Theoretical Approaches for Studying Democratization and Autocratization at Subnational Level

The literature on autocratization and, more generally, on the processes opposite to democratization, is still in its infancy, with several directions of inquiry to be explored. At the same time, even in the much more established literature on democratization and the quality of democracy there is an aspect that has not yet been fully included in the mainstream analytical framework. The territorial dimension of these processes is undoubtedly understudied in this literature. Still, the possibility that the political and institutional interactions between national and sub-national levels of governance would have an impact on political changes going in a democratic (or autocratic) direction is something that should be taken into account when evaluating the quality of democracy, as well as the democratization and autocratization processes. A comprehensive assessment of democratic change should therefore overcome the limitation of a state-centered approach and should be able to integrate different levels of governance (Graham et al. 2017; Tomini and Sandri 2018). The purpose of this theoretical paper is to investigate the relationship between the territorial structures of the state and the processes of political change going both in democratic and autocratic direction. After analyzing the literature on democratization and autocratization to show how the territorial dimension of politics has been included or left out in the explanatory framework, the paper discusses the main analytical dimensions that should be considered when it comes to explain how the territorial structures of the state do affect democratization or autocratization processes in a country. It concludes by putting forward some hypotheses about this causal relation and suggesting further avenues for research.