Technocracy–democracy nexus: conceptual framework and typologies of hybrid governance

Recent scholarship has explored the evolving role of technocracy within European governance, focusing on supranational architectures, expert-led cabinets, and citizens’ attitudes toward expert authority (Majone, Reference Majone1996; McDonnell and Valbruzzi, Reference McDonnell and Valbruzzi2014; Vittori et al., Reference Vittori, Pilet, Rojon and Paulis2023; Bertsou et al., Reference Bertsou, Caramani and Koedam2025). Since the 1990s, the consolidation of a post-ideological paradigm – centred on efficiency, stability, and market credibility – has favoured the expansion of executive authority and the diffusion of non-majoritarian institutions. Within the EU, these include the European Central Bank, regulatory agencies, and fiscal councils, all characterised by varying degrees of insulation from direct electoral accountability. This institutional evolution reflects a broader technocratic rationality, one that displaces political contestation from democratic arenas into expert-driven, rule-based settings (Radaelli, Reference Radaelli1999; Scicluna and Auer, Reference Scicluna and Auer2019; Schmidt, Reference Schmidt2020). Yet technocracy’s entrenchment is not limited to the supranational level. National systems have undergone parallel transformations, with a steady proliferation of non-majoritarian institutions, independent agencies and an incremental integration of expert personnel into the executive. Beyond exceptional technocratic cabinets, a long-term trend has emerged in which professionals independent from party politics are appointed to key ministerial roles, especially in sensitive domains such as finance, health, and foreign affairs (Vittori et al., Reference Vittori, Pilet, Rojon and Paulis2023). This process signals a more structural embedding of technocratic logics within representative institutions.

While the growing body of scholarship on technocratic governance has generated valuable insights into its institutional, epistemic, and political features, it has also tended to reinforce fragmented and narrowly focused perspectives. In many cases, technocracy and democracy continue to be treated as analytically distinct and externally interacting domains, often framed in opposition to one another. This dualistic lens risks obscuring the more nuanced and dynamic forms of interaction between such logics of rule. Against this backdrop, a more integrated approach allows us to grasp not only the tensions between technocracy and democracy, but also the ways in which they coexist, interpenetrate, and evolve together.

In current research, one of the most comprehensive reflections on the challenge that technocracy poses to democracy is developed by Caramani (Reference Caramani, Bertsou and Caramani2020). Starting from the specific ways in which technocracy challenges democratic politics, Caramani examines the relationship between the two and the possible combinations of these distinct forms of politics. Broadly, the challenges that technocracy poses to democracy can be grouped into five key dimensions: depoliticization; the reduction of pluralism; the claim to neutrality; lack of accountability and exclusion; and institutional independence/autonomy from other democratic bodies (Table 1). Ideally, in a purely technocratic state, these features would amount to an authoritarian political form, fundamentally opposed to the principles of representative democracy. In practice, however, technocratic power operates along a continuum – that is, its democratic implications vary not only according to the analytical dimension in focus (such as ideology or institutions), but more crucially by the degree, context and process through which technocratic authority is embedded within democratic settings.

Table 1.

The technocratic challenge to democracy

Sources: Authors’ elaboration based on Caramani, Reference Caramani, Bertsou and Caramani2020, pp. 6–11.

Building on these insights, our theoretical approach advances the conceptual framework by recognizing the complex structural entanglement between technocratic and democratic logics of rule. While technocracy poses a structural challenge to democratic politics – particularly in terms of depoliticization, accountability, and legitimacy – we argue that technocratic governance does not operate as an external imposition on democratic systems. Rather, it emerges endogenously, shaped by institutional configurations, elite dynamics, and ideational change within those systems. Yet, this study does not stop at just identifying this tension. Instead, it first moves beyond static or dichotomous understandings and conceptualizes hybridization as a dynamic, context-dependent, and multidimensional process. Then, second, building on the research outcomes, the paper develops four typologies that capture the specific patterns and features of hybridization. Theoretical and empirical dimensions thus advance together, contributing to a dynamic analytical framework of hybridization.

