Hybrid Regimes

The article explores the conditions under which incumbent leaders in initially competitive political systems manage to offset democratic resistance and establish an authoritarian regime. Autocratisationthe transition from a competitive political system to a regime dominated by a single political forceis a challenging effort for an incumbent and involves interventions in three 'arenas' to achieve a) public legitimation, b) institutional reforms increasing political repression and c) mass-scale co-optation. Focusing on Slovakia and Belarus in the 1990s, where autocratisation efforts failed and succeeded respectively, the article finds that cooptation plays a catalytic role in helping the incumbent pass institutional reforms and escalate repression without risking de-legitimation. In Belarus, co-optation engulfed society and the economy whereas, in Slovakia, a socioeconomic environment with greater autonomy from government limited the scope for co-optation. The Slovak opposition was able to find the resources and supporters necessary to fight back against the incumbent.

The paper focuses on the unique, role model characteristics of the Hungarian hybrid regime, the Hungarian political system's new incarnation forged in the past years' democratic backsliding process. Following the short review of the main hybrid regime literature and the key analyses putting the democratic quality of the Hungarian political system under the microscope, the paper argues that Hungary's European Union (EU) membership, the competencies of EU institutions, and the scope of EU law have played a crucial role in the development of the system's unique characteristics. Based on this argument, the paper qualifies Hungary as an "externally constrained hybrid regime". However, the EU does not only fulfil system constraining functions regarding the Hungarian regime, but performs system support and system legitimation functions as well. Ultimately, the changing scope of these functions, determined by the European integration's internal dynamics, influences first and foremost the Hungarian power elite's strategic considerations about the country's future EU membership.

Sāmoa has long been a beacon of political and societal stability in the South Pacific; however, despite being classified as a democracy there is mounting evidence of authoritarian tendencies in the society which would make it more apt to consider h political system as a hybrid regime. Its specific blend of traditional and liberal democratic systems of law and politics make it a unique form of a hybrid regime. Many aspects of Sāmoan politics and culture is embodied in the “matai”. This study has examined this position, and concluded that it, along with particularities of Sāmoan political organisation it serves to consolidate a national government authority in spheres it has not experienced before, even under colonialism. Changes in culture and economics can point to turbulent re-appraisals of Sāmoan identity, but its increasing similitude to other political systems which have incorporated traditional political structures indicate that in the future the Sāmoan political system will remain a stable but increasingly more statist and authoritarian system.

Has economic development made Kazakhs more democratic? This article explores the effects of economic development on political culture of citizens in Kazakhstan. Drawing on the thesis of the modernization school that economic development is likely to result in the development of democratic political culture it argues that modernization process is not a linear process leading to the emergence of democratically minded citizens and that for a democratic political culture to emerge it must be complemented and accompanied with the development of democratic political institutions.

The text looks into the importance of sate capture for the stability of hybrid regimes from the Serbian post-2000 perspective. It argues for an integration of these two research fields. Part one gives a list extractive institutions related to political state capture. These institutions provide better measurement of state capture. Part two emphasizes
the importance of state capture for other hybrid regimes’s critical areas such as elections and media. Although rigged elections and controlled media are important pillars of
hybrid regimes, they depend to a large extent on the public funds by which they can be financed. Extraction of public funds matters because these are used to pay both activists
who manipulate the electoral process in the field and the media that hide information on the basis of which citizens can decide how to vote. The issue of extraction has been understudied in the debates on the consolidation of democracy in Serbia after 2000 but also in the discussios on democratic decline.

In this introduction into the special issue on state capture and security sector governance, we argue that state capture is a relevant concept that helps us understand the current autocratisation and the rise of hybrid regimes. We argue that the extraction of public resources via party patronage, privatization of public administration, judiciary, security institutions, and media are vital for influencing political competition. In the second part of the article, we argue that the concept of state capture brings added value to the understanding of security governance and transformations. We show why the parts or whole of security and justice institutions are the inevitable targets of state capture and what it means to understand the success of security sector reform (SSR). Finally, we examine a range of possible positions of the security sector within the captors and what it means for both the literature on state capture and civil-military relations.

This article investigates how hybrid regimes supply governance by examining a series of dilemmas (involving elections, the mass media, and state institutions) that their rulers face. The authors demonstrate how regime responses to these dilemmas -typically efforts to maintain control while avoiding outright repression and societal backlash -have negative outcomes, including a weakening of formal institutions, proliferation of "substitutions" (e.g., substitutes for institutions), and increasing centralization and personalization of control. Efforts by Russian leaders to disengage society from the sphere of decision-making entail a significant risk of systemic breakdown in unexpected ways. More specifically, given significantly weakened institutions for interest representation and negotiated compromise, policy-making in the Russian system often amounts to the leadership's best guess (ad hoc manual policy adjustments) as to precisely what society will accept and what it will not, with a significant possibility of miscalculation. Three case studies of the policy-making process are presented: the 2005 cash-for-benefits reform, plans for the development of the Khimki Forest, and changes leading up to and following major public protests in 2011-2012.

