A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections. According to some definitions and measures, hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states.[1][2] Although these regimes experience civil unrest, they may be relatively stable and tenacious for decades at a time. There has been a rise in hybrid regimes since the end of the Cold War.[3][4]
The term hybrid regime arises from a polymorphic view of political regimes that oppose the dichotomy of autocracy or democracy.[5] Modern scholarly analysis of hybrid regimes focuses attention on the decorative nature of democratic institutions (elections do not lead to a change of power, different media broadcast the government point of view, and the opposition in parliament votes the same way as the ruling party, among others).[6] While most maintain a veneer of democracy to appease international standards, some scholars contend these regimes deliberately imitate a full dictatorship to project strength and suppress internal dissent.[7][8]
Overall, there is no consensus among researchers about how hybrid regimes should be defined or measured. Accordingly, there is much disagreement about which countries are considered to be hybrid regimes, and any description of what typical hybrid regimes look like needs to be seen in the context of specific definitions and measures.[9] Democratic backsliding is the primary cause of the growth of hybrid regime typologies.[10]
Scholars vary on the definition of hybrid regimes based on their primary academic discipline.[11] According to Christoph Mohamad-Klotzbach, "Some scholars argue that deficient democracies and deficient autocracies can be seen as examples of hybrid regimes, whereas others argue that hybrid regimes combine characteristics of both democratic and autocratic regimes." Scholars also debate if these regimes are in transition or are inherently a stable political system.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] In 1995, Terry Karl introduced the notion of a "hybrid" regime, which was simply defined as "combining democratic and authoritarian elements".[20] According to Professor Matthijs Bogaards, hybrid types are:[21]
Pippa Norris defined hybrid regimes as:[22]
Henry E. Hale defined hybrid regimes as:[23]
Leonardo Morlino defined hybrid regimes as:[24]
Professor Jeffrey C. Isaac defined hybrid regimes as:[25]
[[File:Countries democratizing or autocratizing substantially and significantly 2010–2020.svg|upright=1.6|thumb|Countries autocratizing (red) or democratizing (blue) substantially and significantly (2010–2020). Countries in grey are substantially unchanged.[26]]] The third wave of democratization from the 1970s onward has led to the emergence of hybrid regimes that are neither fully democratic nor fully authoritarian.[27] Neither the concept of illiberal democracy nor the concept of electoral authoritarianism fully describes these hybrid regimes.[28][29]
Since the end of the Cold War, such regimes gradually outnumbered the classical dictatorships.[30][31] Authoritarian regimes change, and when countries liberalize, limited elections tend to follow, sooner or later. "Liberal democracy" is often purported when, in fact, this process basically froze "halfway."[32] In relation to regimes that were previously called "transitional" in the 1980s, the term hybrid regime began to be used. According to Thomas Carothers:
Hybrid regimes have evolved to lean more authoritarian while keeping some democratic traits.[33] One of the main issues with authoritarian rule is the ability to control the threats from the masses, and democratic elements in hybrid regimes can reduce social tension between the masses and the elite.[34] After the third wave of democratization, some regimes became stuck in the transition to democracy, causing the creation of weak democratic institutions.[35] This results from a lack of institutional ownership during critical points in the transition period leading the regime into a gray zone between democracy and autocracy.[36]
These developments have caused some scholars to believe that hybrid regimes are not poorly functioning democracies, but rather new forms of authoritarian regimes.[37] Defective democratic stability is an indicator to explain and measure these new forms of autocracies.[38] Additionally, approval ratings of political leaders play an important role in these types of regimes, and democratic elements can drive up the ratings of a strongman leader, creating a tool not utilized previously.[39] As of the 2020s, 'hybrid regime' is a term used to explain a growing field of political development where authoritarian leaders incorporate elements of democracy that stabilize their regimes.[40]
[[File:BTI 2022 DEM.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4| Global trend report Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2022[41]]] According to Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, Larry Diamond, and Thomas Carothers, signs of a hybrid regime include:[42]
[[File:Number of countries experiencing autocratization and democratization, 1900–2000.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Since , the number of countries autocratizing (blue) is higher than those democratizing (yellow).]]
There are various democratic freedom indices produced by academic researchers and intergovernmental non-governmental organizations that publish assessments of the world's political systems, according to their own definitions, and many of them include measures of hybrid regimes.[43] However, because these various indices use different definitions and methodologies, they often disagree on which countries should be classified as hybrid regimes.
