In Uruguay, in recent years political decentralization has occupied a place on the agenda through: a) preliminary approval of a law on parliamentary 3rd level government, b) in some departmental decentralization policies; c) in any case, the civil society demand for a local authority.
This work responds to a consultancy called to evaluate decentralization in a locality (The Villas) that has grown in population and in which civil society demand become a city and have a local authority.
The study revealed a causal link between political participation and local identity by which the objective conditions (the place) and subjective (self-perception and perception external) reveal a predisposition of different sign (skeptical or optimistic) to the participation, as is the role of neighbor or social activist. This would impact on: a) the Decentralization process, b) the policy credibility as a mediator c) on the Quality of Democracy.