Hybrid Regimes

Abstract

Most political regimes in the world today display some form of mixture of democratic and autocratic institutional features—they are hybrid regimes. This chapter distils from the literature the defining characteristics, commonly discussed types, and causes of transformations of hybrid regimes. It demonstrates how all hybrid regime concepts can be sorted into either one of the two categories of defective democracy and electoral authoritarianism ; how all hybrid regime concepts are constructed along the two institutional dimensions of electoralism and constitutionalism ; and how explanations of hybrid regime persistence and change fall into four categories: electoralist, nested game approaches, neo-institutional, and non-electoral explanations.