Our approach departs from existing contributions in two ways. First, while Caramani (Reference Caramani, Bertsou and Caramani2020) offers fundamental conceptual insights into the tensions between technocracy and democracy, his framework remains primarily normative (Table 1). Second, unlike typologies focused on regime type (Lijphart, Reference Lijphart1999) or unidimensional indices of democracy or technocracy (e.g., Freedom House; Polity IV), our operationalization tries to capture the coexistence and interplay of competing logics of legitimacy, and assesses it empirically. It bridges distinct strands of scholarship – i.e., on technocratic governance (Bertsou and Caramani, Reference Bertsou and Caramani2020a) and democratic theory (Mair, Reference Mair2009; Urbinati, Reference Urbinati2014) – through a continuous, relational, and multidimensional perspective. This enables a more granular and temporally sensitive mapping of governance variation across countries and historical phases. On this basis, our theoretical perspective conceptualizes the technocracy – democracy nexus as a systemic, relational, and endogenous process, unfolding through dynamic interactions between institutions, actors, and ideas. Specifically, it is systemic as it investigates how technocratic rationality becomes structurally embedded within democratic regimes, influencing institutional design, decision-making procedures, and normative frameworks. It is relational as it rejects a binary opposition between technocracy and democracy, treating them instead as interacting and co-constitutive logics continuously reshaping one another across contexts. It is internal, insofar as technocracy is not conceptualized as an exogenous force encroaching upon democracy, but as an endogenous development that arises from within industrial democracies – driven by conditions such as increasing policy complexity, supranational integration, the delegitimation of traditional party politics and ideologies, new institutional arrangements, and the resort to experts in times of recurring crises. Finally, it is processual as the technocracy – democracy relationship evolves over time, shaped by shifting contextual and political factors.

This approach yields two key analytical implications. First, while technocracy and democracy are frequently treated in ideal-typical terms as mutually exclusive logics – one privileging expertise and depoliticization, the other grounded in participation and contestation – empirically they coexist in hybrid and historically contingent formations. These hybrid configurations reflect concrete socio-institutional arrangements and exhibit varying possible combinations: their coexistence does not erase the tensions between expert-led politics and democratic representation, but rather renders those tensions productive of distinctive institutional, procedural, and ideational outcomes. In consequence, attention must be paid to the specific mechanisms and processes through which technocratic modes of reasoning and rule are embedded within democratic structures. In other words, it is a matter of features, intensity and outcomes of hybridization processes.

Second, our framework foregrounds temporality as a constitutive dimension of technocratic – democratic hybridization. Rather than viewing the technocracy – democracy relation as static or episodic, we understand it as a processual configuration, unfolding through critical junctures, institutional path dependencies, and ideational realignments. This temporality is also shaped by broader political developments – such as the rise/consolidation of populist discourses in the aftermath of the global financial crisis – which may either contest or reinforce technocratic governance logics. Time, in this sense, is not a neutral background variable but an active structuring force that shapes the trajectories, institutional durability, and normative implications of hybrid arrangements. Table 2 offers a detailed description of the main elements of our approach.

Table 2.

Theoretical elements of the technocracy–democracy hybridization

Source: Authors’ elaboration.

With these reflections in place, we move to a more applied dimension of our analytical framework. As outlined above, hybridization is conceptualized along several interrelated dimensions (systemic, relational, internal, and processual). This conceptual step is the cornerstone of our research: it provides the theoretical lens through which technocratic and democratic logics can be empirically identified, traced, and compared.

Building on this foundation, the empirical analytical strategy explores the entanglement between the two, which subsequently inform the construction of four ideal-type configurations (Table 3). Broadly, a typology is warranted because much of the current scholarship has successfully documented the rise of specific elements within contemporary democracies, such as non-partisan/technocratic ministers, crisis-driven expert empowerment, independent agencies or techno-populist forms of representation, yet it has often examined them as separate phenomena or within single institutional sites. As a result, the literature has been less equipped to capture how these components combine and stabilize into broader and recurring configurations of governance over time. The analytical payoff of a typology is precisely to move from “isolated phenomena” of technocratic expansion to patterned and comparable configurations that reflect the joint presence, balance, and interaction of technocratic and democratic logics. These configurations are not an end in themselves but function as heuristic devices, allowing us to capture the variety of hybrid arrangements and to enable systematic cross-country and cross-regional comparison.

Table 3.

Typology of Hybridization

Source: Authors’ elaboration.

