Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotes

Quite as serious an error [of the French] is the failure to provide for local self-government. As this lies at the bottom of republican institutions, and should be, moreover, the first concern of democracy

Local self-government…is the life-blood of liberty.

Local assemblies of the people constitute the strength of free nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science: they bring it within the people's reach, and teach them how to use and enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.

I know people don't like America very much, but the one thing it's very good on is local government.

A town meeting is a legislature of citizens, for citizens, and by citizens. The fact that each citizen of the town is also a legislator separates the New England town meeting from all other forms of democracy.

Where there is only a national representative government without local self-government, there is no liberty as we understand it

Perhaps democracy should be begun at the local level first. America was many local democracies before democracy came to the national level.

With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.

The value of democracy lies in the fact that good or bad government has its roots in the localities where people know each other and where they account for their actions to their neighbors.

Decentralization is always a passion of those in opposition

Nowhere has democracy ever worked well without a great measure of local self-government, providing a school of political training for the people at large as much as for their future leaders.

One of the signs that things are going reasonably well for democracy is that we have the states where they're closer to the people. Federalism is a strength. We have all of these civil society institutions - civil society is a very important hallmark of democracy.

Democracy cannot be a plaything for the capital cities. It has to infiltrate every nook and cranny in the country, including the village.

Increased town size hurts real democracy in two ways. First… it dramatically reduces the percentage of citizens who attend town meetings. Second, town size increases the number of citizens who attend, which dramatically reduces the percentage of these attendees who participate.”

The more responsibility you can move toward local government, the better of you're going to be … City governments do better than their State governments in terms of accountability.

Devolution [decentralization of government] cannot stop at the State House. It must go down to City Hall.

There is a lack of emphasis and detail on self-government of business enterprises and community government. There is too much emphasis on the part that the Project Director and his staff play. Governmental officials should not impose their will on the residents, but the government should be formulated by the residents. It is absolutely essential that the personnel understand and sympathize with the policy of self-government.

A much better course would be a gradual development of democracy, not through general elections, but rather through civil society and the strengthening of local institutions.

All my political ideas boil down to a similar formula: political federation or decentralization.

I hope that we increasingly shift power to local governments.

The power should be in individual democracies in individual communities. It shouldn't be an oligarchy or some small group of elite. Power should be with the people and not with some politician or some heir to the throne or some madman.

When the panchayat raj is established, public opinion will do what violence can never do.

Switzerland is the perfect place where you have volatility at a municipal level that nothing up top - small units competing with each other.

Rwanda is a very open and free country. Key to our recovery as a nation has a range of grassroots, citizen-centered polices we call "homegrown solutions." The idea that Rwanda is highly controlled from the center belies the reality, which is that citizens in every village have a powerful say in how things get done. We prize accountability and Rwandans are quickly adapting themselves to the possibilities of a digital economy.

We are entering an era in which national government, instead of directing, enables powerful regional and local initiatives to work, where Britain becomes as it should be - a Britain of nations and regions.