Citation

Zinecker H. Int. Stud. Rev. 2009; 11(2): 302-331.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1468-2486.2009.00850.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Research on transitions has reached a crossroad. Should it be abandoned because the third wave of transitions to democracy has ended, or should it continue because so much remains unaccounted for regarding the third wave? This paper suggests that regime hybridity constitutes a widespread institutional setting resulting from incomplete transitions. Regime-hybridity is defined as a specific regime type in which “partial regimes” within the “political regime” are democratic while others are nondemocratic, although not necessarily authoritarian. Underlying the concept is the assumption that the “political regime” stretches beyond the institutions of the state to include civil society. It is at this level that the work on transitions can be connected to the research on the dynamics of economic exclusion in the context of rent economies. This paper develops a checklist for identifying “partial regimes” that constitute regime-hybridity and applies it to the case of Colombia to identify linkages between political transition and socioeconomic transformation.