Localism (politics)

Consequently, localism will encourage stronger democratic and political participatory forums and widening public sphere connectivity.

[1] Localists assert that throughout the world's history, most social and economic institutions are scaled at the local level, as opposed to regional, interregional, or global (basically until the late 19th to the early 20th centuries).

[citation needed] Through ongoing forms of colonialism, imperialism and industrialisation local scales become less central.

[citation needed] In the 20th century, localism drew heavily on the writings of Leopold Kohr, E. F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry, and Kirkpatrick Sale, among others.

They include anarchism, bioregionalism, environmentalism, the Greens, and more specific concerns about food, monetary policy and education.

[citation needed] In reference to localism, Edward Goldsmith, former editor of The Ecologist magazine, claims: "The problems facing the world today can only be solved by restoring the functioning of those natural systems which once satisfied our needs, i.e. by fully exploiting those incomparable resources which are individual people, families, communities and ecosystems, which together make up the biosphere or real world"[4] Tip O'Neill, a longtime Democratic Speaker of the House in the US Congress, once famously declared that "All politics is local".

Yeung raised an example in which localism is a cultural or civic value rather than a value that supports ethnic understanding in Hong Kong identity politics.

Jane Wills argued that an increasing numbers of populist politicians are endorsing localism as a framework for public policy.

Mainstream politicians from the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties were threatened by the rise of UKIP.

For example, in the past decade, Bulgaria is estimated to have lost more than 50,000 qualified scientists and skilled workers through emigration every year.