SIS Professor Agustina Giraudy, co-authored with Kent Eaton, has published a new article in Studies in Comparative International Development examining subnational undemocratic regimes (SURs) across Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. The article argues that federalism in all four countries has historically sheltered state-level authoritarian practices even under nationally democratic governments, a phenomenon the authors call "regime juxtaposition."

Drawing on Giraudy's Subnational Democracy Indices, the study identifies both shared tactics and striking differences across the hemisphere. In all four countries, SURs have suppressed party competition through gerrymandering, weakened judicial independence, and packed electoral commissions with loyalists. Yet important contrasts emerge: U.S. SURs — from the Jim Crow South to more recent Republican-led state legislatures — have uniquely relied on voter suppression and single-party control. Latin American SURs, by contrast, tend to be characterized by personalism and entrenched family dynasties, with autocratic governors across Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico drawing from a wide range of political parties.

The study also analyzes how decentralization and distinct varieties of federalism shape the institutional conditions that make SURs more or less likely to take hold. This research opens a new hemispheric research agenda, integrating the comparative and American politics literatures to better understand how institutional design either enables or constrains democratic erosion at the subnational level.

Read the article here.