Source: (2002) Journal of Social Philosophy. 33(1): 33-44.
In examining issues of community development, Francis Schweigert insists on the importance of reckoning with the complexities of the relations between the larger society and the local community. Community development initiatives must include operational commitments to respect for belonging to society and to community, and respect for institutional power and communal power. Such respect can be captured in two key principles of social justice: solidarity and subsidiarity. Schweigert asserts that community-based victim-offender conferencing provides an excellent experiential base from which to examine the operation of this kind of respect. With all of this in mind, Schweigert discusses solidarity and subsidiarity in victim-offender conferencing, and in a philosophy of community.
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