This research project is about the processes and effects of strategic public elite communication in partial democracies, and Ukraine is used as a case study. This study is situated within the field of comparative politics that investigates the internal dynamics of hybrid regimes, i.e., regimes that combine features of democracies and autocracies. Partial democracies are defined here as highly competitive and institutionally weak hybrid regimes. While many authoritarian regimes prefer either to avoid or to regulate public discussions, polarizing debates are not uncommon in partial democracies. Moreover, unlike authoritarian regimes, many partial democracies often have “islands” of media freedom. Together with partially free media, the lively public sphere is the democratic component of partial democracies in which, however, corruption is widespread and laws are often disregarded. Such a political context is highly uncertain, and the outcomes of elite interactions are unpredictable. At the same time, the majority of the population is passive and disaffected. Therefore, how do elites convey a political message in a highly uncertain environment, in which the public does not trust politicians? What are the effects of such debates on the political system?
The central argument of this thesis is that the contextual uncertainty inherent in partial democracies produces incentives for political actors to rely on negative framing as a strategy in power struggles, which, in effect, reproduces contextual uncertainty. Negative framing is defined as a one-sided presentation of events or people, predominantly in negative terms. The concept is based on insights from cognitive psychology that have identified negativity bias in our information processing. According to these insights, negative information has a greater impact on humans’ decision-making than neutral or positive information. Under conditions of uncertainty, people prefer to avoid losses than to acquire gains. This effect has been summarized in prospect theory, which provides an alternative to rational choice theory.
Due to negativity bias, strategies based on negative framing that activate loss aversion have greater chances of winning mass support and defining social reality in a highly uncertain environment. In this respect, partial democracies are particularly vulnerable to any rhetorical manipulation, as discourses become means of power maintenance or delegitimization. To understand how negativity functions in partial democracies, this thesis explores the psychological mechanisms of negative framing, its characteristics as a strategy, its conditions of success and its possible effects on the political system. It advances an innovative analytical framework that connects literatures across different subdisciplines of the social sciences.
This study’s approach is developed based on two theory-centered case studies; methodologically, the study uses process tracing and framing analysis. The theoretical model is derived from a qualitative study of the delegitimization of two state patronage schemes in Ukrainian gas politics. Ukraine was chosen as a typical example of partial democracy, and until recently, gas politics was one of its most corruption-prone and yet publicly discussed policy fields, involving a number of state and private actors who regarded the gas industry as a relevant source of political influence and economic power. The first case study is confined to a detailed analysis of events and discourses in 1997-1998, i.e., the period when the gas patronage scheme built by the Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko became contested and actors involved in its operation were delegitimized. The second case study is devoted to the power struggle around the gas intermediary within the Orange coalition during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko in 2005-2009. In both cases, I analyze how key political actors involved in these struggles construct their frames, legitimize certain actions and address accusations of misconduct and corruption.
The research results show that negative framing aimed at discrediting a political opponent is standard behavior in Ukraine, which can lead to a permanent escalation of negative rhetoric within the so-called spiral of negativity. Overall, such discursive practices have a very negative effect on the political system and political culture of Ukraine. The result is a cynical population that mistrusts politics and politicians, which in turn reinforces political uncertainty and contributes to the dwindling legitimacy of the government.

Non-democratic regimes have increasingly moved beyond merely suppressing online discourse, and are shifting toward proactively subverting and co-opting social media for their own purposes. Namely, social media is increasingly being used to undermine the opposition, to shape the contours of public discussion, and to cheaply gather information about falsified public preferences. Social media is thus becoming not merely an obstacle to autocratic rule but another potential tool of regime durability. I lay out four mechanisms that link social media co-optation to autocratic resilience: 1) counter-mobilization, 2) discourse framing, 3) preference divulgence, and 4) elite coordination. I then detail the recent use of these tactics in mixed and autocratic regimes, with a particular focus on Russia, China, and the Middle East. This rapid evolution of government social media strategies has critical consequences for the future of electoral democracy and state-society relations.

To analyze the Syrian Civil War, this paper discusses the reasons for the conflict in Syria by grouping them into two categories, followed by a discussion about the type of the conflict that the civil war transformed into. The paper will continue by explaining why the situation is too complex to handle, and finally evaluate the possible solutions that can be considered to address the crisis in the country.

