Um, this is exactly what happened in Egypt's First Intermediate Period. https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1249795709274071041

"States" in ancient Egypt were called Nomes, led by the equivalent of Governors. Power started flowing to the nomes earlier in the Old Kingdom but by Dyn. 6, the Nomarchs were really asserting their power and by FIP, massive control.

We're seeing the collapse of Egypt's Old Kingdom, sped up 50x. I wrote a several chapters in my book Archaeology From Space about it, if you are interested https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/08/science/sarah-parcak-space-archaeology.html