Question

What is the regime? It could be a democracy? It could be a authoritarian? How do they different?

Answer 1

In politics, a regime is the form of government or the set of rules, cultural or social norms, etc. that regulate the operation of a government or institution and its interactions with society.

Authoritarianism vs. democracy has long been established as part of modern Western discourse, with political transitions supposed to move linearly from one to the other. The problem is that authoritarian regimes proper – rationally organized secular autocracies – are increasingly scarce and giving way to crisis-ridden governments or fundamentalist regimes. The “bench” of countries capable of instituting a democratic transition is dwindling rapidly. The “old democracies” are facing mounting dilemmas, and prospects for regimes in major powers like China or Russia are vague.

Convincing research shows that the longer a country is democratic, the more likely it is to stay that way. Once democratic institutions permeate a society, it is much less likely to slide back toward authoritarianism. Unfortunately, fully functional democracies usually take decades to fully materialize, and young democracies tend to be much more fragile in the early years following a democratic transition.