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Democratization
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Mapping 'Hybrid Regimes': Regime Types and Concepts in Comparative Politics

Mikael Wigell

Online Publication Date: 01 April 2008

To cite this Article Wigell, Mikael(2008)'Mapping 'Hybrid Regimes': Regime Types and Concepts in Comparative

Politics',Democratization,15:2,230 250
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13510340701846319 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13510340701846319

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Mapping Hybrid Regimes: Regime Types and Concepts in Comparative Politics

MIKAEL WIGELL

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This article addresses the conceptual challenges involved in mapping political regimes. The rst section offers a critique of regime typologies that adopt a uni-dimensional approach to differentiating between political regimes. The second section shows why a two-dimensional typology is better grounded in liberal democratic theory as well as for analytically grasping the empirical variation between political regimes and regime change. The penultimate section proposes a classicatory scheme on the basis of a clear set of dening attributes of the two constitutive dimensions of liberal democracy electoralism and constitutionalism. Equipped with this two-dimensional classicatory device the article proceeds in the last section to propose a regime typology with four main types of regime: democratic, constitutional-oligarchic, electoral-autocratic, and authoritarian. This provides a conceptual map in which the categories and subcategories developed by the literature on hybrid regimes can be located and analytically related to each other. The last section further divides the category of democratic regimes into four subtypes: liberal, constitutional, electoral, and limited. Key words: regime types; hybrid regimes; electoralism; constitutionalism

Introduction In the wake of the third global wave of democratization, a wide array of new political regimes has emerged. Despite important steps towards more democratic politics, it has become clear that many of these new political regimes in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former communist world differ profoundly both from each other and from the older western democracies. To differing extents, these regimes combine democratic features with authoritarian practices placing them in a grey zone1 between closed authoritarianism and liberal democracy. A central question in comparative politics has become how to classify these hybrid regimes. This presents students of comparative politics with a number of conceptual challenges. Most importantly, regime analysts need to solve the problem of creating analytic differentiation between these diverse forms of political regimes without stretching their concepts to cases that do not t reasonable criteria of conceptual validity. This calls for conceptual innovation in comparative regime analysis. Scholars have stressed the importance of re-thinking key concepts found in the literature on political regimes in order to allow for typologies that can better describe these new political practices and serve as a better basis for cross-national comparison of political regimes.

Mikael Wigell is a doctoral candidate at the Development Studies Institute (DESTIN), London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Democratization, Vol.15, No.2, April 2008, pp.230250 ISSN 1351-0347 print/1743-890X online DOI: 10.1080/13510340701846319 # 2008 Taylor & Francis

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This article sets out to tackle the conceptual challenges involved with the mapping of political regimes. It proposes a two-dimensional typology for the classication of types and subtypes of political regimes. Recent literature on hybrid regimes has made signicant contributions to exposing the limitations of uni-dimensional concepts for describing and analyzing current political practices, and taken important steps toward understanding variation between political regimes in the wake of the third wave of democratization. Hence, it is important that any new classicatory scheme builds on these conceptual innovations. Nevertheless, the literature on hybrid regimes suffers from its own problems, and it is imperative that these shortcomings are addressed. Indeed, problems have arisen that have led to conceptual confusion and further unsettling of the semantic eld of regime analysis.2 The two-dimensional typology provides a way of systematizing this semantic eld. It builds an integrated classicatory scheme on the basis of a two-dimensional concept of liberal democracy. The two constitutive dimensions of liberal democracy are electoralism and constitutionalism. Equipped with this two-dimensional classicatory device, the conceptual space can be expanded beyond uni-dimensional and aggregated indices of democraticness to the entire semantic eld of regimes analysis. Accordingly, the article proposes a regime typology with four main types of regime: democratic, constitutional-oligarchic, electoral-autocratic, and authoritarian. This provides us with a classicatory map in which the categories and subcategories developed by the literature on hybrid regimes can be located and analytically related to each other, bringing order to the terminological Babel3 that has marked the eld of comparative regime analysis in recent years. As such, the purpose of this article is not to actually classify cases, but rather to deal with the challenges involved with the mapping of political regimes on a conceptual level, although references will be made to some relevant cases, especially in Latin America, for illustrative purposes. Constructing Regime Typologies This article challenges regime typologies that adopt a uni-dimensional approach to differentiating between political regimes, typical for most indexes of democracy.4 It argues that political regimes are not necessarily distributed in a linear fashion along a single continuum. Reducing all differences between political regimes into a matter of the degree of democraticness disregards important categorical differences identied by qualitative regime analysis, such as delegative vs. tutelary democracy, democradura vs. dictablanda, or populist vs. oligarchic democracy. For instance, the difference between Argentina and Chile in the 1990s is not foremost a question of one being more democratic than the other, but that they were differently democratic. Argentina under the Menem presidency was characterized as a delegative democracy a type of democracy with strong institutions of vertical accountability, but weak institutions of horizontal accountability.5 In Chiles posttransitional tutelary democracy the relationship was the reverse weak institutions of vertical accountability, but strong institutions of horizontal accountability. In Asia, Thailand is analytically an interesting case. After having adopted the