According to the Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, there are 34 hybrid regimes, representing approximately 20% of countries, encompassing 17.2% to 20.5% of the world's population. The EIU Democracy Index is "based on ratings across 60 indicators, grouped into five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture." The Democracy Index defines hybrid regimes with the following characteristics:
[[File:Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index 2024.svg|alt=|right|thumb|upright=1.6|The 2024 Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index[44]
Full democracies
Flawed democracies
Hybrid regimes
Authoritarian regimes
]] As of 2024, the countries considered hybrid regimes by the "Democracy Index" are:
According to the "Global State of Democracy Report" by International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), there are twenty hybrid regimes.[45] International IDEA compiles data from 12 different sources, including expert surveys and observational data, which includes the extent to which voting rights are inclusive. IDEA defined hybrid regimes as:[46]
As of 2021 the countries considered hybrid regimes by the "Global State of Democracy Report" are:[47]
[[File:V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index 2025 Robinson World.svg|alt=|thumb|Map of V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index in 2024[48]
|upright=1.6]] The V-Dem Democracy Indices compiled by the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg classify all political regimes worldwide into four primary types. The two intermediate categories, electoral autocracies and electoral democracies, lie in between the most democratic (liberal democracy) and most autocratic (closed autocracy).[49] In 2016, there were 118 countries in the electoral democracy and autocracy categories,[50] and in 2021 there were 115. The 115 countries in 2021 consisted of about 60% of the world's population.[51]
[[File:European Union neighbour states by freedom.svg|upright=1.3|thumb| Freedom House ratings for European Union and surrounding states, in 2019[52]
]] Freedom House measures the level of political and economic governance in 29 countries from Central Europe to Central Asia. Freedom House assigns "scores to countries and territories across the globe on 10 indicators of political rights (e.g., whether there is a realistic opportunity for opposition parties to gain power through elections) and 15 indicators of civil liberties (e.g., whether there is a free and independent media)." Freedom House classifies transitional or hybrid regimes as:[53]
In 2024, Freedom House classified 11 of 29 countries analyzed as "Transitional or Hybrid Regimes":
The instability of anocratic regimes causes human rights violations to be significantly higher within anocracies than democratic regimes.[54][55] According to Maplecroft's 2014 Human Rights Risk Atlas, eight of the top ten worst human-rights-violating countries are anocracies.[56][57] In addition, the report categorized every current anocracy as "at risk" or at "extreme risk" of human rights offenses.
The high correlation between anocratic regimes and human rights abuses denotes the nonlinear progression in a country's transition from an autocracy to a democracy.[58][59][60][61] Generally, human rights violations substantially decrease when a certain threshold of full democracy is reached.[62][63] However, human rights abuses tend to remain the same or even to increase as countries move from an autocratic to an anocratic regime.[64][65]
During the revolutions of the Arab Spring, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen, all of the countries made relative progress towards more democratic regimes.[66] With many of the authoritarian practices of their governments remaining, those states currently fall under the category of anocracies.[67] They are also listed as some of the most extreme human-rights-violating countries in the world. The violations include torture, police brutality, slavery, discrimination, unfair trials, and restricted freedom of expression.[68] Research has shown that political protests, such as those that occurred during the Arab Spring, generally lead to an increase in human right violations, as the existing government tries to retain power and influence over governmental opposition.[69][70][71] Therefore, transitioning governments tend to have high levels of human rights abuses.[72][73]
In its annual Freedom in the World report, Freedom House scored states' violations of civil liberties on a seven-point scale, with a score of seven representing the highest percentage of violations.[74] Freedom House defined civil liberty violations as the infringement of freedom of expression, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and individual rights.[75] Most consolidated democracies received scores of one, but almost all anocracies were scored between four and six because of the high percentage of civil liberties violations in most anocratic regimes.
