Keywords
democracy
autocratization
hybrid regimes
concept formation
Abstract
A crucial feature of the current dynamics of autocratization is that democratic regimes gradually shift into a gray zone where it is increasingly difficult to distinguish them from autocracies. How should we decide if a regime is still a democracy or not? Is it possible that they become “hybrid regimes”? Hybrid regimes are often defined as political systems that exhibit both democratic and authoritarian features. However, there is plenty of confusion and ambiguity in the definition and application of such a term. The analysis is based on the criteria of validity, differentiation, and parsimony proposed by Collier and Levitsky (1997) for the formation of concepts, and it shows the differences that exist to the extent that the conceptions of hybrid regimes meet those criteria. Studies using the “regime with adjectives” approach are usually more systematic. Instead, approaches that understand hybrid regimes as regimes qualitatively different from both democracies or autocracies often feature crucial limitations at the conceptual level.
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