3. The Quality of Large and Small Nation Territory Governments

In approaching the aim of our book, several implications of definitions and concepts have crossed the fairway in search for an obstacle-free course to follow. We have launched the nation territory concept to clarify the specific nature of the territories we focus on. Saying that, we have put in much effort to demonstrate the limitations of concepts like autonomy, federacy, and self-government. Autonomy refers to a wide range of units from core states to individuals living in states. As the concept of autonomy is too broad for our purposes, we only use it in general terms when positioning our work in the general research field. Federacy comes close to a useful conceptualization, but unfortunately federacy gives fatal associations because it is a sub-form of a federal arrangement. Our four cases of interest are far from federal arrangements, and therefore it is more reliable to follow a distinct concept that fits completely with our demands for accuracy. The use of self-government in our study explicitly relates to government in nation territories, in contrast to arrangements of self-government in a core state such as local government or other forms of decentralized units/regions lacking entrenched authority to legislate.