On the Origin and Consolidation of Hybrid Regimes the State of Democracy in the Caucasus

The regimes in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, while broadly conforming to the category of ”hybrid regimes,” should not be treated as a half-way stage in a process of transition to democracy, but rather as stable, based on the institutional structures of clientelism. The authors identify the origin of these regimes and show how their emergence is, to a large extent, the consequence of the strategies that the new rulers chose in order to secure their authority in the years following independence. Even in Georgia, the recent ”colored revolution” had little impact on the institutional parameters of the hybrid regime. The quintessential features that underpin the hybrid regimes of the Caucasus are the clientelism that constitutes the informal dynamic of these regimes and the ”stickiness” of the informal institutions that define state power. Given the specific internal and external constraints in which these regimes are embedded, the degree of democracy that they have reached may be at an equilibrium outcome.