Statistics show that anocracies are ten times more likely to experience intrastate conflict than democracies and twice as likely as autocracies.[76] One explanation for the increase in violence and conflict within anocracies is a theory known as More Murder in the Middle (MMM).[77] The theory argues that the unstable characteristics of anocratic regimes, which include the presence of divided elites, inequality, and violent challengers who threaten the legitimacy of the current social order, cause governing elites to resort to much more political repression or state terror than do democratic or authoritarian regimes. That leads to high levels of what are termed "life-integrity violations", which include state-sponsored genocide, extrajudicial executions, and torture.[78]
State life-integrity violations can be categorized as acts of state terror.[79] Acts of terrorism by both governmental and outside groups are generally higher in transitioning anocratic governments than in either democratic or authoritarian regimes.[80][81] Harvard Public Policy Professor Alberto Abadie argues that the tight control of an authoritarian regime is likely to discourage terrorist activities in the state. However, without the stability of a clear authoritarian rule or a consolidated democracy, anocracies are more open and susceptible to terrorist attacks.[82] He notes that in Iraq and previously Spain and Russia, transitions from an authoritarian regime to a democracy were accompanied by temporary increases in terrorism.[83]
According to the political terror scale (PTS), a data set that ranks state sponsored violence on a five-point scale, almost every anocracy is ranked as having a score between three and five.[84] On the scale, a score of three indicates that in a state, "there is extensive political imprisonment, or a recent history of such imprisonment. Execution or other political murders and brutality may be common. Unlimited detention, with or without a trial, for political views is accepted." States are ranked as a four when "civil and political rights violations have expanded to large numbers of the population. Murders, disappearances and torture are a common part of life. In spite of its generality, on this level terror affects those who interest themselves in politics or ideas." Scores of five are given to states if "terror has expanded to the whole population. The leaders of these societies place no limits on the means or thoroughness with which they pursue personal or ideological goals." Although only eleven states were given scores of five in the 2012 Political Terror Scale report, four of those states, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan, were classified by the Polity data series as anocracies.
There are differing views on whether or not anocracy leads to civil war. It is debated whether or not transitions between government regimes or political violence lead to civil war.
Civil wars in unstable countries are usually the outcome of a country's inability to meet the population's demands. The inability of the state to provide for the needs of the population leads to factionalism within the country. When factions are not able to get what they want, they take up arms against the state. Political scientist Barbara F. Walter has written that anocratic states are most at risk of civil war, with formerly dominant political groups more likely to start them than poorer and weaker groups.[85]
Former democracies that transition to anocracy have a greater risk of being embroiled in civil conflict.[86] The population's awareness of what rights they had as a democratic society may compel them to fight to regain their rights and liberties. On the other hand, autocracies that transition into anocracies are less likely to break out in civil war. Not all anocracies are unstable. There are many countries that are stable but are classified as anocracies, such as Russia. It is the transitional qualities associated with some anocracies that are predictive of civil conflict. The magnitude of the transition also affects the probability of a civil conflict. The higher the magnitude of the transition, the higher the likelihood of civil war.
However, some international relations experts use the Polity data series in the formulation of their hypothesis and study, which presents a problem because the Polity IV system uses violence and civil war as factors in its computation of a country's Polity score.[87] Two components, "the degree of institutionalization, or regulation, of political competition", and "the extent of government restriction on political competition", are problematic to use in any study involving Polity IV and civil war in anocratic governments. In the numeric rating system of one of these parts of Polity IV, unregulated, "may or may be characterized by violent conflict among partisan groups." The other component states that "there are relatively stable and enduring political groups – but competition among them is intense, hostile, and frequently violent." The only thing that can be deduced concretely is that political violence tends to lead to civil war. There is no solid evidence to support that political institutions in an anocracy lead to civil war.
While the first three characteristics capture the instability of anocracies, another feature of anocratic regimes is their broad descriptiveness. Anocracy describes a regime type with a mix of institutional characteristics that either constrains or promotes the democratic process, "encapsulating a complex category encompassing many institutional arrangements". Although anocracies demonstrate some capacity for civil society and political participation, their autocratic and democratic counterparts show considerably more or less capabilities. Thus, while scholars are easily able to identify democratic and autocratic regimes based on their respective characteristics, anocracies become a wider, "catch-all" category for all other regimes. However, despite its broadness and complexity, the convention is still used because of its relevance to civil instability as well as its usage in the Polity data series.[88]
[[File:Democracy claims.svg|thumb|upright=1.4|Countries in green claim to be a type of democracy while countries in red do not. Only Afghanistan, Brunei, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Burkina Faso and the Vatican do not claim to be democratic.]] According to Yale professor Juan José Linz, there are three main types of political systems today: democracies, totalitarian regimes, and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes with many different terms that describe specific types of hybrid regimes.[89][90][91]
Academics generally refer to a full dictatorship as either a form of authoritarianism or totalitarianism over a "hybrid system."[92][93] Authoritarian governments that conduct elections are, in many scholars view, not hybrids, but are successful, well-institutionalised stable authoritarian regimes.[94][95][96] Democratic elements can simultaneously serve authoritarian purposes and contribute to democratization.[97]
Electoral authoritarianism means that democratic institutions are imitative and, due to numerous systematic violations of liberal democratic norms, in fact adhere to authoritarian methods.[98] Electoral authoritarianism can be competitive and hegemonic, and the latter does not necessarily mean election irregularities. A. Schedler calls electoral authoritarianism a new form of authoritarian regime, not a hybrid regime or illiberal democracy. Moreover, a purely authoritarian regime does not need elections as a source of legitimacy,[99] while non-alternative elections, appointed at the request of the ruler, are not a sufficient condition for considering the regime conducting them to be hybrid.
