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Anocracy or semi-democracy^[1] is a form of government that is loosely defined as part democracy and part dictatorship,^[2][3] or as a “regime that mixes democratic with autocratic features.”^[3] Another definition classifies anocracy as “a regime that permits some means of participation through opposition group behavior but that has incomplete development of mechanisms to redress grievances.”^[4][5] The term “semi-democratic” is reserved for stable regimes that combine democratic and authoritarian elements.^[6][7] Scholars have also distinguished anocracies from autocracies and democracies in their capability to maintain authority, political dynamics, and policy agendas.^[8] Similarly, the regimes have democratic institutions that allow for nominal amounts of competition.^[2]

Such regimes are particularly susceptible to outbreaks of armed conflict and unexpected or adverse changes in leadership.^[9]

The operational definition of anocracy is extensively used by scholars Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole at the Center for Systemic Peace,^[10] which gained most of its dissemination through the polity data series. The data set aims to measure democracy in different states and retains anocracy as one of its classification methods for regime type.^[11] Consequently, anocracy frequently appears in democratization literature that utilizes the polity-data set.^[12]

Unlike traditional democracy, semi-democratic regimes, also known as hybrid regimes, are known for having guided democracy instead of liberal democracy. Semi-dictatorial regimes have dictatorial powers with some democratic values, and despite being authoritarian, have elections. In a closed anocracy, competitors are drawn from the elite. In an open anocracy, others also compete.^[9]

The number of anocratic regimes has steadily increased over time, with the most notable jump occurring after the end of the Cold War.^[9] From 1989 to 2013, the number of anocracies increased from 30 to 53.^[13]

Characteristics

Human rights

“The Polity IV score captures the type of political regime for each country on a range from -10 (full autocracy) to +10 (full democracy). Regimes that fall into the middle of this spectrum are called anocracies.” From Our World in Data, 2015.^[14]

The instability of anocratic regimes causes human rights violations to be significantly higher within anocracies than democratic regimes.^[15][16][17] According to Maplecroft’s 2014 Human Rights Risk Atlas, eight of the top ten worst human rights violating countries are anocracies.^[18][19] In addition, the report categorized every current anocracy as “at risk” or at “extreme risk” of human rights offenses.^[18]

The high correlation between anocratic regimes and human rights abuses denotes the nonlinear progression in a country’s transition from an autocracy to a democracy.^{[20][21][22][23]} Generally, human rights violations substantially decrease when a certain threshold of full democracy is reached.^[16][24] However, human rights abuses tend to remain the same or even to increase as countries move from an autocratic to an anocratic regime.^[17][25][26]

During the revolutions of the Arab Spring, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen, all of the countries made relative progress towards more democratic regimes.^[27] With many of the authoritarian practices of their governments remaining, those states currently fall under the category of anocracies.^[13] They are also listed as some of the most extreme human rights violating countries in the world.^[18][19] The violations include torture, police brutality, slavery, discrimination, unfair trials, and restricted freedom of expression.^[19][28] Research has shown that political protests, such as those that occurred during the Arab Spring, generally lead to an increase in human right violations, as the existing government tries to retain power and influence over governmental opposition.^{[17][20][29][30][31]} Therefore, transitioning governments tend to have high levels of human rights abuses.^[32][33]

In its annual Freedom in the World report, Freedom House scored states’ violations of civil liberties on a seven-point scale, with a score of seven representing the highest percentage of violations.^[34] Freedom House defined civil liberty violations as the infringement of freedom of expression, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and individual rights.^[35] Most consolidated democracies received scores of one, but almost all anocracies were scored between four and six because of the high percentage of civil liberties violations in most anocratic regimes.^[34]

Violence

Statistics show that anocracies are ten times more likely to experience intrastate conflict than democracies and twice as likely as autocracies.^[36] One explanation for the increase in violence and conflict within anocracies is a theory known as More Murder in the Middle (MMM).^[20][37] The theory argues that the unstable characteristics of anocratic regimes, which include the presence of divided elites, inequality, and violent challengers who threaten the legitimacy of the current social order, cause governing elites to resort to much more political repression or state terror than do democratic or authoritarian regimes.^{[20][33][38][unreliable source?]} That leads to high levels of what are termed “life-integrity violations,”^[20][32][33] which include state-sponsored genocide, extrajudicial executions, and torture.^{[20][25][26][32][33][39]}