Based, therefore, on our empirical research strategy and results (detailed in next paragraph), we develop four ideal-type configurations of technocracy – democracy hybridization: (i) techno-dominant regimes; (ii) demo-dominant regimes; (iii) high-intensity hybrids; and (iv) low-intensity hybrids. Techno-dominant regimes are marked by the predominance of expert authority, often arising in contexts of crisis or weakened party systems. Demo-dominant regimes, by contrast, preserve strong participatory infrastructures with limited insulation from political contestation. High-intensity hybrids combine democratic responsiveness with institutionalized expertise, managing tensions through procedural layering and functional differentiation. Low-intensity hybrids, finally, lack robust foundations on both fronts, resulting in fragmented and unstable governance. Table 3 provides a synthetic overview of the proposed typology by systematizing the four ideal-type configurations along the two analytical dimensions of technocracy and democracy. In doing so, it explicitly foregrounds the defining institutional features and the typical contextual conditions associated with each configuration, also clarifying the analytical rationale and comparative potential of the framework.

This typology, therefore, aspires to provide a heuristic device for analyzing how technocracy and democracy co-evolve and intertwine across different institutional and political contexts. It represents the outcome of a twofold process: grounded in the theoretical framework outlined above and informed by the empirical analysis – and results – developed through our research strategy. The next section details this strategy and its outcomes, clarifying how the empirical investigation allows us to identify and systematize the patterns of hybridization that underpin the construction of the typologies.

Bridging theory, analysis and typology-building: research strategy and rationale

Having outlined the perspective underpinning our theoretical framework, we clarify how this concretely feeds into the research strategy and, in turn, how this will lead to the construction of the typologies. The aim, at this stage, is to explore in practice how such hybridization unfolds. Proceeding with the analysis requires translating the theoretical dimensions of technocracy and democracy into empirically observable indicators, which can then be systematically traced to identify the patterns of hybridization and then build the typology.

The research strategy unfolds in several steps. First, we draw on data from the Varieties of Democracy dataset (V-Dem 15) (Coppedge et al., Reference Coppedge, Gerring, Knutsen, Lindberg, Teorell and Altman2025), which offers one of the most comprehensive and granular resources for the analysis of democratic and institutional features across the world. In line with the “quality of democracy” tradition (Diamond and Morlino, Reference Diamond and Morlino2005), this approach captures both procedural and substantive dimensions of democratic governance, allowing us to operationalize democracy as a continuous and multidimensional construct. V-Dem distinguishes itself from other democracy indices (e.g., Freedom House, Polity)Footnote ¹ by adopting a highly disaggregated structure based on expert-coded variables that cover electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian dimensions of democracy. Its broad temporal and geographical coverage (from 1789 to 2024) and its detailed conceptualization of political institutions make it particularly suitable for examining complex and hybrid governance configurations.

Second, in terms of comparative analysis, we focus on all 27 European Union countries plus the United Kingdom, covering the period 1989–2024. This selection is justified by the fact that European polities – especially in the post-Cold War period – offer fertile ground for observing the tensions and synergies between technocratic and democratic components. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Eastern European countries underwent profound institutional transformations, while Western democracies experienced increasing pressures of depoliticization, European integration, and global economic interdependence. The inclusion of the UK enables further analytical leverage by incorporating a major European case outside the post-Brexit EU architecture. The temporal frame also allows us to cover pivotal historical events such as the post-communist transitions, the Great Recession, the Eurozone crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the post-pandemic restructuring phase, all of which have intensified the interplay between technocratic governance and democratic accountability.

Third, building on the theoretical distinction between technocracy and democracy as contrasting yet coexisting ideal-types, we operationalize each dimension through composite indices derived from selected V-Dem indicators. Rather than treating these two forms of politics as mutually exclusive, we adopt a continuum-based perspective that allows for empirical exploration of hybrid configurations. This approach aligns with recent scholarship that seeks to transcend dichotomous frameworks in favor of more dynamic and nuanced typologies of governance and political discourse (e.g., Bickerton and Accetti, Reference Bickerton and Accetti2021; Cozzolino et al., Reference Cozzolino, Caterina and Giannone2025). Finally, to render our framework operational, we construct a hybridization index by combining two composite indices – Technocracy and Democracy – each capturing a multidimensional conception of its corresponding governance logic. These indices are based on a selection of V-Dem variables that, both theoretically and methodologically, reflect key components of each political form (Coppedge et al., Reference Coppedge, Gerring, Knutsen, Lindberg, Teorell and Altman2025; see also van der Veer and Meibauer, Reference van der Veer and Meibauer2024). We included variables that measure dimensions such as impartiality, autonomy, capacity, accountability, deliberation, and participation – each grounded in distinct but interrelated traditions of democratic and technocratic theory (e.g., Dahl, Reference Dahl1989; Scharpf, Reference Scharpf1999). Since these variables are measured on different scales and formats (ordinal, interval, binary), we standardized all components before aggregation to ensure comparability and avoid scale-driven distortions. This methodological step was crucial to generate internally coherent indicesFootnote ² that can be meaningfully interpreted both individually and in combination as expressions of institutional hybridization.

