Diamond, Larry. "Thinking About Hybrid Regimes". Journal of Democracy, vol.13, no.2 (2002): 21-35.

Diamond, Larry. "Thinking About Hybrid Regimes". Journal of Democracy, vol.13, no.2 (2002): 21-35.

• Since the late 1990s, after the exhaustion of the third wave or democratization, a number of regimes have stopped democratization and appear to have stalled in the 'grey zone' between democracy and dictatorship. This regimes have the superficial features of democracy, but lack real or fully substantive competition, and seem unlikely to change in the near future (23).
• Hybrid regimes are not uniquely a trait of third wave democracies, as governments in Taiwan, Southern Rhodesia, and elsewhere have had them since the 1960s. These governments often started off as partial democracies, before gradually including additional actors and expanding to fuller democracies -- similar to transitions from oligarchic to popular politics in Latin America, optimizing Dahl's ideal path to stable polyarchy (23).
• However, until the 1980s very little existed of competitive or multiparty systems within authoritarian regimes. This form of competitive authoritarianism or electoral authoritarian, as discussed by Levitsky and Way (2002), is a phenomenon of the modern period, where all countries purposefully try to mimic democratic systems (24).
• The third wave of democracies is characterized by an increased number of illiberal democracies, which most of the states in African and the former Soviet Union fall into this category (25).
• The author divides the governments he studies into six categories for easier analysis: liberal democracy, electoral democracy, ambiguous regimes, competitive authoritarianism, hegemonic electoral authoritarianism, and politically closed authoritarianism (26).
• Since the 1970s there has been a definitive trend away from political closed (or classic dictatorial) authoritarianism. The trend has been towards other forms of hegemonic or competitive authoritarianism -- most of them former dictatorships. There has been less of an increase towards liberal democracies (27).
• Countries with populations of under 1 million are substantially more likely to be democracies, whereas larger countries are both more likely to be dictatorships and more likely to be various forms of pseudo-democracies (27). 
• Distinction between the different kinds of systems are difficult to determine, with the most being the difference between electoral democracies and electoral authoritarianism. This really depends on value judgements about how free elections are, what media rights are guaranteed, and inclusivity of the electoral process (28).
• Many characteristics can separate electoral and liberal democracies, but these are likewise difficult to determine. The largest determinants are lack of restrictions of registration, media freedom, and the presence of violence in the electoral system. Thus, India -- where violence in regions like Bihar is systematic and common -- is not a liberal democracy (28).
• In is also difficult to determine between competitive authoritarianism and electoral authoritarianism. Generally, the author recommends using the number of years a single ruler has been in power and the number of seats held by the ruling party. In competitive authoritarianism there is significant opposition that could contest power, whereas electoral hegemonic authoritarianism the dominant power has complete domination over the reins of power (29).
• The author stressed that along this is an important step in understand major categories of authoritarian rule and establishing a rough gradient, each authoritarian regime is unique and has specific rules. Moreover, this does not necessarily translate to democratization or on-the-ground realities, as totally closed systems like China have ways to share power and some competitive authoritarian regimes may be more brutal than more dictatorial systems (33).