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Peoples Constitution in 1997 designed to provide for a powerful executive, the regime emerged as a paradigmatic case of a delegative democracy, under the Thai Rak Thai government. The military that overthrew the government in 2006, justied its actions by referring to Prime Minister Thaksins rampant corruption [and] political interference in government agencies and independent organizations.6 A new constitution put to a referendum by the military was designed to prevent the re-emergence of delegative democracy, and instead provide for a tutelary democracy with strong horizontal checks on executive power and anti-populist measures such as designated senators. On a uni-dimensional scale such important differences between types of democracy would remain outside the scope of analysis. Likewise, forcing the different types of authoritarianism into a uni-dimensional continuum restrains our ability to understand authoritarian politics. In such a constrained analytical space there is no room for descriptively richer categories such as bureaucratic-, populist-, competitive-, electoral- or liberal-authoritarianism.7 Indeed, on the Polity IV scale the populist regime of Argentinas President Juan Peron is given the exact same score as the military regime that took power in the country in 1976, forcing these two highly different authoritarianisms into the same category. Introducing categorical labels a posteriori on a graded, uni-dimensional scale will not really solve this problem. Using the Freedom House Index, Larry Diamond develops a conceptual scheme by dividing the aggregate scale into liberal democracies, electoral democracies, pseudo-democracies, and authoritarian regimes.8 He explicitly tries to develop a device for differentiating between political regimes both in terms of type and degree. Indeed, he nds it more fruitful to view democracy as a spectrum, with a range of variation in degree and form.9 Nonetheless, the potential gains of using Diamonds categories are illusionary, because even though Diamond discusses his four categories, there is really no way to know whether the scores generated by Freedom House correspond to his concepts. Indeed, the decision to attach these labels to different segments of the Freedom House scale are based on an ad hoc and quite arbitrary decision, as Gerardo Munck has pointed out.10 Hence, Diamonds model appears no different from other uni-dimensional, graded measures of democracy that only allow for comparing differences in degree. These studies construct summary measures of democraticness, as if democratization was uni-dimensional. Although they mark an improvement from dichotomous classications of democracy and non-democracy, they fail to convey how regimes may be differently democratic, or differently authoritarian. As a consequence, Diamond ends up classifying regimes as different as Switzerland and Honduras as the same type of liberal democracy.11 Nevertheless, the graded approach to building regime typologies has contributed to our understanding of democratization as a process that may involve crossing multiple thresholds. And moreover that this process does not necessarily unfold in a teleological fashion towards a fully edged democracy: countries may get stuck in between, in a state of semi-democracy or semi-authoritarianism. Hence, for many questions concerning the consequences of political regimes and for the understanding of politics in the wake of the third wave of democratization, the graded approach marks an improvement from the dichotomous approach advocated by such analysts as Giovanni Sartori and Adam Przeworski.12

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Simply classifying regimes as either democratic or non-democratic (or authoritarian) has become too parsimonious. Reality warrants typologies that are more sensitive to intermediate cases and categories. A dichotomous approach does not achieve enough analytic differentiation, as it risks effectively establishing only one type of regime liberal democracy all other cases go into the residual category of non-democracy. Furthermore, the dichotomous approach, when insisting on creating mutually exclusive categories, fails to see how there can actually exist an overlap between types of regimes.13 Clearly, the populist regime of Juan Peron was not a liberal democracy, but it shared some of the electoral elements that dene liberal democracy. Likewise, the constitutional monarchies of 19th century Western Europe were not liberal democracies, but shared some of the constitutional elements that are inherent in many a denition of liberal democracy, such as the respect for certain civil liberties and the separation of powers. The graded approach is clearly better positioned than an orthodox dichotomous approach to describe such overlap between democratic and authoritarian regimes. Incorporating gradations into regime typologies has thus contributed to our understanding of the hybrid nature of many third-wave democracies and how democratization is seldom a one-shot change that occurs overnight. Rather it is a process that emerges in fragments or parts,14 at a different pace and to varying extents, depending on the specic conditions of the countries in question. However, if we are to capitalize on this important nding we need a more nuanced classicatory scheme that neither the unidimensional graded approach nor the dichotomous approach is capable of producing. In sum, recent classicatory schemes, whether based on the dichotomous or the graded approach, have not lived up to the conceptual challenges posed by recent political developments around the world. The trichotomous approach advocated by Mainwaring et al. does not appear to fare much better in terms of describing the variation of democratization in Latin America. In Mainwaring et al.s classicatory scheme the regime categories are organized in a uni-dimensional, linear fashion: authoritarianism, semi-democracy, and democracy.15 Hence, it achieves greater differentiation than an orthodox dichotomous classication, for it recognises an intermediate category between non-democracy (authoritarianism) and democracy. But again, the descriptive utility of the classicatory scheme is limited, because the semantic eld remains restricted to highly aggregated regime types. For instance, the intermediate category of semi-democracy may include such diametrically opposite regime types as populism and oligarchical liberalism, both of which are referred to in the literature on Latin American politics. The same goes for Mainwaring et al.s two other categories: their descriptive utility remains limited as they do not differentiate between subtypes of regimes. Operating only with a minimal procedural denition of democracy, their classicatory scheme cannot distinguish between diminished subtypes of liberal democracy. As a consequence, post-transitional Argentina and Chile are simply classied as democracies, disregarding the very different institutional mix for forging democratic accountability in Argentina compared with Chile. Comparative regime analysis warrants typologies that account for such differences, both in type and degree. This requires expanding the analytical contrast space to the entire semantic eld of regime analysis.

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234 A Two-Dimensional Typology

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The problem with all these classicatory schemes is their uni-dimensionality. Instead, the classicatory scheme this article proposes in their place is based on a two-dimensional concept of liberal democracy. Such a conceptualization is better grounded in liberal democratic theory16, as well as doing a better job of analytically grasping the empirical variation between political regimes and regime change. Theoretically, liberal democracy is the joining of two distinct ideological traditions: political liberalism and democracy. The goal of democracy is popular government. In the ancient city-states popular government was organized through the direct participation of the citizens in their own governance. The contemporary era, however, reects the republican re-formulation of democracy in the nineteenth century, whereby democracy came to be seen as representative government in which citizens govern indirectly through representatives authorized to exercise power on their behalf.17 Representative democracy is above all a theory about how to insert popular power into government. Electoralism is a means to this end, it is the mechanism through which the citizens ensure representation of their interests. This representative relationship is directly related to the extent that the people can be said to govern itself. Central to the theory of representative democracy is the argument that regularly held elections produce governments that are accountable and responsive to the people. In contrast, the goal of liberalism is limited government. Liberalism is above all a theory about limiting and controlling the exercise of power. Constitutionalism is a means to this end, it is the mechanism through which the rule of law is upheld, preventing popular government from degenerating into majority tyranny, or outright anarchy. A simplied illustration of the function of liberal democracy can be found in Figure 1. Obviously, there are synergies between the liberal ideal of limited government under a rule of law and the democratic ideal of popular government accountable to the citizens via free and fair elections. Yet, the two are both conceptually and practically distinct. For analytical reasons they need to be separated. Liberal democratization involves at least two distinct processes: the insertion of popular power into the state through the means of elections, on the one hand, and the limitation of this power through the means of a constitutional order based on a rule of law, on the other hand. Empirically, liberal democracy is the synthesis of these two processes the electoral popularization and the constitutional liberalization of regimes. These two processes do not always evolve hand in hand. Indeed, history shows highly divergent patterns of popularization and liberalization, which reects the
FIGURE 1 THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC MECHANISM

