5 - Regimes and Institutions

Summary

The regime concept has featured prominently in Comparative Politics in the last three decades. In the comparative democratization literature, the notion of regime transition and consolidation has provided the direction of much research across regions of the world. It has generated interest in measuring the progress countries make in becoming democratic systems. The indicators provided by Freedom House and the more recently established Varieties of Democracy Institute constitute valuable data for these global comparisons. The merit of relying primarily on such indicators, however, has increasingly come into question as political developments around the world challenge the notion that democracy is the only type of regime that matters. The significant backsliding in recent years confirms the rise of new challenges to democracy (Bermeo 2016; Waldner and Lust 2018). In parallel with this reversal, countries around the world are developing their own regimes reflecting the social and economic conditions on the ground. These structural factors explain, among other things, the rise of populist leaders who may allow electoral competition but put restrictions on other democratic rights (Levitsky and Way 2010). These leaders are a product of changes in society, not just examples of deviant political behavior.