What the article describes is pretty sensationalized and full of bias. Obviously there is plenty of room for it to go wrong but I don't think it's automaticall

What the article describes is pretty sensationalized and full of bias. Obviously there is plenty of room for it to go wrong but I don't think it's automatically the case that somehow paradoxically, giving the government less control over a region will make that region more authoritarian. I would expect the null hypothesis to be the opposite.