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fact that the history of liberal democracy is a joining of these two, often antithetical, ideological traditions: democracy and political liberalism. Nineteenth century European political history is in many ways a story about liberalizing regimes. It saw the gradual expansion of civil freedoms and the institutionalization of constitutional rules for the separation of governmental powers. Absolutist monarchism gave way to a new form of rule, namely liberal authoritarianism. Only later, at the beginning of the 20th century, did these regimes nd it necessary to insert popular power into the state by enfranchising larger segments of society and inaugurating free and fair elections, and thus evolving into democratic regimes. In many ways, East and Southeast Asia have followed a similar pattern of gradual liberalization over a long period of time before popularization. In Latin America the rule of law took longer in coming, while the oligarchy resorted to patrimonial control of the popular classes, paving the way for populist caudillos to respond to the challenge of bringing the masses onto the electoral arena. Popularization thus often came swiftly, without liberalization, and with military coups often as reaction against such populist governance. Argentina under Juan Peron is of course the paradigmatic case of a populist authoritarian regime in which the electoral, populist elements are strong, whereas the constitutional, liberal elements are weak. Venezuela under its current President Hugo Chavez is a more recent example, and yet more examples can be found in post-colonial Africa. These examples from modern political history highlight how regimes can vary along the two dimensions of electoralism and constitutionalism, scoring high on one dimension and low on the other or vice versa. As a consequence, regime change is best understood as taking place in a two-dimensional space. History shows that a transition from authoritarian rule does not necessarily follow a linear path towards liberal democracy or back. Indeed, as Schmitter and Karl maintain, polities moving away from authoritarian rule can mix different components to produce different democracies. It is important to recognize that these do not dene points along a single continuum of improving performance, but a matrix of potential combinations that are differently democratic.18 Building on an earlier model by Robert Dahl,19 Figure 2 illustrates a two-dimensional space of political regime development, in which cases can be located on the basis of how they combine electoralism (Y-axis) and constitutionalism (X-axis). This two-dimensional classicatory space provides a descriptively richer device for the comparative analysis of political regimes and regime change than the uni-dimensional typologies discussed in the previous section. It opens up the analytical contrast space to the larger semantic eld of regime analysis by theoretically allowing for multiple paths of political evolution through any combination of popularization and liberalization. It recognizes, as critics of democratic teleology have pointed out, that transitions from authoritarian rule often lead not to democracy but to different forms of hybrid regimes, as has been the case in many parts of Africa and Central Asia in particular.20 A striking feature of recent global democratic developments has also been the hollowing out of many democracies, not only through a sudden breakdown of democracy and its replacement by military authoritarianism (as in Thailand, for example), but also through the progressive decay into some form of hybrid regime, most often

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FIGURE 2 POLITICAL REGIME TRAJECTORIES

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an electoral autocracy (as in Venezuela and Russia today). The model depicted in Figure 2 provides a more robust conceptualization of such political trajectories. It does not aim at explaining regime change, but merely strives for an improved description of political regimes that is essential for explaining their causes and consequences. However, the categorization still needs specication as to the boundaries between the different types of regimes and the specic attributes that dene these categories. Operationalization Having formulated a systematized concept of liberal democracy by disaggregating this root concept into its relevant dimensions electoralism and constitutionalism it is now time to discuss their dening attributes. We also need to establish the boundaries separating regime types and subtypes from one another. First the minimal electoral and constitutional criteria that separate all democracies from non-democracies need to be dened. The criteria for dening the democratic minimum proposed here comes close to standard procedural minimum denitions of democracy.21 The dening attributes of political democracy in the procedural tradition usually involve certain political rights that have do to with the electoral dimension of liberal democracy, as well as certain civil liberties that have to do with the constitutional dimension of liberal democracy. This latter set of conditions is particularly important in order to avoid falling prey to the fallacy of electoralism,22 something that an exclusive focus on electoral competition would lead to. Below I have listed eight conditions that must be present for modern political democracy to exist. Attributes 1 to 4 refer to the electoral dimension of democracy free, fair, competitive, and inclusive elections are seen as the basic institutions of political democracy.

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Attributes 4 to 8 refer to the constitutional dimension of democracy - the civil freedoms that are minimally necessary not only during but also between elections in order for elections to be meaningful. The following coding scheme is proposed here: Minimal Electoral Conditions The head of government and the legislature are chosen in: 1. Free Elections. Voters cast a secret ballot without interference (such as votebuying) or intimidation by rival political parties. No evidence of interference, intimidation, or violence broad enough to signicantly skew the electoral outcome. 2. Fair Elections. Correct and impartial application of the election law. The incumbent government does not exclude the opposition from campaigning resources or access to media. No reports about rigged elections or fraud broad enough to signicantly skew the electoral outcome. 3. Competitive Elections. The right of all adult citizens to run for ofce. Opposition candidates are not excluded from the electoral arena. 4. Inclusive Elections. All adult citizens possess the right to vote. No reports of disenfranchisement on class, gender, ethnic or educational grounds that are likely to prevent different electoral outcomes, or are unusually exclusionary for the historical period. Minimal Constitutional Conditions The state respects and guarantees: 5. Freedom of Organization. Citizens are free to form and join political parties, unions, and interest groups, including a vast array of autonomous associations and movements. No evidence of state actors banning major parties, trade unions, or interest groups, or that they are only allowed to exist under heavy governmental control. 6. Freedom of Expression. Citizens are free to express dissent in discussion, speech, publication, assembly, demonstration, and petition. No evidence of state actors systematically punishing or censoring dissent. 7. Right to Alternative Information. Citizens have access to alternative sources of information which are protected by law. If media is to a large extent stateowned, they must be controlled by independent or multi-party bodies. Alternative sources of political information exist outside government or ruling party control, and dissent is not routinely censored or punished. 8. Freedom from Discrimination. Cultural, ethnic, religious and other minority or gender groups are not prohibited from expressing their interests in the political process. No reports of a social group being prohibited legally or in practice from expressing its interests in the political process, on gender, cultural, ethnic, or religious grounds that are unusually discriminatory for the historical period. The above eight dening attributes are necessary conditions for political democracy. However, political democracy, as dened by these minimal requirements, is not