Finally, and specifically to typology-building, our empirical strategy is also specifically designed to enable this step. By constructing two continuous composite indices – Technocracy and Democracy – from disaggregated V-Dem indicators, we preserve cross-national and longitudinal variation while avoiding an a priori dichotomy between expertise and representation. This move is analytically justified for several reasons. First, it captures direction (whether governance tilts towards technocratic authority or democratic anchoring) without collapsing the relationship into a single scale. Second, it captures density/intensity: hybridization is not only a matter of which logic prevails, but also of how strongly both are institutionalized (high–high vs low–low). Third, the quadrant-based mapping is empirically meaningful in our data: country-year observations cluster around these configurations and remain robust to alternative thresholds, suggesting that the typology identifies recurring patterns rather than imposing arbitrary categories.

Technocracy index

In order to provide for an index measuring technocracy, we aggregated nine standardized variables designed to capture both the procedural and functional (Scharpf, Reference Scharpf1999) dimensions of technocratic governance. The selected indicators of our Technocracy Index thus reflect core features such as institutional independence, procedural rationality, and non-partisan legitimacy. Procedural aspects are operationalized through variables like the autonomy (v2elembaut) and professional capacity (v2elembcap) of electoral management bodies, the compliance of the executive with judicial decisions (v2jucomp) and constitutional constraints (v2exrescon), as well as the modes of executive selection and approval (v2exaphogp, v2expathhg, v2x_elecoff). Crucially, all of these reflect the extent of formal insulation from partisan pressures and strict adherence to rule-based authority (Majone, Reference Majone1996; Mair, Reference Mair2009).

Functional elements, on the other hand, are captured through indicators such as public administration impartiality (v2clrspct), which reflects the meritocratic and neutral character of bureaucratic structures (Peters and Pierre, Reference Peters and Pierre2004), and a binary variable identifying technocratic heads of state without party affiliation (v2exparhos), used as a proxy for “apolitical” leadership (Alexiadou and Gunaydin, Reference Alexiadou and Günaydin2019). Overall, the emphasis on electoral administration and legal compliance highlights the institutionalization of expertise and depoliticized governance (Grimmelikhuijsen and Meijer, Reference Grimmelikhuijsen and Meijer2014), while executive selection mechanisms underscore the degree of political insulation of governing elites, a key marker of non-majoritarian governance (Mair, Reference Mair2009). Together, these indicators provide a comprehensive account of technocracy as both a normative ideal and an institutional practice. The index is then calculated as the arithmetic mean of the standardized components:

$Technocracy\;Inde{x_{it}} = {1 \over n}\sum\limits_{j = 1}^n Z \;\left( {{X_{jit}}} \right)$

where $Z\left( {{X_{jit}}} \right)$ is the standardized score of variable j for country i in year t, and n is the number of components (here, 9).

To validate the unidimensionality and internal coherence of the Technocracy Index, we conducted an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). The results confirm a strong single factor solution, with the first factor explaining over 90% of the variance. All variables load strongly and positively on the first factor (See online Appendices 2 and 3), with particularly high coefficients for public administration impartiality (0.88), judicial compliance (0.85), and EMB capacity (0.81). The weakest loadings were found for the dummy on technocratic heads of state and HOG selection modality, which were retained for theoretical completeness.

To further assess the robustness of the index, we compared it with the factor scores derived from the first factor, showing a very high correlation (0.9299), thereby confirming that the constructed Technocracy Index closely reflects the latent structure identified in the EFA, and thus justifying its use as a composite measure in the subsequent analyses. Details on the operationalization of the Technocracy Index, factor structure, and robustness checks are reported in Appendices A1 – A4.

Democracy index

The Democracy Index is similarly built by averaging eight variables that reflect electoral integrity, participatory quality, and political liberties. The index comprises eight standardized variables, selected to reflect key aspects of democratic quality including electoral integrity, citizen participation, institutional accountability, freedom of expression, and deliberative inclusivity.