The hybrid regime framework provides a useful approach for analysis of (post-)Third wave political regimes, yet there has not been sufficient effort to develop adequate systematic measure of ‘mixed’ regimes. Several measures that exist suffer from various measurement validity problems. This article introduces an alternative method and demonstrates how it can be used to classify post-Soviet regimes in the 1991-2005 period. Future research can employ this new classification to explore the question of change and stability of hybrid regimes in post-communist Eurasia as well as to study causes and consequences of regime change and democratisation in comparative perspective.

Bu bölümde siyasal rejim tipleri tartışılmaktadır. İlk olarak, demokratik olmayan rejim sınıflandırmaları, daha sonra demokratik rejim tanımları, en son olarak da bu iki rejim tipinin arasında kalan karma rejimler (seçimli/rekabetçi otoriterlik, hibrid rejimler ve sorunlu demokrasiler) incelenmektedir. Bölümün asıl amacı rejim tanımlarına açıklık getirmek olsa da, farklı rejim tanımlarının karşılaştırmalı siyaset araştırmalarının sonuçlarını nasıl etkilediği de yazının bütünleştirici teması olarak önemli bir yer tutmaktadır.

The article addresses the issue of hybrid regimes, specifically variety of concepts of democracies with adjectives, authoritarian regimes with adjectives and their typologies. The phenomenon of regimes between democracy and authoritarianism has been studied mostly after the end of the War and the discussion has came up with a large number of new terms such as competitive authoritarianism, electoral authoritarianism, illiberal democracy, defective democracy and many others. Despite different root concepts (democracy, authoritarianism) and different adjectives (e.g. electoral, competitive, semi, defective) the whole discussion shares similar issues. The article claims that in order to understand the whole debate, it is essential to understand how the very categories work and to be clear about the definitions of democracies, since these two variables determine how the concepts are used on the ladder of generality and how their definitions are constructed, and also how far we can draw a line for democratic regimes. In spite of the pluralism of the terms and approaches, the article also argues, that we should exclude regimes characterized as hegemonic authoritarian on one side and polyarchy on the other from the discussion of the hybrid regimes.

The book is based on the author's recurrent guest lectures at the U. of Warsaw delivered throughout the past decade. It examines political processes in Eastern Europe after the fall of the communist system and collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989-1991. It explores both the structural factors that determined very different development of postcommunist states and the role of domestic and international actors that influenced the direction and speed and scope of postcommunist transformations. While the author keeps all the East Europe in mind, the main focus is on the post-Soviet part of the Eastern Europe, specifically on Ukraine as the most complicated, ambivalent, and graphical case of both the decommunization and decolonization. The process tracing is combined in the study with political analysis of historical developments in the postcommunist Eastern Europe drawn primarily on the theories of hybrid regimes, illiberal democracies, path-dependence and revolutionary breakthroughs.

Pakistan has had a chequered democratic history but elections in 2013 marked a second turnover in power, and the first transition in Pakistan’s history from one freely elected government to another. How do we best categorize (and therefore  understand) political developments in Pakistan? Is it now safe to categorize it as an electoral democracy or is it still a hybrid case of democracy? Using the Pakistani case as an example, this article argues that hybrid regimes deserve consideration as a separate case (rather than as a diminished subtype of democracy or authoritarianism), but must be categorized along a multidimensional continuum to understand the dynamics of power within the political system.

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The claim I defend in this letter is that the recent Southeast European post-communist experience changed our understanding of state capture. We are now able to observe and identify a new variant of state capture. To understand it, we have to take into account the relevant practices of this region and its peculiarities. The main novelty is that state capture is not anymore merely about economic agents getting policy and regulatory advantage. It is neither about politicians getting rich. It is primarily about political parties as political machinery to collect votes. Party patronage becomes the main element of state capture.