State life-integrity violations can be categorized as acts of state terror.^[32][33][40] Acts of terrorism by both governmental and outside groups are generally higher in transitioning anocratic governments than in either democratic or authoritarian regimes.^[41][42] Harvard Public Policy Professor Alberto Abadie argues that the tight control of authoritarian regime is likely to discourage terrorist activities in the state. However, without the stability of a clear authoritarian rule or a consolidated democracy, anocracies are more open and susceptible to terrorist attacks.^[42][43] He notes that in Iraq and previously Spain and Russia, transitions from an authoritarian regime to a democracy were accompanied by temporary increases in terrorism.^[44]

According to the political terror scale (PTS), a data set that ranks state sponsored violence on a five-point scale, almost every anocracy is ranked as having a score between three and five.^[45] On the scale, a score of three indicates that in a state, “there is extensive political imprisonment, or a recent history of such imprisonment. Execution or other political murders and brutality may be common. Unlimited detention, with or without a trial, for political views is accepted.”^[45] States are ranked as a four when “civil and political rights violations have expanded to large numbers of the population. Murders, disappearances and torture are a common part of life. In spite of its generality, on this level terror affects those who interest themselves in politics or ideas.”^[45] Scores of five are given to states if “terror has expanded to the whole population. The leaders of these societies place no limits on the means or thoroughness with which they pursue personal or ideological goals.”^[45] Although only eleven states were given scores of five in the 2012 Political Terror Scale report, four of those states, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan, were classified by the polity data series as anocracies.^[13][45]

Civil war

There are differing views on whether or not anocracy leads to civil war. It is debated whether or not transitions between government regimes or political violence lead to civil war.

Civil war in unstable countries are usually the outcome of a country’s inability to meet the population’s demands.^[9] The inability for the state to provide the needs of the population leads to factionalism within the country.^[9] When factions are not able to get what they want, they take up arms against the state.^[9]

Former democracies that transition to anocracy have a greater risk of being embroiled in civil conflict.^[4] The population’s awareness of what rights they had as a democratic society may compel them to fight to regain their rights and liberties. On the other hand, autocracies that transition into anocracies are less likely to break out in civil war.^[4] Not all anocracies are unstable. There are many^{[citation needed]} countries that are stable but are classified as anocracies, such as Russia^{[as of?]}.^[4][13] It is the transitional qualities associated with some anocracies that are predicative of civil conflict.^[4] The magnitude of the transition also affects the probability of a civil conflict. The higher magnitude of the transition, the higher likelihood of civil war.^[4]

However, some international relations experts use the polity data series in the formulation of their hypothesis and study, which presents a problem because the Polity IV system uses violence and civil war as factors in its computation of a country’s polity score.^[2] Two components, “the degree of institutionalization, or regulation, of political competition,”^[2] and “the extent of government restriction on political competition,”^[2] are problematic to use in any study involving Polity IV and civil war in anocratic governments. In the numeric rating system of one of these parts of Polity IV, unregulated, “may or may be characterized by violent conflict among partisan groups.”^[2] The other component states that “there are relatively stable and enduring political groups – but competition among them is intense, hostile, and frequently violent.”^[2] The only thing that can be deduced concretely is that political violence tends to lead to civil war.^[2] There is no solid evidence to support that political institutions in an anocracy leads to civil war.^[2]

Broadness and complexity

While the first three characteristics capture the instability of anocracies, another feature of anocratic regimes is their broad descriptiveness. Anocracy describes a regime type with a mix of institutional characteristics that either constrains or promotes the democratic process, “encapsulating a complex category encompassing many institutional arrangements.”^[4][3] Although anocracies demonstrate some capacity for civil society and political participation, their autocratic and democratic counterparts show considerably more or less capabilities.^[4][3] Thus, while scholars are easily able to identify democratic and autocratic regimes based on their respective characteristics, anocracies become a wider, “catchall” category for all other regimes.^[4] However, despite its broadness and complexity, the convention is still used because of its relevance to civil instability as well as its usage in the polity data series.^[4][46]