Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2009

Abstract

Federal systems across the world are generally designed according to the principle of subsidiarity, which in one form or another holds that the central government should play only a supporting role in governance, acting if and only if the constituent units of government are incapable of acting on their own. The word itself is related to the idea of assistance, as in “subsidy,” and is derived from the Latin “subsidium,” which referred to auxiliary troops in the Roman military. See Oxford Latin Dictionary s.v. (1983).

Comments

This material was originally published in Global Perspectives on Constitutional Law, edited by Vikram Amar and Mark Tushnet and has been reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press. For permission to reuse this material, please visit http://global.oup.com/academic/rights". Cannot be distributed inder any kind of OA license (like CC).


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