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a sufcient condition for liberal democracy. Recent literature on democracy and democratization has identied a number of perverse practices and authoritarian legacies that continue to thrive alongside political democracy in many third wave regimes.23 Hence, despite democratization, these regimes do not seem to function as expected by the feedback theory of democracy.24 That is to say, the introduction of democratic elections has not ensured liberal democratic rule. Such defects may amount to making the democratic process ineffective and, by all accounts, a democracy with low liberal democratic quality. Indeed, the literature expresses concern that multiparty elections, even if genuinely democratic according to these requirements, may effectively deny some sections of the population from advancing their interests, or even mask new forms of political, economic, or social repression of signicant segments of the population, typically unpopular minorities and the poor. This literature has, therefore, suggested that several additional attributes should be checked for when classifying political regimes. Some observers have even suggested expanding the procedural minimum denition of democracy to include additional criteria such as the effective agenda-setting power of elected ofcials, horizontal accountability and an effective rule of law.25 These are without doubt important elements of a liberal democracy. But they should not for analytical reasons be included in the root denition of political democracy. As Alvarez et al. have argued, maximalist denitions foreclose analysis of issues that may be just too interesting to be resolved by denitional at.26 To equate, for instance, electoral democracy with liberal democracy would only create parallel concepts while doing away with important analytical distinctions. Furthermore, raising the threshold of democracy risks unsettling the semantic eld, by reopening the denitional point of departure from which many scholars within the eld are working.27 Hence, the additional criteria that analysts like Terry Lynn Karl discuss are better included in a denition of liberal democracy, to be distinguished from the procedural minimum. The list below offers eight such additional conditions of liberal democracy. They amount to readily available criteria for further differentiation between political regimes. Additional Electoral Conditions 9. Electoral Empowerment. As democracy is about citizens wielding power, elections must de facto empower elected ofcials with the effective decisionmaking authority. Yet, the military has often retained the capacity to act independently of elected ofcials or even veto decisions made by the citizens representatives in certain policy domains limiting the jurisdiction of elective ofces. Specically, this attribute refers to so-called reserved domains,28 which are areas over which the military or other powerful unelected actors such as religious authorities, bureaucratic enclaves, and intelligence bodies hold constitutionally dened nal decision-making power in crucial policy areas that normally would fall under democratic control. Such undemocratic power enclaves should be strictly separated from specialized organs such as the central bank and the court system that have been democratically delegated

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certain autonomous powers and competencies. Reserved domains refer to the particular cases when the military or some other undemocratic actor in an act of self-empowerment has been able to impose constitutional prerogatives granting itself special privileges in certain areas of policy-making. As such, this condition requires us to check that popularly elected ofcials are empowered with effective decision-making authority in practice, and that there is no evidence of reserved domains severely limiting the jurisdiction of elective ofces. 10. Electoral Integrity. In a democracy votes should be weighted equally according to the principle of one person, one vote. Yet, even in perfectly clean elections, this principle may in practice be violated through institutionalized bias.29 Valenzuela stresses how electoral rules may be deliberately designed by actors who hold power at key moments of the rst transition to under-represent grossly signicant sectors of opinion while over-representing others.30 Snyder and Samuels have likewise drawn our attention to gross levels of malapportionment in some Latin American legislatures.31 Malapportionment means that the votes of some citizens will come to weigh more heavily than those of others. Snyder and Samuels emphasize how a grossly malapportioned lower chamber may violate the principle of fair elections. Hence, this condition requires us to check for institutional bias granting incumbents a decisive edge when votes are translated into seats and whether such biased rules keep an eventual loss of votes from turning into a loss of power. 11. Electoral Sovereignty. Popular government requires that the elected ofcials are able to exercise their constitutional powers. Elections must be meaningful in the sense of being consequential. Nevertheless, foreign powers, international organizations, religious authorities, and economic conglomerates often want to exercise broad control over popularly elected governments. This issue has become salient with the development of neo-colonial or neo-imperial arrangements in a number of places around the globe. Electoral sovereignty is put in jeopardy when elected ofcials need approval from actors outside the democratic process. Such non-democratically generated arrangements have been referred to as tutelary powers. These are actors that attempt to exercise broad oversight of the government and its policy decisions while claiming to represent vaguely formulated fundamental and enduring interests of the nation-state.32 In contrast to reserved domains, which refer to formal arrangements limiting the jurisdiction of elected ofces, tutelary powers are of more informal nature and their limits are ill-dened. Tutelary powers intervene in the political process without adhering to any predened rules. Instead, they exercise inuence through informal channels or through the inauguration of control-commissions that exercise broad, but vaguely dened, control over the conduct of elected governments. These control-commissions should not be confused with specialized bodies like constitutional courts, accounting ofces, ombudsmen or human rights commissions that perform as institutions of horizontal accountability, and therefore may be indispensable to liberal democracy. As such, this condition requires that we control for tutelary powers and, hence, nd no substantial evidence of

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elected ofcials being subjected to broad tutelage by actors outside the democratic process. 12. Electoral Irreversibility. The democratic method for forming popular government is through elections, which means the winners of government-forming elections have the legitimate right to exercise executive authority. The winners of elections must be able to assume ofce, exercise power, and conclude their term in accordance with constitutional rules.33 Losers must accept that the winners have the legitimate right to wield power on behalf of all citizens. The electoral mechanism is put in jeopardy when actors, such as the military, intelligence bodies, or paramilitary forces, exert inuence through violent participation in the electoral process. This perverse mechanism takes effect whenever elections are not seen as the sole, legitimate means for changing government, but when the use of force is seriously considered as an alternative means.34 Hence, for the electoral method to function as expected by democratic theory, elections need indeed be seen as the only means of lling elected ofces, and electoral outcomes as irreversible. As such, there should be no conclusive reports of elected ofcers being prevented from taking ofce or from concluding their constitutional terms through violent participation by non-democratic actors. Additional Constitutional Conditions 13. Executive Accountability. In liberal democratic theory executive power is constrained constitutionally through the classic checks and balances. Hence executives are not free to act as they please, but are bound by a set of constitutional rules that dene the division of powers between the branches of government. This requires the executive to subject itself to self-restraint so as not to encroach upon the powers and jurisdiction of the other branches of government. In case of encroachment the executive is held to account by other governmental institutions controlling and monitoring the lawfulness of executive action, such as an autonomous judiciary, the legislature, ombudsmen, auditing agencies, and human rights commissions. Nevertheless, executives in delegative democracies refuse to subject themselves to liberal self-restraint and frequently encroach upon the powers of other branches of government. According to ODonnell, delegative democracies rest on the premise that whoever wins election to the presidency is thereby entitled to govern as he or she sees t, constrained only by the hard facts of existing power relations and by a constitutionally limited term of ofce.35 Such a delegative mandate is not consistent with the concept of liberal democracy. As such, the requirement of executive accountability in liberal democratic theory requires us to check that the executive is indeed subject to intra-state monitoring, especially by the legislature and the judiciary, and sanctioned in case of unlawful acts. 14. Legal Accountability. Liberal democratic theory emphasizes the link between political democracy and a rule of law. All public ofcials, without exemption, should be subjected to legal controls regarding the lawfulness of their actions. For legal accountability to be effective it needs to be monitored by independent