Economic sanctions achieve their intended political objective if the cost of defiance becomes greater than the cost of compliance for the target, forcing an alteration to the objectionable policy towards which sanctions were initially enacted.  Sanctions models have evolved over time in response to political dynamics and resiliency of target regimes. The most recent model to emerge is called the bargaining approach, under which sanctions become "a form of persuasion, a tool for encouraging targeted regimes to reevaluate their policy options."  Consequently, "sanctions are not as policy unto themselves but are part of a continuum of policy instruments from the negative to the positive, designed to encourage political compromise and spark a process of dialogue and negotiation,"  provided that the leadership of the target is willing to cooperate and negotiate. Sanctions under this model are intended to instigate bargaining and compromise, rather than be punitive, to reduce or end a conflict caused by an objectionable action by the target.
This thesis contributes to the literature on sanctions and resilience tactics through a comprehensive analysis of the sanctions imposed on Iran for over three decades. It investigates how the application of a bargaining model of sanctions successfully increased the cost of defiance for Iran, effecting enough pressure on the regime to concede to the sanctions' objectives and alter its objectionable policy, resulting in a peaceful resolution to an international dispute. It argues that the shift in sanctions narrative by the senders downplayed the role of ideology in Iran's hybrid regime, which had been historically used to reinforce the regime's counter-narrative against sanctions and maintain its legitimacy. Findings of this thesis are important for future episodes of sanctions in complex cases, such as Iran's, as it documents how the perceived and intended objectives of sanctions can converge to achieve an optimum result with a non-zero-sum outcome.
Specifically, this thesis seeks to answer the following questions:  First, given that hybrid regimes are expected to be short-lived under external shocks such as economic sanctions, how did Iran's hybrid regime survive international sanctions for almost three decades and why? Second, how and when did sanctions function differently, leading to Iran's altered policy on a core issue of its sovereignty without compromising on its legitimacy at home and abroad?

In August 2012, the Indonesian parliament passed a law that confirmed the status of the province of Yogyakarta as a so-called Special Region. This status had been in place since Indonesian independence, however, decentralization policies introduced after the fall of Suharto in 1998 raised questions about its legal foundations. The 2012 law appoints the traditional ruler of the former Sultanate of Yogyakarta, Sultan Hamengkubuwono, as governor of the region without the need for an election. This regulation makes Yogyakarta the only province in contemporary Indonesia whose governor is not freely elected by the people. The law therefore formalized a unique hybrid system of government for Yogyakarta in which elements of democratic rule are combined with features of a traditional monarchy.

This thesis examines the reasons why Yogyakarta has been able to retain the sultan's privileges in the face of significant political pressure from the central government to introduce free gubernatorial elections in Yogyakarta. Building on insights from historical institutionalism, the thesis analyses the historical roots of the sultanate, its evolution under different political regimes and its configuration in the post-Suharto era. Focusing on sources of the sultan's power and legitimacy, institutional arrangements and the sultan's relations with various interest groups, the thesis argues that Yogyakarta retained its special status primarily because the central government missed the opportunity to change its status in the wake of the critical juncture of 1998. Once this opportunity was missed, path dependency dictated the continuation of existing institutional arrangements, even if these arrangements rested on ambiguous legal foundations. After 1998, the sultan used successful local development, patron-client relations and control over land to boost his legitimacy and cement his power. Thus, by the time the central government proposed to turn the sultan into a purely ceremonial leader, it found virtually no support for its plans.

Abstrak - Lee Kuan Yew merupakan Perdana Menteri Singapura pada periode 1953-1990. Dalam masa kepemimpinannya, Lee menuai pro-kontrasi gaya kepemimpinan yang otoriter sekaligus demokratis, yang kemudian disebut sebagai mobokrasi atau hybrid regime atau ‘Demokrasi ala Asia’ yaitu membatasi kebebasan demokrasi dengan tujuan untuk dapat memelihara tradisi komunitas di Singapura. Oleh beberapa pakar, Lee digambarkan sebagai pemimpin yang kharismatik, diktator, dan sekaligus pemimpin transformasional, karena mampu memotivasi dan membawa kemajuan besar pada semua sektor. Model kepemimpinan Lee telah menjadi alat pemelihara proses politik dan ekonomi Singapura yang berkinerja tinggi dan stabil, dalam waktu yang bersamaan. Lee berhasil merubah Singapura menjadi negara maju dan negara metropolitan ketiga di dunia dengan waktu yang relatif singkat (tiga dekade). Oleh The Heritage Foundation dalam 2013 Ten Economic Freedom, Singapura mendapat peringkat kedua dunia dengan skor rata-rata 88.0 sebagai negara yang memiliki kepatuhan hukum, pemerintahan yang terbatas, efisiensi, dan pasar tebuka. Selain itu, Singapura berhasil memperoleh GDP US$14.000, serta negara yang bersih dari
korupsi.
Kata Kunci: kepemimpinan, demokrasi, otoriter, Lee Kuan Yew

