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Reforms weakening the power of local units, such as municipal amalgamations, have been high on the agenda in many European countries for some time. The political rationale for this trend is often cast in terms of administrative efficiency. As Chandler (2008) points out, if the justification of local government is purely expediential, it is quite legitimate for the central government to control and arrange the local level in a way which makes it most efficient in fulfilling its expediential aims. In contrast, ethical justifications of local government value this institution because it fulfils some morally desirable purpose in itself, regardless of its value to the central government. If there are any valid ethical justifications for local government they would put restrictions upon the justifiability of the central government to interfere in the activities of local government. In this paper we construct a normative theory of local government by developing an ethical justification of the local level. The basic idea is that the same foundational value - individual moral autonomy - constitutes the normative cornerstone of both democracy and the right to local autonomy. The implication of this argument is that if we value democracy, we must also value strong local government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]