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courts. In order for the judiciary to be able to full this function, its impartiality and independence needs to be respected by other centres of power and its decisions enforced. Hence, we need to control that the judiciary indeed fulls the function of rendering public ofce legally accountable, that its independence is not undermined by undue political pressure rendering the courts subservient to the whims of a delegative executive, and that it functions in an impartial and transparent manner. 15. Bureaucratic Integrity. Another important aspect of liberal constitutionalism is the integrity of state bureaucracies. Liberal democracy requires a civil bureaucracy that is relatively independent of partisan competition and particularistic interests. For liberal democratic procedures to work properly the modern state must have at its disposal a civil bureaucracy that does not fall prey to attempts by particularistic interests to impose discriminatory policies and practices, construct clientelistic networks or engage in corruption. When classifying political regimes we need to control for bureaucratic integrity, which means a bureaucracy that universally and effectively applies the law in a transparent manner. The principle of bureaucratic integrity is undermined in case of systematic corruption, clientelism, or patrimonialism. 16. Local Government Accountability. Liberal democracy requires that the legality of the constitutional state is universalistic. This principle demands a constitutional state that enforces a uniform rule across its territory to which the local governments are accountable. However, in many regions the constitutional state remains absent leaving these, often peripheral, regions exposed to situations of lawlessness and personalistic rule.36 Territories controlled by local warlords or guerrilla bands are only the most obvious examples of situations in which the legality of the constitutional state and its exclusionary right to exercise violence is put in question. We also need to consider sub-national regions where the minimal conditions of political democracy are met, but where these circuits of local power enclaves operate from inside the state and the democratic process. These are regions where entrenched local elites make state organizations part of their circuits of privatized power. ODonnell refers to them as brown areas, in other words areas where the public, lawful dimension of the state is absent, in contrast to blue areas with a high degree of state presence in terms of a reasonably effective public bureaucracy and a properly sanctioned legality.37 The problem is not only conned to these regions, but to some extent will also come to condition governance at the national level, as these entrenched local powers are represented at the centre of national politics.38 As such, these brown areas come to inject authoritarian interests in national politics, such as the congress the source of nationally encompassing legality.39 It is thus imperative that any classication of political regime controls for local government accountability to constitutional rules. The existence of extensive brown areas is evidence of a malfunctioning rule of law. The electoral and constitutional attributes reviewed above, and summarized in Table 1, provide us with a checklist for classifying political regimes. Coding will necessarily come to involve subjective choices regarding thresholds, but should

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TABLE 1 LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC ATTRIBUTES

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Dimension Electoralism Minimal

Normative Attributes 1. Free elections 2. Fair elections 3. Competitive elections 4. Inclusive elections Additional 5. Electoral empowerment 6. Electoral integrity 7. Electoral sovereignty 8. Electoral irreversibility

Norm Violation Vote-buying; voter intimidation Electoral fraud; restricting access to media and money Exclusion of opposition forces Disenfranchisement; suffrage restrictions Reserved domains Deliberately biased electoral rules Tutelary powers Violent participation; elected ofcers prevented from constitutional ofce Civil society organizations banned or heavily controlled Repression of dissent Censorship Ethnic or other social group prohibited from participating in political process Delegative mandate; unsanctioned encroachment Politicized judiciary Corruption; patrimonialism Brown areas

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Constitutionalism

Minimal

9. Freedom of organization 10. Freedom of expression 11. Right to alternative information 12. Freedom from discrimination

Additional

13. Executive accountability 14. Legal accountability 15. Bureaucratic integrity 16. Local government accountability

gain reliability from well-specied coding rules and informed judgements about the extent and impact of norm violations. The next section discusses the logic behind the aggregation of the individual attributes into an integrated conceptual map with a set of logically related regime types and subtypes.

Re-aggregation Types of Regime The regime typology proposed by this article distinguishes between four main types of regime. Table 2 shows this categorization on the basis of the dening attributes of liberal democracy discussed above. This four-fold typology combines the insights from both the dichotomous as well as the graded approach to political regime analysis. While attentive to gradation and overlap between regime types (for example, an electoral-autocratic regime is more democratic than an authoritarian regime, but less so than a democratic regime), it still retains the idea of bounded wholes bundles of attributes forming a coherent whole (such as the qualitative leap between democratic and authoritarian regimes).

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Regime Types Authoritarian Electoral-Autocratic Constitutional-Oligarchic Democratic

Minimal Electoral 2 2

Minimal Constitutional 2 2

Additional Electoral 2 / 2 2 / 2

Additional Constitutional 2 2 / 2 / 2

Note: The plus indicates the presence of the bundle of attributes listed at the top of each respective column. The minus indicates the absence of the bundle of attributes. /2 indicates that the bundle of attributes may be either present or absent.

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On the basis of the four-fold categorization Figure 3 shows a two-dimensional model for mapping political regimes where no corner marks a residual category, but each stand in logical relation to the others separated by a clear set of indicators. This two-dimensional regime typology allows us to locate regime categories, such as populist authoritarianism and oligarchical liberalism as well as their recent offspring, such as delegative and tutelary democracy, that do not easily t into a uni-dimensional typology. The dimensions and attributes of electoralism and constitutionalism provide us with clear conceptual and operationalization criteria for locating these categories and subcategories, which in comparative regime analysis have often appeared to be problematic.40 The dotted lines in Figure 3 illustrate the thresholds xed by the minimal electoral (horizontal axis) and constitutional (vertical axis) criteria. The category of authoritarian regimes includes cases that full neither the minimal electoral conditions nor the

FIGURE 3 A TWO-DIMENSIONAL REGIME TYPOLOGY

Notes: closed hegemony (CO), populist autocracy (PA), liberal oligarchy (LO), liberal democracy (LD).

