ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the meaning and enforceability of subsidiarity and on how it affects European citizenship. Subsidiarity is meant to play a substantial role in the articulation of citizenship of the Union and the sub-national claims. The chapter uses tangled hierarchies and self-organization, to explore subsidiarity as an organizational principle, and in order to question how European identity and citizenship relate to the Member State. Complexity arises from the fact that subsystems remain autonomous of the plans of each other and must readjust their coupling constantly. Yet the borders of these subsystems can be partially redrawn along the way, if not in theory at least by means of informal networks. Subsidiarity serves as a meta-rule on how to find the best level of government. Current developments in neo-institutionalist studies of European integration provide additional support for the author's methodological thesis - that the European Union must be studied under dynamic, systemic models, such as those described as tangled hierarchies.
