Are the normative rationales of local autonomy related to democratic legitimacy justified? Evidence from 57 countries in Europe and beyond (1990–2020)

Frequently, increasing local autonomy is recommended to improve democratic legitimacy and government effectiveness. This paper attempts to verify to what extent these normative rationales are empirically sound. By using observations of local autonomy from the LAI 2.0 project (57 countries from 1990 to 2020) as independent variables and a set of governance indicators as dependent variables, we examine the possible impacts of local autonomy on various input-, output-, but also throughput-related aspects of legitimacy. The results show that local autonomy positively influences various aspects of input and throughput legitimacy, but not across the entire array of examined indicators. Our fixed effects regression models indicate that local autonomy is significantly related to the existence of elected local government, quality of democracy, accountability, transparency, equality of participation and openness. This research allows us to justify the normative claims of local autonomy facilitating efforts towards a more legitimate functioning of local governments.