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CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS article
Front. Polit. Sci.
Sec. Comparative Governance
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpos.2025.1583491
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Politics of Crises - The Crisis of Politics in Central and Eastern EuropeView all 11 articles
Subsidiarity as an answer to the crisis of local self-government system
Provisionally accepted- Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
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Local self-governments have faced many difficulties in recent years in the middle of crises. Many reforms have been carried out with a view to efficiency, including territorial reforms in a number of countries. However, in addition to efficiency, local communities are also claiming the right to decide their own affairs. As regards the distribution of powers, little attention is paid to the principle of subsidiarity in this process. This principle is a well-known concept in EU law, with a clear meaning, but it receives little attention in relation to local self-government. However, this principle is a fundamental principle of the social teaching of the Catholic Church, which helps to provide a stable reference point for local self-government in a changing world. Subsidiarity helps to provide a fuller and more accurate understanding of local self-government, while at the same time providing a basis for the local community to claim the right to decide on matters that concern them. Ultimately, it is partly this principle that justifies the very existence of local self-government.
Keywords: Subsidiarity, local self-government, Local community, Territorial reforms, Distribution of powers
Received: 26 Feb 2025; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Varga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ádám Varga, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, 1088, Budapest, Hungary
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