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minimal constitutional conditions established above. The pure type of an authoritarian regime can be called closed hegemony (CH), that is to say a type of authoritarianism where all the minimal dening attributes are missing. Moving upwards within this category we may nd cases in which some of the minimal electoral attributes are present (free, fair, competitive, or inclusive elections). Moving rightwards we may nd cases where some of the minimal constitutional attributes are present (the civil rights and freedoms enlisted above). However, the important point is that neither the minimal electoral nor the minimal constitutional conditions are fully met, which connes the case to some form of authoritarianism, whether it is a type of closed or more enhanced form of authoritarianism. The category of electoral-autocratic regimes includes cases that full the minimal electoral conditions, but not the minimal constitutional conditions. The pure type of an electoral-autocratic regime can be called populist autocracy (PA), which is a type of electoral autocracy where all the electoral conditions are met but without fullling the constitutional minimum. Hence, in this categorical space we nd cases that combine the minimal electoral conditions with some or all of the expanded electoral attributes and perhaps some of the minimal constitutional attributes. Regime subcategories such as hegemonic-, competitive- and electoral-authoritarianism identied by the literature on hybrid regimes are perhaps to be found among these cases. The main advantage with this conceptualization, however, is that it allows us to locate and logically relate various forms of populist political regimes to other regime categories. To take the paradigmatic example of Peronism in Argentina, it seems empirically valid to place the Peronist regime of 1946 1955 in this category. Most analysts of Argentine politics maintain that the Peronist government was elected in open elections, in other words the Argentine regime met the minimal electoral conditions as stipulated above (free, fair, competitive, and inclusive elections). However, many analysts certainly hesitate to give a clean record regarding the minimal constitutional conditions in Argentina during that period. This is exactly how an institutional conceptualization of populism would have it populist regimes are cases of unfettered majoritarianism with little respect for constitutional rights and rules. Perons Argentina was an intensely popularizing regime that enfranchised the entire population and empowered the elected government with wide, but poorly constrained, executive power. The two-dimensional regime typology, with its consistently dened thresholds, possesses an important advantage over a uni-dimensional typology, in that it allows us to conceptualize populism as an electoral-autocratic regime a type of regime that scores high on the electoral dimension and low on the constitutional dimension of democracy. A contemporary example of such a regime is Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. The antipode of an electoral-autocratic regime is a constitutional-oligarchic regime. The category of constitutional-oligarchic regimes includes cases that full the constitutional minimum but not the electoral minimum. The pure type of a constitutional regime is what can be called liberal oligarchy41 (LO). This is a regime type in which all the constitutional attributes are present, including the expanded constitutional conditions, but that does not full the electoral minimum. In this categorical space we may thus nd cases such as the constitutional monarchies of the late

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nineteenth century Europe, Latin American oligarchical liberalism of roughly the same period, and possibly regimes such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong of more recent date. They all combine high levels of constitutionalism with low levels of electoralism. Finally, in the category of democratic regimes we nd cases that full the procedural minimum of political democracy, that is both the minimal electoral and constitutional conditions. The pure type of a democratic regime is of course liberal democracy (LD). Liberal democracy is the type of democracy that fulls not only the procedural minimum, but also the expanded denition incorporating all 16 dening attributes. The next section will further divide this particular regime category into its subtypes, in other words, types of democracy.
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Types of Democracy In the conceptual space of democratic regimes (represented by the upper right-hand box in Figure 3) can be found democracies with adjectives such as illiberal, delegative, and tutelary. These subcategories have been invented to conceptualize reduced forms of liberal democracy. In Table 3 I propose a conceptual model with four (sub)types of democratic regime. All four subcategories are political democracies as dened by the minimal electoral and constitutional criteria. However, all except liberal democracy suffer from certain institutional defects, either in the electoral dimension (constitutional democracy), or in the constitutional dimension (electoral democracy), or in both dimensions (limited democracy). Constructing diminished subtypes42 of liberal democracy serves to create analytical differentiation among democratic regimes, without stretching the concept of liberal democracy to cases that deviate from certain standards and practices inherent in the idea of liberal democratic rule. As such the model facilitates comparison among cases both with regard to type and degree of democracy, which can be applied in a comparative analysis of the origins and consequences of liberal democratic quality. Figure 4 depicts the typology of democracy in a two-dimensional conceptual space. In the category limited democracy there are cases that fall short on some or all of the additional dening attributes, both electoral and constitutional. It is likely that most Central American democracies with the exception of Costa Rica as well as
TABLE 3 TYPES OF DEMOCRACY

Types of Democracy Limited Electoral Constitutional Liberal

Minimal Electoral

Minimal Constitutional

Additional Electoral 2 2

Additional Constitutional 2 2

Note: The plus indicates the presence of the bundle of liberal democratic attributes listed at the top of each respective column. The minus indicates the absence of the bundle of attributes.

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most African democracies fall into this category. In these countries many of the defects that ODonnell, Valenzuela and others have described are present. Improving the quality of democracy in these countries will entail further popularization (improving electoral empowerment, integrity, sovereignty, and irreversibility) as well as liberalization (improving executive, legal, and local government accountability, as well as bureaucratic integrity). In the category electoral democracy can be found cases that full the additional electoral conditions, but not the additional constitutional conditions. These are cases that may show delegative or neo-populist43 forms of rule. Their electoral institutions are effective for producing vertical accountability, but their limited constitutional institutions fail to produce horizontal accountability.44 Thailand under the Thai Rak Thai government belongs to this category, as well as South Korea under the era of the three Kims.45 Argentina under the government of Carlos Menem, 1989 1999, is a paradigmatic example of an electoral democracy. His government blatantly exploited Argentinas limited constitutional institutions and traditions in order to impose its structural reform programme. By taking advantage of the legitimacy provided by Argentinas strong electoral institutions and its populist traditions Menem was able to circumvent the weak constitutional controls provided by a politicized judiciary. At the same time, however, the sustainability of the structural reforms was compromised exactly because of these limited constitutional conditions a bureaucracy with weak integrity and brown legislators46 ghting to sustain their local power bases through prebendalism. In the category constitutional democracy can be found cases that full the additional constitutional conditions, but not the additional electoral conditions. Hence, these are cases that may show tutelary or protected forms of rule. They are a type of democracy with effective horizontal, intra-state checks and balances,

