Subsidiarity vs. sovereignty, and institutionalist analysis of the Treaty of Maastricht (The Netherlands)

The initial puzzle was this: How and why was the principle of subsidiarity adopted as a founding principle of the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht when: (a) in Europe the concept was barely known outside of Catholic political circles or German constitutional studies; (b) the principle, federalist in spirit, was paradoxically defended by both advocates and foes of a federal Europe. The analysis was done in an institutionalist perspective, taking into account history and political economy and using the understanding of institutions and decision making formalized by March and Olsen.; A historical research found that 16th century Althusius, forefather of both federalism and subsidiarity, had been a strong critic of Bodin's theory of sovereignty, and that the two writers' theories were correlated to differences in the political economy of their societies. The emergence of federalism, with its polycentric power structures, has stood in contrast with the centralized nature of unitary states built around the ideology of indivisible sovereignty.; An analysis of subsidiarity shows that the principle, although not germane to federalism, may constitute a new genus of federalism, and that its adoption parallels the emergence of forms of decision-making in Europe that render the classical notion of sovereignty obsolete.; The analysis then focuses on the actors instrumental in bringing about the adoption of subsidiarity, and their incentives. Christian Democratic parties and the federalist movement have, from the late 1940s, carried a project of European integration and had familiarity with subsidiarity. In Germany in the 1980s Lander have defended their legislative prerogatives against Bonn and Brussels through subsidiarity. Great-Britain, although a fierce defender of national sovereignty, adopted subsidiarity but with a reading all its own. The European Commission's president brought salience to subsidiarity, for strategic and idiosyncratic reasons.; The principle was adopted after ten years of institutional lobbying by these actors, when a historical window of opportunity presented itself. This adoption is best explained by a garbage can model of decision making. The lack of definition of the principle in official European texts, and the lack of clear institutional impact after Maastricht, illustrate the institutional role of ambiguity in political decision making.