Thread by @SevaUT

each year the democracy/autocracy distinction seems less satisfying, as things we call democracies acquire autocratic features and things we call autocracies acquire simulations of democratic ones

this is a big problem for poli science typologies — “hybrid regimes” have crowded out all others since 1991. If your most common category is so ill-defined, maybe the categorization is missing something

(and by the way, the hybrid regimes are the ones we don't know how to measure. Among the post-Soviet republics, for example, the measures on which we disagree the most are the middle cases)

I include myself among those who rely on the autocracy/democracy dichotomy, but it increasingly feels like missing some important features of modern regimes

good new Monkey Cage piece on this ambiguity by Steve Levitsky and my excellent colleague Lucan Way
washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…