FIGURE 4 A TWO-DIMENSIONAL TYPOLOGY OF DEMOCRACY

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but limited opportunities for citizens to enforce responsiveness of the elected ofcials to their immediate demands. Post-Pinochet Chile is a paradigmatic case of such a constitutional democracy. The democratic opposition to Pinochet was forced by the outgoing authoritarian regime to accept conditions placed in the military constitution that guaranteed a number of reserved policy domains and reserved positions in the Senate to military appointees, as well as a grossly biased electoral system granting a decisive edge to conservative candidates when votes are translated into seats. On top of that, a National Security Council was inaugurated with its jurisdiction vaguely dened as serving the national interest, but in reality functioning as a tutelary power protecting the regime from resorting to populism. It is also what the Thai military that overthrew the Thai Rak Thai government seems to aspire. On the other hand, the Chilean post-authoritarian regime has beneted from a very strong tradition of liberalconstitutionalism and effective institutions of horizontal accountability. In fact, with regard to the additional conditions of constitutionalism, Chile is an interesting outlier in a region better known for populism than liberal-constitutionalism. Whether this can explain some of Chiles post-authoritarian socio-economic success and stability is an intriguing question, not least when set against the socioeconomic crises to which Argentinas electoral democracy has been prone. Lastly, in the category liberal democracy can be found cases that full all the additional electoral and constitutional criteria. It is unlikely that many liberal democracies exist in Africa. In Latin America, Uruguay and Costa Rica are possibly liberal democracies. In Asia, at least Japan and Taiwan seem to belong to this category. Liberal democracies depict high democratic quality and it seems reasonable to expect that cases of liberal democracy will endure as stable democracies for a good while longer. These do not suffer from any of the defects discussed above and can thus be considered consolidated. Conclusion The eld of comparative regime analysis has seen an enormous proliferation of regimes with adjectives, that employ qualiers to highlight the hybrid or mixed character of regimes in which democratic features to varying extents are combined with authoritarian practices. However, these concepts have rarely been specied according to logically consistent rules and it remains largely unclear how these concepts relate to each other. The outcome has often been conceptual ambiguity and empirical confusion over how to engage in conceptual travelling, obscuring the precise lines along which comparisons are to be made. The two-dimensional regime typology proposed in this article provides a device for analytically locating these hybrid regimes and for ordering the semantic eld of comparative regime analysis. Based on a two-dimensional conceptualization of liberal democracy it proceeds to create diminished subtypes that are logically related to each other on the basis of a clear set of dening attributes. As such, it provides an analytically richer device for comparing political regimes and regime qualities than uni-dimensional typologies. In addition to a simple graded, uni-dimensional scale that only answers the question of more or less, diminished subtypes convey

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sharper, more disaggregated differentiation regarding more or less of what.47 The typology proposed in this article provides a more nuanced understanding of the variations between regimes, and how different types of regimes may indeed overlap, by introducing such diametrically opposite regime categories as electoral-autocracy vs. constitutional-oligarchy, as well as subcategories such as electoral vs. constitutional democracy. This serves to combine insights from both the dichotomous as well as the graded approach, offering considerable analytical advantage over the conventional uni-dimensional regime typologies that hitherto have come to dominate the eld of comparative regime analysis.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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The author is indebted to Gerardo Munck, Kenneth Shadlen and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Financial support from the Academy of Finland is gratefully acknowledged.

NOTES 1. Thomas Carothers, The End of the Transition Paradigm, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2002), pp. 521. 2. Various scholars have expressed their concern over the conceptual confusion resulting from the enormous proliferation of concepts based on qualifying adjectives. It is argued that these concepts are often inconsistently dened and rarely specied as to how they relate to other concepts. See, for instance: Ariel C. Armony and Hector E. Schamis, Babel in Democratization Studies, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 16, No. 4 (2005), pp. 11328; David Collier and Steven Levitsky, Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research, World Politics, Vol. 49, No. 2 (1997), pp. 43051; Gerardo L. Munck, Disaggregating Political Regime: Conceptual Issues in the Study of Democratization, Kellogg Institute Working Paper Series, Working Paper #228 (1996). 3. Armony and Schamis (note 2). 4. Some notable examples of such indexes of democracy include: Kenneth A. Bollen, Issues in the Comparative Measurement of Political Democracy, American Sociological Review, Vol. 45, No. 3 (1980), pp. 370 90; Michael Coppedge and Wolfgang H. Reinicke, Measuring Polyarchy, Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. 25, No. 1 (1990), pp. 5172; Axel Hadenius, Democracy and Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Tatu Vanhanen, A New Dataset for Measuring Democracy, 18101998, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 37, No. 2 (2000), pp. 251 65; and the Polity Dataset (http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/polity/). The Freedom House Index (http://www.freedomhouse.org/) is also widely used as a measure of democracy, although it is strictly speaking a measure of freedom, rather than democracy. For an excellent review of the various indexes of democracy, see Gerardo L. Munck and Jay Verkuilen, Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy. Evaluating Alternative Indices, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1 (2002), pp. 534. 5. Guillermo ODonnell, Delegative Democracy, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1994), pp. 55 69; also Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999). 6. William Case, Democracys Quality and Breakdown: New Lessons from Thailand, Democratization, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2007), pp. 62242, 636. 7. For a discussion of some of these authoritarianisms with adjectives, see the collection of essays Elections Without Democracy, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2002), pp. 2180, with contributions from Larry Diamond, Andreas Schedler, Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, and Nicolas van de Walle. For the seminal elaboration of the concept bureaucratic-authoritarianism, as well as for some of the traits inherent in populist-authoritarianism, see Guillermo ODonnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism (Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, 1973). 8. Diamond, Developing Democracy (note 5). 9. Larry Diamond, Democracy in Latin America: Degrees, Illusions, and Directions for Consolidation, in Tom Farer (ed.), Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 53.