Abstract - Lee Kuan Yew was the Prime Minister of Singapore in the period of 1953-1990. During his
leadership, Lee evoked the controversy of an authoritarian and democratic leadership style, which was known as mobocracy or hybrid regime that limits the democratic freedom with the aim at maintaining the traditions of the community in Singapore. Some experts think that Lee is described as a charismatic, dictator and transformational leader because he is able to motivate and bring great progress to all sectors. At the same time, Lee's leadership model has become a tool for maintaining Singapore's high-performance and stable political and economic processes. Lee managed to turn Singapore into a developed country and the third metropolitan country in the world with a relatively short time (three decades). By The Heritage Foundation in the 2013 Ten Economic Freedom, Singapore was the second rank in the world with an average score of 88.0 as a country that has legal compliance, limited governance, efficiency, and open markets. In addition, Singapore managed to obtain US $ 14,000 GDP, as well as a country that is free from corruption.
Keywords: leadership, democracy, authoritarian, Lee Kuan Yew

This article analyzes Myanmar's transition from authoritarianism and asks if it represents a transition towards democracy or a hybrid form of rule. Starting from theoretical debates about modes of transition, the article examines competing discourses on Myanmar's opening and argues that it resembles an imposed more than a negotiated transition. Next, the article analyzes the links between this mode of transition and its outcomes, and finds that contemporary Myanmar is characterized by a combination of formal institutions for democratic representation, civilian government , and power-sharing, and problems of weak popular representation, limited civilian control of the military, and continued centralization of state authority. The article concludes that Myanmar's political trajectory remains open-ended, but also that Myanmar, at least for the time being, seems more accurately described as a relatively stable hybrid regime than as a country that is in transition to democracy.

Turkey’s ‘authoritarian turn’ in recent years indicates a democratic breakdown that can best be analysed by analytically distinguishing between two simultaneous developments. The first is the reproduction of Turkey’s long-existing semi-democratic regime – which the article calls old authoritarianism – in a new historical and dominant political–ideological context and under an Islamist-leaning government. The second is the emergence of a new type of authoritarianism – dubbed new authoritarianism – that is in many respects unprecedented for Turkey, is in need of better comprehension and displays important parallels with contemporary troubles of democracy in the world. Focusing on political society and institutions is insufficient to adequately examine the emergent authoritarian regime, for example to identify it as a regime type, to explain its popular support and to foresee how durable and repressive, and to what extent party-based rather than personalistic, it may become. It is necessary to combine insights from the new political economy of welfare, transition and communication with those from political and institutional democratization. Doing so suggests that new authoritarianism generates a new kind of state–society relationship where, paradoxically, political power becomes simultaneously more particularistic, personalized and mass-based. Hence, new authoritarianism has democratizing potential, but can also become more oppressive than any other regime Turkey has previously experienced. Oscillation between these two outcomes is also possible.

This article addresses the conceptual challenges involved in mapping political regimes. The first section offers a critique of regime typologies that adopt a uni-dimensional approach to differentiating between political regimes. The second section shows why a two-dimensional typology is better grounded in liberal democratic theory as well as for analytically grasping the empirical variation between political regimes and regime change. The penultimate section proposes a classificatory scheme on the basis of a clear set of defining attributes of the two constitutive dimensions of liberal democracy – electoralism and constitutionalism. Equipped with this two-dimensional classificatory device the article proceeds in the last section to propose a regime typology with four main types of regime: democratic, constitutional-oligarchic, electoral-autocratic, and authoritarian. This provides a conceptual map in which the categories and subcategories developed by the literature on hybrid regimes can be located and analytically related to each other. The last section further divides the category of democratic regimes into four subtypes: liberal, constitutional, electoral, and limited.

The research field of regime theory has seen a proliferation of different approaches and typologies to explain the ever-changing reality. This paper has created a typology of these regime typologies and their respective datasets in order to describe and analyze their various merits for research. Finally this paper maps various typologies according to their most common research areas. The aim is to maximize the application potential each of specific typology, highlight their limits and aid scholars in their selection of typologies for qualitative or quantitative research in order to get a better understanding of democratization processes or regime theories.

The paper focuses on the unique, role model characteristics of the Hungarian hybrid regime, the Hungarian political system's new incarnation forged in the past years' democratic backsliding process. Following the short review of the main hybrid regime literature and the key analyses putting the democratic quality of the Hungarian political system under the microscope, the paper argues that Hungary's EU membership, the competencies of EU institutions and the scope of EU law, has played a crucial role in the development of the system's unique characteristics. Based on this argument, the paper qualifies Hungary as an " externally constrained hybrid regime ". However, the EU does not only fulfil system constraining functions regarding the Hungarian regime, but performs system support and system legitimation functions as well. At the end of the day the changing scope of these functions determined by the European integration's internal dynamics influences first and foremost the Hungarian power elite's strategic considerations about the country's future EU membership.

