Is decentralization democratic?

I argue that decentralization improves democracy. The main normative idea in the argument is that part of what makes democracy valuable is that it facilitates a kind of democratic autonomy. It gives citizens the opportunity to author their social and political affairs. Moreover, the opportunities that contribute most to citizen autonomy are opportunities to author outcomes they care and can easily learn more about. The main empirical premise is that people care and can easily learn more about how policies affect their locality than other localities. So if we give people more influence over issues in their locality, this will increase the extent to which we realize democratic autonomy. Thus, all else equal, decentralized polities are more democratic than centralized ones.