[EM] Geographical districts

[Raph Frank]

On 9/5/08, James Gilmour <jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk> wrote:
>  > > If the larger assembly is deciding if power should be DELEGATED, it is
>  > > devolution that is in operation, not subsidiarity.
>  >
>  > I guess it depends on how you want do define the term.  I
>  > don't think subsidiarity is determined by actual power, it is
>  > determined by where the decisions are made.
>
> The power lies where the decisions are made, so I cannot see the distinction you are
> trying to make.

I am trying to split the decison about what level a particular power
is exercised and the power to actually make the decision.

For example, imagine you had 2 independent branches of government.

The first brach is hierarchical.  There is parliament which covers the
whole territory and then progressively smaller subdivisions right down
to say areas with around 1000 people.

There is a second branch which has no power, other than the power to
decide at what level individual decisions should be taken at.

The would also need to be some mechanism to change the constitutional
arrangement.

The second branch could decide on a policy of centralisation or subsidiarity.

Maybe the second branch would operate like a court and apply well
defined rules to decide the issue  In any case, I see subsidiarity as
a policy, not as a definition of power distribution.

Giving the smaller councils the right to block powers from moving
upwards is potentially just as bad as giving parliament the power to
block powers from moving downwards.

Maybe the second branch above would decide where a power rests but is
constrainted between two limits.  It cannot be higher than the
top-down decision or lower than the bottom up decision.

> Certainly in the UK, the history of political development over many centuries has been
> one of struggle to wrest power progressively
>  from the centre, originally from the monarch, but now from Parliament at Westminster
>  (and similarly all the way down the various
>  levels of government).

Maybe I should have said 'will try' to keep any powers that they have.
 They give them away only when they have little other choice.

Also, as you point out with the powers devolved are powers retained,
Parliament in the UK skill does retain all the devolved powers.  The
powers taken from the King were taken, not given.

Scottish independance would be a time where power wasn't devolved.

> That would suggest at the city level in the hierarchy I gave above.
> Others however would want uniformity on such
>  policy across the whole state or even across the whole federal country.

Is this decision made by all the school boards?  How is it handled, by
majority of the school boards or unanimous decision?  Another option
would be a majority of all the members of the school boards and a
majority of all the school boards.

> I don't think this question can be answered as you have asked it.  Perhaps it would be
> more appropriate to ask "Do we want our
>  decision-making to be based on the principles of subsidiarity (i.e. bottom-up)?"

Your proposed subsidiarity power process does follow from the concept
that each person controls themselves.  All powers not delegated to the
group are retained.  Similarly, powers that are not delegated by the
group to larger groups are retained by the group.

> There are also problems with regard to "optimal".
>  A benign dictator might make a more "optimal" decision than any democratic group,
> but on the other hand you could say that that
>  could never be "optimal" because it was not democratic.  [As Professor Joab (BBC
> Brains Trust - long ago!) might have said: "It all
>  depends on what you mean by 'optimal'"!!]

I think there can be optimality issues.  Deciding where decisions
should be taken can have an effect on outcomes.  Some of these
decisions would result in improvements that can be measured.

In any case, you get back to the circular question about who gets to
decide who gets to decide.  This needs to be decided outside the
system in order to prevent the circle.