A hybrid regime is a mixed type of political regime that is often created as a result of an incomplete transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes combine autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections. Hybrid regimes are regimes that are neither fully democratic nor fully authoritarian. According to political scientists, signs of a hybrid regime include the presence of external attributes of democracy (elections, multi-party system, legal opposition) and low level of trust in political institutions by citizens. Hybrid regimes are described as regimes with weak pluralism syndrome – regular elections, with high level of competition among the elite, weak political participation and corruption of elites. It is also described as a regime with a dominant power syndrome – the presence of decorative democratic institutions, weak opposition and erosion of borders between the state and the ruling party.
According to V-Dem Institute, the world’s leading research group for tracking democratic progress, there are only 34 liberal democracies in the world, the fewest since the mid-1990s. And only 13 percent of the world’s population lives in one of those countries—down from 18 percent 10 years ago. Some countries that lose their democratic status fully autocratize and become military dictatorships. But V-Dem’s recently released 2022 report suggests that the much more potent threat to democracy is not dictatorship but rather what the institute calls “electoral autocracy.” Under that system, elections continue to be held, but the government rigs the political process by controlling the media, harassing critical journalists, and unconstitutionally expanding executive power. Forty-four percent of the world’s population currently lives in an electoral autocracy, according to V-Dem. Countries that are in this category (or are rapidly moving toward it) include Brazil, India, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, among many others.
In March 2021, US-based non-profit Freedom House in its annual report on global political rights and liberties downgraded India from a free democracy to a “partially free democracy”. The previous week, Sweden-based V-Dem Institute said India had become an “electoral autocracy”. And the month before that, India, described as a “flawed democracy”, slipped two places to 53rd position in the Democracy Index published by The Economist Intelligence Unit. The rankings blame Modi and his Hindu nationalist BJP government for the backsliding of democracy. Under Modi’s watch, they say, there has been increased pressure on human rights groups, intimidation of journalists and activists, and a spate of attacks, especially against Muslims. This, they add, has led to a deterioration of political and civil liberties in the country.
According to V Dem, India’s autocratisation process has largely followed the typical pattern – which is a gradual deterioration where freedom of the media, academia, and civil society were curtailed first and to the greatest extent. In an electoral autocracy, the democratic institutions that exist are imitative and there are systematic violations of liberal democratic norms. So, is India a hybrid regime or is it becoming one? For those who can read the signs, the answer is simple.