The recent literature on political transition and democratization confirms the notion of a linear progression in political transition: democracy follows liberalization and subsequently democratic consolidation occurs. Nevertheless; in the previous examples of democratization, many transitional countries have not followed this sequence. A number of authoritarian rulers are yet to transform their countries into democracies. Elsewhere, some transitional countries now meet the minimum criteria of electoral politics and constitutional reform; still they have not consolidated themselves as liberal democracies. Most of these states are stuck in a political “Grey Zone”, located somewhere between authoritarianism and democracy.

In defining the “Grey Zone”, Carothers underlines various political indicators of a stagnated transition process. Yet, he proclaims “two broad political syndromes can be seen to be common in the Grey Zone”. First, he describes the so-called “feckless pluralism”, which is common in Latin America. He purports that countries infected by feckless pluralism tend to afford their citizens significant amounts of political freedom and regular elections, alternating power between genuinely different political groupings. Consequently, their democracies “remain shallow and troubled” and “politics is widely seen as a stale, corrupt, elite-dominated domain that delivers little good to the country and commands equally little respect”. The second political grey zone syndrome manifests as “dominant-power politics”. The key political problem in dominant-power countries is the blurring of the line between the state and ruling political bodies. In this syndrome, the mechanisms of the state, such as sources of finance, government jobs, public information (via state media), and police power are gradually put into the direct service of the ruling group. The judiciary in dominant power regimes is typically cowed; and this aspect is a critical component of the characteristic one-sided grip on power. Elections in such states, while not outright fraudulent, are viewed by the ruling group as a procedure in which they must put on a good-enough show to gain the approval of the international community, while quietly tilting the electoral playing field in their own favor to ensure victory.

In the literature on the democratic transition, a number of scholars discuss hybrid regimes, which are neither authoritarian nor democratic and represent neither a movement nor a place on the continuum of democratization. When analyzing the process of political transition that Qatar is undergoing, particularly since 2005; Carother's “grey zone” offers an important benchmark from which to conceptualize the current political framework in the country. It explains how the process of political reform in Qatar has become wedged between liberal (or consolidated) democracy and authoritarianism. To provide a fuller understanding of Qatar's position, it is important to examine some key political syndromes, specifically those based on dominant power politics.