At the core of the index are indicators of electoral contestation and fairness, such as v2x_polyarchy and v2xel_frefair, which operationalize Dahl’s (Reference Dahl1989) concept of polyarchy as a minimal condition for democratic rule. To incorporate participatory elements, we include v2x_partip and v2x_cspart, measuring both electoral turnout and associational life, in line with pluralist and participatory democratic theories that emphasize active civic engagement (Pateman, Reference Pateman1970).

Further, v2x_freexp captures freedom of expression, a foundational element of the deliberative public sphere (Habermas, Reference Habermas1996), while v2x_accountability and v2x_veracc represent mechanisms of vertical and horizontal accountability, respectively, ensuring that power is subject to democratic oversight and responsive to citizen demands (Schedler, Reference Schedler, Schedler, Diamond and Plattner1999; Diamond and Morlino, Reference Diamond and Morlino2005; Lührmann et al., Reference Lührmann, Tannenberg and Lindberg2020). Finally, v2xdl_delib assesses the quality of public deliberation, emphasizing discursive inclusion and justification in political decision-making, in line with deliberative democratic principles (Dryzek, Reference Dryzek2000).

By combining these indicators, the index provides a nuanced measure of democratic performance, capturing both the institutional procedures and the participatory substance that underpin resilient democratic systems.

These variables capture the procedural and substantive foundations of democratic governance, from the integrity of elections to the vibrancy of civil society and the public sphere. Unlike minimalist conceptions of democracy, our index aims to incorporate deliberative and participatory dimensions (cf. Tilly, Reference Tilly2007; Coppedge et al., Reference Coppedge, Gerring, Knutsen, Lindberg, Teorell and Altman2025). As with the Technocracy Index, we standardized all components and computed their mean:

$Democracy\;Inde{x_{it}} = {1 \over m}\sum\limits_{k = 1}^n Z \;\left( {{Y_{kit}}} \right)$

where $Z\left( {{Y_{kit}}} \right)$ is the standardized score of democratic variable k for country i in year t, and m is the number of dimensions (here, 8).

This composite reflects not only the electoral core of democracy but also its deliberative, participatory, and liberal components. Descriptive statistics for the individual components of the Technocracy and Democracy Indices are reported in Appendices A2 and A5. Table 4 presents summary statistics for the Technocracy and Democracy Indices across the EU+UK sample (1989–2024).

Table 4.

Technocracy and democracy indices – descriptive statistics (1989–2024)

Source: Authors’ elaboration; data: V-Dem v15.

On average, democracy scores are higher than technocracy ones (mean values: 1.71 vs. 1.16), with comparable levels of dispersion (SD ≈ 0.3). This indicates substantial but structured cross-national and temporal variation, consistent with the presence of multiple hybrid configurations rather than a single dominant governance pattern.

Measuring hybrid governance

Since our key research objective concerns the intertwining of technocratic and democratic institutional structures, we develop three derived indicators that reflect distinct logics of hybridization. The first is a directional index, designed to assess the prevailing institutional orientation by computing the difference between a country’s standardized technocracy and democracy scores in a given year. This Technocracy Minus Democracy Index is expressed as:

$Difference = Technocracy \; Index - Democracy \; Index$

Positive values indicate a technocratic tilt, while negative values signal a stronger democratic anchoring.

The second indicator is the Hybrid Index (mean), which captures the overall density or intensity of institutionalization, independent of which logic prevails. It is calculated as the arithmetic mean of the two standardized indices:

$Hybrid \; Index = (Technocracy \; Index + Democracy \; Index)/2$

This measure is particularly suited to identifying regimes that are structurally consolidated – be they predominantly democratic, technocratic, or a balanced blend of both.

Finally, to complement these perspectives, we constructed a Hybrid Ratio, defined as the ratio between technocracy and democracy scores:

$Ratio = Technocracy \; Index/Democracy \; Index$

Although more sensitive to outliers, this measure served as a robustness check to confirm broader trends in the relationship between governance principles.

In addition to the composite indices, we introduced two binary control variables to account for structural shocks during critical junctures: post-crisis (coded 1 for years after 2008) and post-COVID (coded 1 for years after 2019). These variables capture the potential impact of major exogenous disruptions – namely, the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic – on the balance between technocratic and democratic governance. This approach aligns with previous research highlighting the role of crises in shifting institutional preferences and expanding executive authority (Morlino and Raniolo, Reference Morlino and Raniolo2018; Wratil and Pastorella, Reference Wratil and Pastorella2018; Esmark, Reference Esmark2023).

