What is Localism?
Localism is the belief that the best place for most decisions is the community they affect. A local council, a village meeting or a neighborhood group knows its own streets, schools and shops better than a ministry in the capital. Localists also care about the economy. They like locally owned shops, farms and energy supplies because money spent nearby tends to stay nearby. Localism is more of a principle than a full ideology, so it fits many camps. Greens like it for its low environmental cost. Conservatives like it for its link to tradition and self-reliance. Socialists and libertarians like it because it spreads power away from big institutions. They differ on what local communities should do with their freedom.
Core beliefs
- Power should sit at the lowest level that can do the job well.
- People who live with a decision should have a real say in it.
- Small institutions are easier to see, understand and hold to account.
- A strong local economy makes a community tougher in hard times.
- Shared place and local ties build trust and civic habits.
- Big distant bodies, public or private, often ignore local needs.
History
The principle has deep roots. In Democracy in America (1835) Alexis de Tocqueville praised the New England town meeting as a school of freedom. Catholic social teaching later set out the idea of subsidiarity, stated in the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno in 1931, which says that larger bodies should not take over what smaller ones can do. In the twentieth century the economist Leopold Kohr argued in The Breakdown of Nations (1957) that many social ills come from excessive size. Jane Jacobs defended lively neighborhoods against top-down planning in The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961). E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful (1973) argued for human-scale technology and economics. Later, the Transition Towns movement began in Totnes, England, in the mid-2000s, and many countries passed laws to give councils more power.
Variants
Political localism calls for devolving power to councils, cities and regions. Economic localism promotes local currencies, buy-local drives, farmers' markets and community energy. Cultural localism protects place-based traditions, dialects and heritage. Some forms are radical, such as municipalism, which wants cities and towns to form federations in place of the nation-state. Others are modest and simply want central governments to share more power with councils.
Criticisms
Critics say local control can mean unequal services, with the richest areas doing well and poorer ones falling behind. Local elites may dominate, and small communities can be more narrow-minded about outsiders and minorities. History offers a warning: in the United States, the language of local control and states' rights was used to defend racial segregation. Economists add that some tasks, such as tackling pollution or running large power grids, need bigger scale. Localists respond that national standards can set a floor, and that the answer to local failings is stronger local democracy, not distant rule.
In practice
Localism shows up in devolution laws, citizen budgeting, neighborhood plans, community land trusts, credit unions and farmers' markets. Switzerland, with its cantons and local votes, is often named as a country where much power stays near the citizen. On the 12 axes it scores close to the Local pole on Structure, and it sits near the center on most economic questions, as the idea is used by both left and right. It leans toward Protected on Trade, because of its stress on local production.