Subsidiarity

History

The idea of subsidiarity is based on the Catholic social theory, dating back to the religious movement of the Catholic Church in the 19th century, and on political liberalism and its preferences for individual freedom and responsibility.

In the 19th century, the Catholic movement initiated in Germany numerous philanthropic associations and a nationwide political party. This social and political development included a process of decentralization inside the Catholic Church. This transformed the Catholic Church into a powerful political player during the German Kaiserreich (1871–1918). This was also the beginning of the separation of church and state and the cultural conflict between state and the Catholic Church in Germany.

During this period, the idea of subsidiarity was created to describe the goals and shifts in the relationship between society and the Catholic Church on one side and the state on the other side. The encyclical Rerum Novarum defined the different roles of the Catholic Church and the state in society; however, it took 40 years until the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (1931) presented subsidiarity as a key word. Subsidiarity gives citizens, private households, families, associations, and nonprofit organizations—including the Catholic Church and its charities—a prior position in society, especially in providing public social services. The state, no longer the center of society, “frames” its activities. At the end of the 19th century, subsidiarity was the leading idea empowering the Catholic movement in Germany.

German Welfare Regime

Subsidiarity has had an extraordinary influence on the process of institutionalization of the German welfare regime. During the Republic of Weimar (1919–1933), the idea of subsidiarity turned into a principle of priority setting for nonprofit organizations, mainly the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church and their charity organizations, in the production of public social services. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the Supreme Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) decided, in 1962, that the (local) state and nonprofit organizations should work together as “partners” to produce public social services. Furthermore, the Supreme Court decided that if nonprofit organizations are willing and able to produce social services, they should be preferred by the government. With the rise of the German welfare state in the late 1960s and 1970s, the nonprofit sector for social services began to grow.

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