To assess whether mean differences in technocracy and democracy scores before and after these turning points are statistically significant, we conducted independent-samples t-tests on the respective indices. This simple inferential technique is widely used in comparative politics to evaluate structural discontinuities in institutional indicators (see e.g., Esaiasson et al., Reference Esaiasson, Persson, Gilljam and Lindholm2019), also when the focus is on macro-level, temporally defined breaks.

Based on the first two measures (difference and mean), we then classified each country-year observation into one of four theoretically defined categories. The classification is based on whether the technocracy and democracy scores fall above or below their respective sample medians:

1. – Techno-dominant: High technocracy and low democracy – reflects governance driven more by expertise and institutional autonomy than participatory legitimacy.

2. – Demo-dominant: Low technocracy and high democracy – suggests representative systems with limited reliance on depoliticized or expert-based structures.

3. – High-intensity hybrid: High levels of both technocracy and democracy – indicative of dense institutional environments balancing efficiency and accountability.

4. – Low-intensity hybrid: Low levels of both – typically associated with weakly institutionalized or transitional systems.

To address potential concerns about measurement and classification, it should be noted that the labels “high-intensity” and “low-intensity” are analytical constructs derived from the combination of standardized technocracy and democracy scores relative to their sample medians. The underlying indices remain continuous and are used as such in all descriptive and graphical analyses. The typology therefore serves a classificatory and interpretive purpose, consistent with comparative approaches that employ ideal-type mapping to translate continuous empirical dimensions into analytically meaningful categories (e.g., Lijphart, Reference Lijphart1999; Levitsky and Way, Reference Levitsky and Way2010).

To ensure that this classification does not artificially discretize continuous variation, we conducted additional visual and robustness checks reported in Appendices A8, A8.1 and A9. The bivariate distributions confirm that country-year observations cluster naturally around the four quadrants, while the stability test using alternative thresholds (±0.25) shows that the resulting patterns remain unchanged. In this respect, the typology captures genuine patterns of hybridization while avoiding what Sartori (Reference Sartori1970, p. 1038) termed gradismo – the uncritical tendency to dissolve categorical distinctions into arbitrary continua.

Each observation in our dataset corresponds to a country in a specific year (i.e., a “country-year”), which is the unit of analysis for the hybrid typology. These were then grouped by European region – Southern, Northern, Central-Western, and Eastern Europe – to allow for the detection of regional patterns and long-term transformations in governance logics. Across the dataset (EU27+UK, 1989–2024), the Technocracy Index ranges (rescaled to a 0–1 score for descriptive and graphical purposes) from 0.12 to 0.87 (mean = 0.49, SD = 0.18), and the Democracy Index ranges from 0.45 to 0.92 (mean = 0.71, SD = 0.13). Applying the hybrid governance typology yields four categories: 23 techno-dominant, 18 demo-dominant, 27 low-intensity, and 25 high-intensity cases.

Table 5 presents descriptive statistics for each hybrid governance type over the full period (1989–2024). High- and low-intensity hybrids together account for nearly 70% of all observations, highlighting the prevalence of mixed configurations across Europe. The two polarized types – techno-dominant and demo-dominant – are equally distributed, each representing 15.8% of the sample. As expected, techno-dominant cases exhibit relatively high levels of technocracy (M = 1.27, SD = 0.09) and lower democracy scores (M = 1.71), while demo-dominant cases show the opposite pattern. High-intensity hybrids display elevated levels on both dimensions, whereas low-intensity hybrids are characterized by lower average scores and wider internal variation – especially in democracy (SD = 0.41). These descriptive patterns confirm the internal validity of the typology and support its usefulness in capturing structural variation in democratic – technocratic balance across space and time.

Table 5.

Descriptive statistics of hybrid governance types

Source: Authors’ elaboration; data: V-Dem v15. Note: The table reports average values (mean and standard deviation) of the Technocracy Index, Democracy Index, and Hybrid Index for each ideal type of hybrid governance. The Hybrid Index is calculated as the average of the two components but was not used to construct the typology, which is based on a median split of each dimension.

These regional distributions are used descriptively in the subsequent section to identify temporal and geographical trends in hybrid governance configurations. These configurations are analytically useful to trace long-term structural shifts and to distinguish region-specific trajectories in democratic-technocratic interplay.