Hybrid Regimes

[Page 366]Hybrid regimes are regimes that combine both democratic and autocratic traits. Hybrid regimes could be politically repressive yet have relatively free and fair elections. They could exhibit some judicial independence yet experience no turnover in power. Some scholars label them anocracies, while others may refer to them as semiauthoritarian regimes. Many typologies have been created in order to identify the different institutional arrangements in hybrid regimes and to distinguish them from authoritarian regimes and democracies.

As the name would suggest, hybrid regimes are not purely authoritarian because they have adopted many institutions used in democracies, yet in practice, they do not operate democratically. However, in contrast to authoritarian regimes, they also have much greater levels of pluralism. They are not completely politically closed nor can ...