Burni događaji opisani i analizirani u ovoj knjizi govore o dramatičnom usponu i padu demokratije posle Petog oktobra – u svega deceniju i po. Posle masovnog otpora izbornoj krađi i sloma nedemokratskog režima uspostavljene su dinamične demokratske ustanove koje su opstale tokom više izbornih ciklusa, obeležene snažnim političkim takmičenjem, širokom participacijom civilnog društva i neprestanim pokušajima kontrole javnih funkcionera od strane javnosti. Ključni politički sukobi rešavani su demokratskim putem, na izborima i uglavnom unutar političkih ustanova, bitno menjajući odnose političkih snaga i određujući politiku zemlje, uprkos eksplozivne politike identiteta, institucionalnog nasleđa ličnog režima i nepovoljnih međunarodnih okolnosti. Posle prve decenije demokratizacije javljaju se prva neformalna ograničenja medijskih sloboda, koja se postepeno i sistematski pojačavaju posle povratka na vlast obnovljenih stranaka starog režima i kolapsa petooktobarskih stranaka, kulminirajući u slomu demokratije i usponu novog autoritarizma. Takva ocena izvire iz obimnog istraživanja konfliktne strane demokratizacije u ovom razdoblju, uključujući analizu sadržaja medijskog izveštavanja o ključnim političkim sukobima, razgovore sa ključnim protagonistima iz političkog i civilnog društva i istorijsko-institucionalnu analizu – u širem miljeu relevantne akademske literature i iskustava demokratizacije u našem i drugim svetskim regionima.

In a clear delineation to the mainstream EU rule of law compliance literature that is dominated by a legal approach, the paper argues that first and foremost not the deficiencies of the existing legal framework contributed to the expansion of the European democracy and rule of law crisis, but the political settings and institutional traditions that hampered a more effective, straightforward and strategic deployment of the existing legal instruments.
Based on structured stakeholder interviews and qualitative documentary research the paper identifies four key political challenges that mostly hindered the European institutions, especially the European Commission, and bona fide Member States in fulfilling their treaty obligations, and in the safeguarding and promotion of European values. Putting these four shortcoming under the microscope, the paper argues for an enhanced constitutional awareness of the Commission that differentiates between Article 2 TEU related “constitutional issues” and matters of “ordinary EU law” and enables the systematic enforcement of substantial output compliance, in contrast to the current praxis of the Commission that is mostly characterized by its approval to symbolic and procedural compliance and the arbitrary use of the Commission’s high margin of discretion. Identifying the inter-institutional power struggles and the duopolization of Article 2 TEU related legal interpretation by the Commission and the Council’s Legal Service as further key obstacles in the way of effective safeguarding of liberal democratic values, the article also calls for a constructive inter-institutional cooperation at the field and for the practical restoration of the CJEU’s position as supreme interpreter of EU law with regard to Article 2 and 7 TEU. Ultimately the paper analyses three actual political initiatives at the field: the European Parliament’s “DRF Pact”, the proposal for a rule of law peer review in the Council, and the Commission’s MFF rule of law conditionality proposal.

“Neformalʹni instytuty ta neopatrymonialʹna demokratiya v Ukrayini (Informal Institutions and Ukraine’s Neopatrimonial Democracy),” Agora, No. 17 (2016): 9-13.

Стаття присвячена аналізу українського політичного розвитку після революції Євромайдану в лютому 2014. Нова система української неопатримоніальної демократії сприяє створенню як формальних, так і неформальних перешкод і обмежень для розвитку суперпрезидентського режиму та формування режиму особистої влади (перш за все, завдяки прем’єр-президентській системі та впливу конкуренції кількох олігархічних клієнтарно-патронажних мереж на розподіл влади на національному та регіональному рівнях). Формальні і неформальні правила конкуренції неопатримоніальних акторів у прем'єр-президентській республіці ускладнюють «захоплення держави» представниками однієї олігархічної групи, як і монополізацію політичного простору одним політичним і економічним кланом.

The article approaches the concept of structural violence by elaborating on the idea of fear as an indicator of social or individual self-destruction. It argues that learning to read fear is an important skill for individuation and, therefore, a part of resistance to oppressive practices. Based on Tolstoy’s political thought, the article draws attention to honesty, gratefulness, love, trust, creative act and responsibility as essential conditions for developing sensibility to read fear and the social structures. Likewise, the article looks at several popular series and literary pieces in each other’s context as an existing intellectual or even social discourse with a special emphasis on the science fiction and fantasy genres in the context of spiritual anti-hierarchical thought. A distinction is made between organic fear –a natural emotion with a function of developing self-recognitio– and structural fear –a tool for manipulation and control over individuals employed by social institutions. The natural character of the emotion, in other words, the experience of fear common to every person, makes it a convenient mechanism of control over the Other. The article uses the findings to support the qualitative turn in the social studies and particularly the tendency towards the holistic or ecological approach to data selection and data interpretation.

