POLI 359 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Comparative Politics, Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism

• School: University of Calgary
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 359
• Professor: Susan Franceschet

Document Summary

Understanding of hybrid regimes matters for comparative politics because it allows us to clearly understand the transformations of political systems. Through understanding the transitioning regimes certain variables are becoming more visible and significant. The clear understating of the term"s regime, authoritarianism and democracy clarify the reasons for the proposed definition of hybrid regime. It further allows us, to investigate if there are hybrid regimes or it"s just an illusion. The author argues that, having proposed definitions for minimal democracy, traditional regime, and authoritarianism, allow us to start delineating hybrid regimes. Agreeably, author"s this claim is valid because having clear definitions of above three concepts allows us to distinguish that the hybrid regimes are more than just mixed regimes. However, some of the definition about the hybrid regimes that the author lists has problems which adds up to unclarity of the concept.