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10. Gerardo L. Munck, The Regime Question: Theory Building in Democracy Studies, World Politics, Vol. 54, No. 1 (2001), pp. 11944, 1256. 11. Diamond, Developing Democracy (note 5), p. 279. 12. Giovanni Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1987); Adam Przeworski, et al., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 19501990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 13. For a discussion, see Pierre Ostiguy, Populism, Democracy, and Representation: Multidimensional Concepts and Regime Types in Comparative Politics, Paper presented at the 2001 LASA Conference, Washington DC, 68 September 2001. 14. Diamond, Developing Democracy (note 5), p. 16. 15. Scott Mainwaring, Daniel Brinks, and Anbal Perez-Linan, Classifying Political Regimes in Latin America, 19451999, Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2001), pp. 3765. 16. Sartori (note 12) provides an excellent review of liberal democratic theory. 17. See John Dunn, Setting the People Free. The Story of Democracy (London: Atlantic Books, 2005). This is not to ignore the normative appeal of the participatory model of democracy, but only to acknowledge that contemporary democracies have followed the republican trajectory, but for a few partial exceptions such as Switzerland. It is the institutions and mechanisms of representative democracy that are the main objectives of recent comparative literature on hybrid regimes and democratization. 18. Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, What Democracy Is . . . And Is Not, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1991), pp. 7588, 83. 19. Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971). 20. Carothers (note 1). 21. On procedural minimum denitions, see Collier and Levitsky (note 2). 22. Terry L. Karl, The Hybrid Regimes of Central America, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1995), pp. 7286. 23. For instance, Andreas Schedler, The Menu of Manipulation, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2002), pp. 3650; Juan E. Mendez, Guillermo ODonnell and Paulo Sergio Pinheiro (eds), The (Un)Rule of Law and the Underprivileged in Latin America (Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999); Karl (note 22); Guillermo ODonnell, On the State, Democratization, and Some Conceptual Problems: A Latin American View with Glances at Some Postcommunist Countries, in Counterpoints: Selected Essays on Authoritarianism and Democratization (Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), pp. 133 57; J. Samuel Valenzuela, Democratic Consolidation in Post-Transitional Settings: Notion, Process, and Facilitating Conditions, in Scott Mainwaring et al. (eds), Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective (Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), pp. 57 104. 24. According to Giovanni Sartori, theories of democracy in the procedural tradition work from the assumption that electoral competition produces democratic consequences because of the feedback mechanism produced by elected ofcials anticipated reactions. Sartori explains this logic as follows: Elected ofcials seeking reelection (in a competitive setting) are conditioned, in their deciding, by the anticipation (expectation) of how electorates will react to what they decide. From this perspective, Democracy is the by-product of a competitive method for leadership recruitment. Sartori (note 12), pp. 1523. 25. For instance, Terry L. Karl, Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America, Comparative Politics, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1990), pp. 121. 26. Mike Alvarez et al., Classifying Political Regimes, Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1996), pp. 3 36, 18. 27. Collier and Levitsky (note 2). 28. For a discussion, see Valenzuela (note 23). Also Schedler (note 23). 29. Schedler (note 23). 30. Valenzuela (note 23), p. 67. 31. Richard Snyder and David Samuels, Devaluing the Vote in Latin America, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2001), pp. 14659. See also Schedler (note 23), p. 45. 32. Valenzuela (note 23), pp. 623. 33. Schedler (note 23), p. 41. 34. Valenzuela (note 23). See also Hans-Joachim Lauth, Informal Institutions and Democracy, Democratization, Vol. 7, No. 4 (2000), pp. 2150, 37. 35. ODonnell, Delegative Democracy (note 5), p. 59

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36. See ODonnell, On the State (note 23); Jonathan Fox, The Difcult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico, World Politics, Vol. 46, No. 2 (1994), pp. 151 84; Edward L. Gibson, Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Democratic Countries, World Politics, Vol. 58, No. 1 (2005), pp. 10132. 37. ODonnell, On the State (note 23), p. 139. 38. ODonnell, On the State (note 23). 39. Ibid. 40. A related question concerns regime quality. The typology assumes popularization and liberalization to improve democratic quality by strengthening formal democratic procedures (i.e., electoralism and constitutionalism). The categorization is not concerned with the question what may constitute authoritarian quality. From a normative standpoint, high quality authoritarianism relates to substantive outcomes, not formal procedures. The effectiveness of different political regimes to realize substantive goals is a question for empirical analysis. 41. Liberal oligarchy is advanced here as a more universal concept than Latin American oligarchical liberalism, that usually only refers to a certain period in Latin American history. In practice, the actual cases of that period also fall short of liberal oligarchy as an ideal type. 42. For a discussion, see Collier and Levitsky (note 2). Diminished subtypes are not full instances of a root concept, in this case the concept of liberal democracy, although some of the attributes dening the root concept are identied as present. 43. For a discussion of neo-populism as a regime type, see Kurt Weyland, Clarifying a Contested Concept: Populism in the Study of Latin American Politics, Comparative Politics, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2001), pp. 122. 44. The concept of accountability has emerged as one of the key issues in comparative regime analysis. This re-emergence of accountability as key for understanding and improving democratic quality was to a large extent inuenced by ODonnell, who conceptualized accountability as running in two directions, vertical and horizontal. See Guillermo ODonnell, Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1998), pp. 112 26. 45. See Aurel Croissant, Legislative Powers, Veto Players, and the Emergence of Delegative Democracy: A Comparison of Presidentialism in the Philippines and South Korea, Democratization, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2003), pp. 6898; Hyug Baeg Im, Faltering Democratic Consolidation in South Korea: Democracy at the End of the Three Kims Era, Democratization, Vol. 11, No. 5 (2004), pp. 17998. 46. ODonnell describes the interests of brown legislators as limited to sustain the system of privatized domination that has elected them, and to channel toward the system as many state resources as possible. The tendency of their vote is, thus, conservative and opportunistic. For their success they depend on the exchange of favors with the executive and various state bureaucracies and, under weakened executives that need some kind of congressional support, they often obtain the control of state agencies that furnish those resources. This increases the fragmentation (and the decits) of the state the brown spots invade even the bureaucratic apex of the state. ODonnell (note 23), p. 140. 47. David Collier and Robert Adcock, Democracy and Dichotomies: A Pragmatic Approach to Choices about Concepts, Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 2 (1999), pp. 53765, 561. Manuscript accepted for publication November 2007. Address for correspondence: Mikael Wigell, Development Studies Institute (DESTIN), London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom. E-mail: m.v.wigell@lse.ac.uk.