ABSTRACT
The euphoria that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union led many analysts to believe that a new age of democracy had dawned in the former communist bloc and even elsewhere in the world. Liberalism seemed in short supply: according to international human rights groups, torture by police and security forces was commonplace in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and was not unknown in the other non-Baltic republics of the former Soviet Union either. The model of the totalitarian regime is an ideal type and few regimes, can be categorized as fully totalitarian. Few political regimes fully correspond to the ideal type of democratic regime, even those that are commonly categorized as democracies. The political elites of many 'hybrid' or 'semi-democratic' regimes exhibit pluralism and fierce competition can take place between various elite factions.
