Regime Change, Autocratic Shifts and Country-Level Comparisons
Pérez Sandoval’s (2024) article, “Multilevel Regime Decoupling: The Territorial Dimension of Autocratization and Contemporary Regime Change,” makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how regimes change unevenly across territorial levels. By introducing the concept of multilevel regime decoupling (MRD), the study challenges the conventional assumption that democratic or autocratic shifts occur uniformly at the national and subnational levels. Instead, Pérez Sandoval shows that in many countries, national-level trends in autocratization or democratization do not necessarily mirror local realities—a divergence that has important implications.
Cultural Aspects and Implications
While the article is primarily rooted in political science, it also touches on the cultural dimension of governance. Pérez Sandoval’s MRD framework implicitly acknowledges that political culture and local identities can shape, and be shaped by, divergent democratic practices. In cases where national rhetoric and subnational practices decouple, citizens’ lived experiences may reflect cultural heterogeneity that national-level statistics obscure. This resonates with scholarship emphasizing the importance of local cultural contexts in understanding political behavior (Giraudy, 2015; Gibson, 2005). The recognition that regimes can change in a “decoupled” manner encourages scholars to attend to the cultural particularities of subnational governance and how these may reinforce or undermine national narratives of democracy.
Economic Dimensions
Economically, the article highlights that factors such as state capacity, regional fiscal autonomy, and overall development influence regime quality differently across territorial scales. Although Pérez Sandoval’s preliminary regression analyses reveal that certain economic indicators—like regional autonomy and fiscal autonomy—are positively associated with decoupling, these factors do not deterministically drive the process. This suggests that economic disparities within a country can lead to situations where, for instance, wealthier or better-organized regions maintain robust democratic practices even as national institutions erode. Such findings extend earlier research on economic influences on regime change (Munck, 2016; Boese, 2019) and call for more nuanced models that incorporate the economic heterogeneity within states.
Political Considerations
At its core, the study is a political analysis that reexamines how regime change should be measured. Pérez Sandoval employs data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project and related subnational indices to demonstrate that multilevel decoupling is increasingly common—rising from 20% in the 1990s to 43% in the 2010–2022 period. The article challenges traditional models by revealing that electoral integrity at the national level can diverge significantly from local levels, thus complicating policy prescriptions and democracy promotion efforts. This decoupling may, for instance, help explain why national institutions may appear resilient while subnational governance deteriorates (Bermeo, 2016; Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018). Furthermore, the case studies of Italy, South Africa, India, and the United States underscore how institutional factors (such as the role of courts, electoral management bodies, and federal arrangements) critically mediate these divergent trends.
Social Implications
Socially, the implications of MRD are profound. When citizens experience a decoupled regime—where local democratic practices differ markedly from national ones—it can lead to varied perceptions of legitimacy, political efficacy, and trust in government. Pérez Sandoval argues that assessments of democracy that ignore the territorial dimension may misrepresent the actual quality of governance experienced by citizens. For instance, in some cases, national-level autocratization might coincide with resilient subnational practices that still provide avenues for participation and accountability (Gervasoni, 2018; Grumbach, 2022). This fragmentation has significant consequences for social cohesion and the design of democratic institutions, suggesting that future research and policy must adopt a more granular, multilevel perspective.
Integration with Scholarly Literature
Pérez Sandoval’s work builds on and extends a variety of scholarly traditions. It dialogues with studies on regime change and democratic erosion (Bermeo, 2016; Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018) while also drawing on seminal contributions regarding subnational democracy (Gibson, 2005, 2012; Giraudy, 2015). The concept of decoupling is contrasted with Gibson’s “regime juxtaposition” by emphasizing process over static differences—a shift that echoes recent calls for more dynamic models in the study of autocratization (Ding & Slater, 2021; Munck, 2016). The use of V-Dem data, along with alternative subnational indices like Fidalgo’s SEDS and Sandoval’s ISED, situates the study within the growing literature on multilevel governance and emphasizes the importance of embedding territorial considerations in analyses of regime change (Giraudy & Niedzwiecki, 2021).
Conclusion
In conclusion, Pérez Sandoval’s (2024) article is an important theoretical and empirical contribution that reframes our understanding of regime change by introducing the concept of multilevel regime decoupling. Its findings underscore that democratic and autocratic shifts are not monolithic but are deeply influenced by multiple factors operating at different territorial scales. This work not only enriches the academic debate on autocratization but also has practical implications for democracy promotion and policy design, highlighting the need for a more nuanced approach that captures the lived experiences of citizens across various levels of governance.
References
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[Edited by Pablo Markin. The initial draft has been generated using ChatGPT, OpenAI (February 17, 2025).]
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Pablo Markin (February 17, 2025). Regime Change, Autocratic Shifts and Country-Level Comparisons. Open Culture. Retrieved March 23, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13bu0