Subsidiarity is the participation of the State to support and promote community or private actions.
in sociology
The idea of subsidiarity is used in sociology to refer to the doctrine that promotes subsidiary participation of the State to sustain and promote community or private actions . The so-called principle of subsidiarity , in this framework, is the criterion that establishes that state intervention must be limited to what civil society is not in a position to achieve by itself .
Suppose that the rulers of a region decide to allocate funds to the development of road infrastructure and the construction of an airport to promote tourism . These works lay the foundation for the private sector to invest in hotels , restaurants and other projects to attract visitors. As can be seen, the principle of subsidiarity is applied in this dynamic.
Within the framework of the European Union , the notion of the principle of subsidiarity refers to the fact that the actions of the community authorities are restricted to issues in which, on their own, national states cannot be effective .
This principle of subsidiarity makes it possible to regulate how shared powers are exercised at European level. It is understood that regional authorities intervene when a common regulatory action is needed due to the consequences or dimensions of the intended act.
Strong and weak subsidiarity
Strong subsidiarity is linked to the balanced dynamic between competence and incompetence ; The weak one, on the other hand, does not present a balance between the two, although the difference is not always so marked. The two effects of the strong, from a legal point of view, are the following: the higher entity does not have sufficient competence to intervene in the affairs of the lower ones (negative); The superior entity respects, protects and promotes the autonomy of inferiors, which is why it prioritizes its initiatives in policies related to them (positive).
Below we will see the five requirements of strong subsidiarity:
- that there are two subjects of easy distinction, each one with autonomy . This difference is not met if the entities belong to the same legal subjectivity;
- that there is a legal power, public or private, that serves to maintain the superiority of one entity over the other;
- The lower entity must exist before the higher one. This sequence is fulfilled naturally when observing the emergence of a family, which begins with one or two individuals, or that of an intermediate society , which depends on the previous group, and so on until reaching the community that brings together several nations;
- The lower entity must have powers and objectives from the beginning, which the higher one must respect;
- That the lower entity is enough with its own tools and efforts to achieve its objectives in the way it expects.
According to the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, the family comes before the State.
According to the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church contemplates in its social doctrine the principle of subsidiarity, which maintains that the State only has to carry out work aimed at the common good in cases where intermediate entities or individuals do not do it adequately .
Put another way, the Church maintains that the family comes before the State in the hierarchy . These ideas emerged in the Catholic sphere from the mid-19th century. People should help those with lower purchasing power only when they ask for it , because otherwise a cancellation of the latter occurs at a social level. The State, therefore, should intervene only when it notices that entities cannot achieve their own objectives.