limited autonomy or self-government granted by a central or regional government to its dependent political units. It has been a common feature of multinational empires or states—most notably, the ancient Roman Empire and the British Empire—which have afforded measured recognition of local ways and measured grants of self-government provided that the local populations should remain politically loyal to the central government. It has also been a feature of state and municipal government in the United States, where state constitutions since 1875 have frequently been amended or revamped to confer general or specifically enumerated self-governing powers on cities and towns and sometimes counties and townships.