How do discontented masses and opposition elites work together to engineer a change in electoral authoritarian regimes? Social movements and elections are often seen as operating in different terrains – outside and inside institutions, respectively. In this Element, I develop a theory to describe how a broad-based social movement that champions a grievance shared by a wide segment of the population can build alliances across society and opposition elites that, despite the rules of the game rigged against them, vote the incumbents out of power. The broad-based nature of the movement also contributes to the cohesion of the opposition alliance, and elite defection, which are often crucial for regime change. This Element examines the 2018 Malaysian election and a range of cases from other authoritarian regimes across Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa to illustrate these arguments.
Full-text free download until February 23, 2022: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/street-and-the-ballot-box/984D9821A42E634531F41C1130A58738

Özet Seçimli otoriter rejimlerin, seçimlerle demokratikleşip, demokratikleşmeye-ceği yakın dönemin popüler konularından biridir. Literatürde seçimli otoriter rejimlerden, rekabetçi otoriter olarak anılanlarının, seçimlerle demokratik-leşme imkanının bulunduğu teslim edilmiştir. Son dönemde yapılan çalışma-larda ise seçimlerin hangi şartlarda başarı getirdiği tartışılmış ve muhalefetin "seçim ittifakına" gittiği seçimlerde iktidarın el değiştirdiği veyahut "özgürleş-tirici seçim sonuçları" elde edildiği görülmüştür. Türkiye'de de 2014 yılından itibaren muhalefet "seçim ittifakına" gitmeye başlamıştır. Başarısız olan iki denemeden sonra 31 Mart Yerel Seçimlerinde muhalefet ittifakı önemli kaza-nımlar elde etmiştir. Bu çalışma muhalefet ittifakının elde ettiği kazanımların yakın vadede "özgürleştirici seçim sonuçları" sunacağını iddia edecek ve bu sonuçlara dair projeksiyonlarda bulunacaktır. Çalışmanın bu iddiası aynı za-manda literatürdeki "seçim ittifakları otoriter rejimlerden çıkışta en etkili de-mokratik yöntemdir" bulgusunun Türkiye örneğinde de doğrulandığını gös-termektedir. Abstract It is one of the most popular topics of the recent period whether the electoral authoritarian regimes will be or not will be democratized by elections. In the literature, it has been submitted that there is a possibility of democratization

An election is an irreducible and legal process in a democracy where political parties choose their next leader for political institutions to govern. It is a nonviolent resolution of societal difference. But elections in some countries have been violent and have taken many innocent lives. This article focuses on the major causes of election violence worldwide by systematically exploring election violence studies.

Książka jest pogłębioną analizą trajektorii ustrojowych Indii i Pakistanu, pozostających ze sobą w przewlekłym konflikcie państw nuklearnych. W kontekście bieżących tendencji autorytarnych w Azji Południowej i poza jej granicami, wskazuje na uwarunkowania sukcesów i załamań procesów demokratyzacji, które z różnym powodzeniem zachodzą w Indiach i Pakistanie. Jest pierwszą pracą porównawczą tego typu w literaturze polskojęzycznej. Napisana przystępnym językiem przeznaczona jest dla wszystkich osób zainteresowanych współczesnymi Indiami i Pakistanem, w szczególności dla badaczy, dziennikarzy, przedstawicieli organizacji pozarządowych i studentów. Pozwoli czytelnikowi lepiej zrozumieć skomplikowane procesy polityczne zachodzące w tym coraz ważniejszym regionie świata.

Religion has influenced Ugandan politics ever since colonial times. While the interrelations of religion and politics have altered since the coming to power of president Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM), religion continues to influence Ugandan public culture and formal politics in important ways. Building on ethnographic fieldwork in Kampala and Acholi, as well as analysis of media reporting and discussions in social media, this article focuses on the role of religious leaders during Uganda’s 2016 parliamentary and presidential elections. We argue that the striking differences between Ugandan clerics’ teaching on politics relate in part to genuine differences in religious beliefs, but also to patronage, intimidation, and ethnicity, and to the strategic calculations religious leaders make about how best to affect change in a constricted political environment. In discussion with previous research on religion and politics in Africa, and utilising analytical concepts from the study of publics, the article proposes a model of religious (de)politicisation, whereby both the politicising and depoliticising effects of religion are acknowledged. To do so, the analysis distinguishes between NGO-ised and enchanted planes of religion, and shows that on both planes, religion contributed simultaneously to enhancing and diminishing the space for public debate in election-time Uganda. While many religious leaders actively or silently supported the incumbent regime, religious leaders also took vocal public stands, fostered political action, and catered for vernacular imaginaries of political critique, by so doing expanding the space of public debate. However, by performing public debate that remained vague on crucial issues, and by promoting a religious narrative of peace, religious leaders participated in the enactment of a façade of political debate, in so doing legitimising the autocratic facets of Museveni’s hybrid regime. Acknowledging religion as an important constituent of public culture contributes to more nuanced understandings of election dynamics in Eastern Africa.

