Speaker
Description
The discussion on “territorial governance” has gained traction in the last decade, and it has been relaunched recently as a consequence of the problems created for institutions by the Covid-19 pandemic. The issue of territorial governance is particularly important because it invites us to revisit certain traditional ideas concerning institutions, their tasks, and the scale and level of intervention. In this regard, a central and crucial concept is that of “subsidiarity”. The concept of “subsidiarity” is widely used both in the academic literature (including urban and regional studies) and in the public debate, as well as in directives and laws. This paper critically revisits the ideal of subsidiarity, with reference to both vertical subsidiarity and horizontal subsidiarity. As will be demonstrated, the ideal of subsidiarity can prove decisive for new forms of territorial governance. However, this will only happen if subsidiarity is understood in a truly innovative sense; that is, placing the emphasis (i) (not solely on vertical subsidiarity but, also) on horizontal subsidiarity, and not interpreting the latter (ii) only from a perspective of solidarity, or (iii) only as a services issue, or (iv) only as a form of action agreed and coordinated with public authorities. The point is that, while promoting vertical subsidiarity merely requires “administrative decentralization” (namely, the transfer of certain decision-making powers from the higher institutional levels to the lower ones: for instance, from the national level to the regional and municipal ones), promoting horizontal subsidiarity requires a more radical revision of current national, regional and urban realities in a direction characterised by what can be called “multidimensional polycentrism”.
References
Fattore, M., & Vittadini, G. (2021). Subsidiarity and Adaptive Sustainability in Complex, Entangled, and Unpredictable Societies. In R. Baikady, S.M Sajid, J. Przeperski, V. Nadesan, M. Rezaul Islam, J. Gao (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Problems. Cham: Springer.
Sager, T. (2018). Planning by intentional communities: An understudied form of activist planning. Planning Theory, 17(4), 449-471.
Stead, D. (2013). Dimensions of territorial governance. Planning Theory & Practice, 14(1), 142-147.
Marshall, G. R. (2008). Nesting, subsidiarity, and community-based environmental governance beyond the local level. International Journal of the Commons, 2(1): 75-97.
Tullock, G. (1994). The New Federalist. Vancouver: The Fraser Institute.
| Keywords | Subsidiarity; Decentralisation; Polycentrism |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
