ABSTRACT
The paradoxical conclusion of Chapter 1 is that a conceptualization that is actually able to appreciate the distinction between the electoral and the liberal components of democracy is worth little empirically. Beyond the finding that there is no gap between the electoral and liberal dimensions, the constructed typology tells us precious little about the political dynamics on the ground. The reason is straightforward: while the polar type of ‘liberal democracy’ is empirically useful, its opposite number – the polar type of ‘illiberal autocracy’ – becomes a residual category which contains a large number of countries that have very little in common politically. By implication, the only gap elucidated by the preceding analysis seems to be between stable liberal democracies on the one hand and countries moving to and fro between all the three other types in the typology – or at least staying within the ‘lower’ regions of the illiberal autocracy type – on the other hand.