This article examines the characteristics of the current political regime in Turkey in an attempt to classify it on the democracy-autocracy spectrum. Borrowing the definition of competitive authoritarian regimes from Levitsky and Way, three defining regime attributes are investigated: elections; protection of civil liberties; and a level playing field for the opposition. The main argument is that the current Turkish regime fits the definition of ‘electoral authoritarianism’ on multiple fronts, especially considering the lack of civil liberties protection and the uneven playing field for the political opposition. The prospects for further democratization also look bleak for the foreseeable future.

The object of this paper is to determine what kind of state is being built in Ukraine: a liberal-democratic or an authoritarian one. This article gives a brief overview of the concepts of the ‘rule of law’, ‘liberal democracy’, and ‘hybrid regimes’. It shows general trends in the status and development of democracy in East-Central Europe and identifies the main risks for democracy development in Ukraine. The paper closely examines the public administration and the judicial system of Ukraine, the work of its Central Election Commission (CEC), and the functioning of mass media and social media. The article shows that the powers of the presidential office have been expanded since 2016 while at the same time undermining democratic institutions established in the aftermath of the Euromaidan revolution.

Abstract: Originally the linkage & leverage theory was conceptualized by S. Levitsky & L. Way to measure and analyze democracy promotion by the West. J. Tolstrup updated their model, making it neutral by adapting the Western-centered mid-level theory to cover authoritarian promotion as well. This paper is a continuation of this model and an attempt to make it more concrete and useful. The author provides an instrumentarium of how (great) powers have used various forms of linkage in support of other (authoritarian) regimes in order to integrate or consolidate that state’s position within the former’s zone of influence. Further this set of tools shows how the same forms of linkage can be used to destabilize or coerce non-compliant regimes or even bring about regime change. In response, as Tolstrup observed, target regimes are no toys in the hands of great powers, they have agency as well and can use gatekeeping techniques in order to erode various forms of linkage. Some of these gatekeeping methods are also described. The instrumentarium is not exhaustive nor normative, but hopefully provides a new stepping-stone in the mid-level study of autocracy and democracy promotion within international relations.
Keywords: Authoritarian promotion, Democratization, Linkage, Leverage, Gatekeeping, Black Knight, regime overthrow, Coup d’état, Coup proofing techniques, Dependency.

This article challenges the use of diminished subtypes as a strategy for avoiding conceptual stretching in the conceptual construction of hybrid regimes. The popular adoption of this strategy is based on its perceived ability to increase analytical differentiation and, more relevantly, avoid conceptual stretching by making a more modest claim about the extent of authoritarianism and democracy. Using this strategy, regimes are classified according to any additional or missing properties they contain vis-à-vis these two root concepts. This is demonstrated by an influential body of scholarship using elections as the defining property (e.g.,'competitive authoritarianism' and 'pseudodemocracy').The problem, however, is that the creation of these subtypes is premised on a 'true' democratic definition of elections: a method for selecting and empowering political representatives through a competition for people's votes (albeit without freedom and fairness).This article argues that in attempting to avoid stretching the meaning of authoritarianism and democracy, scholars have inadvertently displaced concept stretching by assuming that the meaning of democratic elections is applicable to hybrid regimes. Instead, it is proposed that elections in hybrid regimes can have at least three alternatives roles: legitimation, patronage and elite management.This article concludes by discussing the implications of this finding for the field of comparative studies and proposes three solutions to help guard against conceptual stretching in the future.

How do the survival incentives facing incumbents in hybrid regimes affect the engineering of bureaucratic reforms? This article tackles this question by departing from the literature on competitive authoritarianism and with the help of detailed empirical evidence from Georgia’s public administration reforms (2004–2012). It first argues that in order to preserve their hold on power, dominant parties have to tilt the political playing field, while still upholding popular support. I posit that this dual incentive structure leads the incumbents to promote efficiency of public service, but to also curb these policies at a point that would jeopardize their ability to use administrative resources for partisan ends. Consequently, bureaucratic reforms reach a saturation point, beyond which no more reforms can be endured.