henderson (talk) 19:49, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I have demerged the article as there was no discussion on the proposal. The new article is Subsidiarity (Catholicism)--Red King (talk) 20:23, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Subsidiarity is a single concept with a single origin, Catholic Social Teaching. It is used in two settings, but it is one single idea. There is no need to have two separate articles. Anyone in European Law would agree that the concept came from the Catholic Church, so what is the motivation to separate out the Catholic content? If the uses must have two articles, the article Subsidiarity should be for the Catholic use as that is the origin of the term. The European use is derivative and thus ought to be called Subsidiarity (European law).EastmeetsWest (talk) 18:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed -- at the very least, if they are two separate concepts, it would be good if there was some text either here or in the Subsidiarity (Catholicism) which explained the difference between the two. --Wtrmute (talk) 15:29, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The article acknowleges that the word was invented by a Roman Catholic theologian but today the 'value association' is different. Today, the term 'subsidiarity' is used very politically, especially in the EU but also to a lesser degree in the US – see States Rights. The 'inference' of the word has changed, even though its literal meaning [dictionary definition] has not: the term is most widely used in its political sense, whereas only Catholics [probably only Catholic theologians] use its religious sense. Per WP:Commonname, the article with the unqualified name should describe the meaning that is most commonly used. Wiktionary only needs one definition – but this is an encyclopedia.
 * In my view, it would clog this article and annoy its readers were we to allocate any more than a short sentence to the etymological history. If people want to know more about the etymology, let them follow the hyperlink.--Red King (talk) 20:59, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Two comments: Re etymology, I haven't made this edit, but I ibelieve that the modern word "subsidiarity" in fact derives from the Latin verb subsidio (to aid or help), and noun subsidium(aid or assistance). The Latin noun subsidiarius has a related, but specialized military meaning (roughly, "reserve troops"). More importantly, however, what's at stake here is not definition, but the explication of a concept, and one that presents itself differently in different settings (see my note below). Meherlihy (talk) 19:33, 31 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I concur with that Subsidiarity and Subsidiarity (Catholicism) should be merged once again. I am familiar with the concept of subsidiarity through Catholic Social Teaching, but am not aware of the "religious sense" of the word  refers to, nor do I see one in Subsidiarity (Catholicism); it's undoubtedly a political concept. I agree with  that this is largely singular meaning and singular history, so I don't understand why we would separate it by which group is discussing the concept. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 23:23, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

- This article needs to rewritten as its emphasis on The European Union is misplaced. There is question on EU's dedication to subsidiarity, as well as it limiting the character of the article. Also, the article on Subsidiarity (Catholicism) should be merged with this article. Additionally, the "lawyer talk" shows how poorly written this article is: 'if the lower units do not obey the higher one...' is exactly opposite the concept of subsidiarity.

More accurate is:

"It is a fundamental principle ... that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry." (Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo anno, 79)

Nantucketnoon (talk) 14:17, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Edit to first paragraph
I have made one minor edit to the first sentence (explained in summary), and a more substantive edit to the last sentence, which I explain more fully here.

First, I specified that the last sentence specifically addresses the use of "subsidiarity" as a concept in political theory. Second, I tightened up the language. Third, and most substantively, I eliminated some language making a vague attempt to define the idea of subsidiarity as it relates to the concept of federalism.

On the last point, I have three justifications: First, as a general matter, I think the definition of subsidiarity as a matter of political theory needs to be stated with greater accuracy, and that statement should be given under the appropriate subhead. Second, to define subsidiarity within "federalism" as asserting the "rights" of the "parts" over the "whole" is at best a very particular and non-neutral understanding of the term. I do not argue that this view of subsidiarity should not be described, as there are some political figures who appear to hold it, but I do argue that it cannot be represented to be a widely held or generally accepted understanding of the term. This leads me to my third justification, which could be viewed as a proposal: Subsidiarity is a recent import into the discourse of poltical theory centered on notions of federalism specific to the U.S. The role of subsidiarity within a federal structure has a longer history in European law and political theory, where the term is deployed quite differently than it is currently being used in the U.S. It seems to me that a major revision might be warranted that distinguishes and disaggregates these usages. Looping back to my edit, it seeemed to me that the sentence I modified in the first paragraph failed to be neutral in the sense that it addressed only one notion (a conservative US one), and thus was unsuitable for an introductory paragraph. Meherlihy (talk) 19:19, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Merger of Subsidiarity (Catholicism)
The plan is to move from Subsidiarity (Catholicism) all templates, external links, and categories here, and add the only differing paragraph from there here under "Origins". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paxcoder (talk • contribs) 23:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it is not. This article is about the political theory, that article is about religious theory. They are sufficiently different to have independent articles. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:52, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Nachos???
My apologies to anyone puzzled by the 'what changed' note on my edit just now. Google Chrome was 'helpfully' autocorrecting my text, turning it into gobblydegook. ['nachos' was typed as 'navbox'!] --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:36, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Why have the Catholic and EU senses of the words been merged?
I see the discussion above, but this is still a bizarre decision. Simply because they have common origins doesn't mean that they should be the same article. I came here to read up on EU subsidiarity, so imagine my surprise on finding a prominent sidebar on Christian democracy. It gives readers the impression that EU subsidiarity is a primarily Christian democratic idea, which is incredibly misleading, and arguably even biased. 183.83.201.216 (talk) 00:55, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I Oppose the request to split. The article was already split some time ago into this general article on Subsidiarity (with particular reference to EU law) on the one hand and a more specific Subsidiarity (Catholicism) that is about the religious teaching, on the other. I can see that the lead doesn't contain a summary of the EU principle and will try to rectify when I get a moment. As for Christian Democracy, that is definitely a political movement (see at least Germany and Italy): the more valid challenge is whether or not it has a legitimate claim to be in the side-bar of this article rather than the Catholicism one (though I rather suspect that they would claim to be non-denominational Christian even though their origins are certainly RC). So in other words, the article does not need another split but if there are specific sentences or even paragraphs that you consider objectionable, please point them out or better still edit them. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:05, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * See changes. Does that meet your concerns without upsetting someone else unduly? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:46, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I too feel very strongly that the prominent sidebar on Christian democracy (which is appropriate in the other article) should not be on this article. Arrivisto (talk) 18:09, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * So do I but it's a kneejerk reaction. Christian Democracy is a political movement, like Liberalism, Conservativism, Social Democracy and Socialism. My guess is that they would feel aggrieved and with reason to be put in a sectarian box. So it seems to me that the only justification for deleting it (not moving it) is that the concept is now politically neutral? But on that basis, we would have to delete, for example, the Liberalism box from Free trade. Escalate to RfC? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:42, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Per above, I have (reluctantly) reinstated the CD navbox, but we'll down in the body of the article rather than right up front as before. [I would support putting the EU navbox up front, though]. I have also deleted the split request after this discussion and recent edits.

Too Eurocentric?
Two points - firstly that there are numerous states which are based upon the principle of Subsidiarity, Switzerland being the prime example. The article makes the claim that it is in the context of the EU that it is best known - on what basis is this claim made?

Secondly, there should perhaps be further consideration of critical views of the EU's subsidiarity - i.e., given that the ECJ does not rule on whether the principle of subsidiarity has itself been violated - rather, on whether appropriate claims have been made that it has not - it does not appear be as central to EU law as the article appears to suggest.

dpchalmers (talk) 20:29, 9 July 2020 (UTC)