Carving Local Authoritarian Strongholds Through Subnational Fragmentation

• In Event: Political Regimes Dynamics

Abstract

Subnational fragmentation – a process by which subnational political units fragment into two (or more) new political units – is reshaping local politics across the developing world. Although intricately related to decentralization, some scholars affirm that the projected empowerment of local communities through subnational fragmentation is merely a façade. More pointedly, they claim that subnational fragmentation actually serves to (re)concentrate political power in the center. Absent from this research is a discussion of the involvement or relevance of political regimes. There is an implicit assumption that all political units implicated in subnational fragmentation are democratic, but this need not be the case. Do higher order democratic governments allow for or facilitate subnational fragmentation in order to protect local authoritarian strongholds? This paper addresses this question using empirical analyses implemented with an original dataset on the municipal creation of Brazilian municipalities and a nuanced coding of subnational political regimes. Preliminary research suggests that subnational fragmentation in the Brazilian case concentrates political competition. Insofar as local territorial reorganization precludes freely contested elections, it may preserve subnational authoritarian enclaves.

Author

• Kelly Senters