Local divisors allow a powerful induction scheme on the size of a monoid. We
survey this technique by giving several examples of this proof method. These
applications include linear temporal logic, rational expressions with Kleene
stars restricted to prefix codes with bounded synchronization delay,
Church-Rosser congruential languages, and Simon's Factorization Forest Theorem.
We also introduce the notion of localizable language class as a new abstract
concept which unifies some of the proofs for the results above
