Hybrid regimes 1

Abstract

Hybrid regimes are not new. Even in the 1960s and 1970s, there existed multiparty, electoral, but undemocratic regimes. Virtually all hybrid regimes in the world today are quite deliberately pseudodemocratic, 'in that the existence of formally democratic political institutions, such as multiparty electoral competition, masks the reality of authoritarian domination'. If scholarly treatment of hybrid or 'electoral authoritarian' regimes is relatively new, it is not without some intellectual foundations in the transitions paradigm and in other earlier comparative work on democracy. As Andreas Schedler elaborates, the distinction between electoral democracy and electoral authoritarianism turns crucially on the freedom, fairness, inclusiveness, and meaningfulness of elections. No less difficult is the challenge of distinguishing between competitive authoritarian regimes and hegemonic electoral authoritarian ones. Comparative politics is returning with new concepts and data to a very old issue: the forms and dynamics of authoritarian rule. As democracies differ among themselves in significant ways and degrees, so do contemporary authoritarian regimes.