This paper discusses the importance of funding and governance intentions at the federal level for intercantonal coordination of the residential care sector for minors. It examines the interpretations of the principle of subsidiarity underlying the measures adopted, the fiscal implications of federal policy, and asks what unintended effects the interventions caused at lower political levels and, above all, in the intercantonal network of relations. The article shows how subsidiarity is a product of social policy compromises and fiscal policy intentions. At the intercantonal level, the measures repeatedly triggered undesirable effects, each of which triggered new pressure for action at the federal level and, conse- quently, recurrent processes of interpretation with regard to subsidiarity.