[[File:Political Regime – distinction democracies and full democracies, OWID.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|Map of the world published by Our World in Data in 2015, showing countries color-coded according to their regime type, which was based on their score in the Polity IV data set. Closed anocracies are shown in orange (scores between −5 and 0) and open anocracies are shown in yellow (scores between 1 and 5).[100]]] Anocracy, or semi-democracy,[101] is a form of government that is loosely defined as part democracy and part dictatorship,[102] or as a "regime that mixes democratic with autocratic features". Another definition classifies anocracy as "a regime that permits some means of participation through opposition group behavior, but that has incomplete development of mechanisms to redress grievances."[103] The term "semi-democratic" is reserved for stable regimes that combine democratic and authoritarian elements.[104][105] Scholars distinguish anocracies from autocracies and democracies in their capability to maintain authority, political dynamics, and policy agendas.[106] Anocratic regimes have democratic institutions that allow for nominal amounts of competition. Such regimes are particularly susceptible to outbreaks of armed conflict and unexpected or adverse changes in leadership.[107]
The operational definition of anocracy is extensively used by scholars Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole at the Center for Systemic Peace,[108] and that definition was widely disseminated through the Polity data series. This data set aims to measure democracy in different states and uses anocracy as one of its classifications for regime type.[109] Consequently, anocracy frequently appears in democratization literature that utilizes the Polity data set.[110]
Anocratic regimes are known for having guided democracy instead of liberal democracy. They combine authoritarian powers with some democratic practices, for example holding elections that are competitive to some degree. In a closed anocracy, competitors are drawn from the elite. In an open anocracy, others also compete. The number of anocratic regimes has steadily increased over time, with the most notable jump occurring after the end of the Cold War. From 1989 to 2013, the number of anocracies increased from 30 to 53.
Use of the word “anocracy” in English dates back to 1949, when R. F. C. Hull coined the term in his English translation of Martin Buber’s 1946 work (Paths in Utopia):
We see particularly clearly here that Kropotkin is ultimately attacking not State-order as such but only the existing order in all its forms; that his "anarchy", like Proudhon's, is in reality "anocracy" (); not absence of government but absence of domination.[111]
Buber's original German text used the word , a modern neoclassical compound formed from the privative prefix ('without') and ('rule, power, domination'), which Buber used in the sense of "absence of domination" or "non-domination".[112] Hull chose to translate as "anocracy", inventing an English equivalent. In doing so, Hull also inserted the Ancient Greek word into parentheses, even though this word does not appear in Buber’s original and in classical Greek actually means "lack of self-control" or "incontinence", not "absence of domination".
Competitive authoritarianism is a hybrid regime structure and a subtype of authoritarianism. This regime type was defined to encapsulate states that contain formal democratic institutions that rulers view as the principal means of obtaining and exercising legitimate political authority against real opposition and other semblances of democratic political society, in which officials violate election freedom and fairness in order to retain power. The officials interfere with opposition organisations, failing to respect minimum conventional standards of democracy.[113][114][115][116]
Three main instruments are used within competitive authoritarian regimes to maintain political power: the self-serving use of state institutions (regarding abuses of electoral and judicial institutions such as voter intimidation and voter fraud); the overuse of state resources (to gain influence and/or power over proportional representation media and use legal resources to disturb constitutional change); and the disruption of civil liberties (such as freedom of speech/press and association). In the post-Soviet era, continuing into the 2010s, the number of competitive authoritarian regimes increased.[117]
The researchers conducted a comparative analysis of political regimes around the world (Samuel Finer 1970), in developing countries (Almond and Coleman, 1960 ), among Latin America (Collier 1979) and West Africa regimes (Zolberg, 1966). Types of non-democratic regimes are described (Linz, 2000, originally published in 1975 and Perlmutter, 1981). Huntington and Moore (Huntington and Moore, 1970) discuss the one-party system issue Hermet (Guy Hermet, Rose, & Rouquie 1978) explores how elections are held in such authoritarian regimes, which are nominally democratic institutions.
"Hybrid regimes" (Diamond 2002), "competitive authoritarianism" (Levitsky and Way 2002 ) and "electoral authoritarianism" (Schedler, 2006) as well as how officials who came to power in an undemocratic way form election rules (Lust-Okar and Jamal, 2002 ), institutionalize electoral frauds (Lehoucq 2003 , Schedler 2002 ) and manipulate the economy (L. Blaydes 2006, Magaloni 2006) in order to win the election and stay in power.