The Effects of Electoral Systems on Hybrid-Regimes

The concept of hybrid regimes is a much researched and hotly debated topic. Despite the extensive research regarding how to define such regimes little research has been produced on potential effects unique to hybrid regimes. A common occurrence in hybrid regimes is the waxing and waning quality characteristic of their elections. This is in part simply related to political structures and general volatility in these countries. Nevertheless, in some countries democratic elections were what opened up government to power grabs by political parties and presidential strongmen. This can be seen in the cases of Alberto Fujimori in Peru, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, or the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy in Zambia. This research explores the role the electoral systems themselves play in destabilizing the democratic process and in concentrating power of legislative and executive in the hands of actors willing to misuse these powers. This poses the question whether some electoral systems are inherently prone to produce hybrid regimes or to lead to reduction in democratic quality or whether other factors are prevailing. It appears logical that the structure of the electoral system either allows democracies to devolve into hybrid regimes or may give governments the tools to develop what effectively are one-party systems. This research follows the approach proposed by Joakim Ekman (2009) to identify hybrid regimes. His approach to identifying hybrid regimes combines a minimum threshold for electoral process signifying the flawed quality of a regimes’ democracy together with five traits which he considers autocratic. These traits are significant levels of corruption, lack of democratic quality, a problematic press freedom situation, a poor civil liberty situation and a lack of a true rule of law. Through a modified version of this approach 60 countries are identified as under hybrid regime government in the years between 1991 to 2017. This number of total cases rises to 104 if every separate electoral system applied during this time period is considered a separate case. Even at this number there are too few cases to use a full quantitative analysis. Instead, the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is employed in order to assess the potential effects of electoral systems. Through the use of the QCA method it will be possible to contrast which versions of electoral systems facilitate the formation of single-party or personalist regimes and which systems appear to counteract them. This method will also allow to answer the question whether it is the basic design of the electoral systems itself that can account for the success or failure of hybrid regimes. It appears equally possible that the effects of electoral system are different in hybrid regimes from what would be expected in full democracies. This can also be tested for through the QCA method by not just comparing the electoral systems themselves but equally the political systems that result from them.