Regimemallit

Regimemallit are models or typologies used in political science to describe how political power is organized, legitimized, and exercised in a country, and how regimes change or persist over time. They provide a framework for comparing regimes across countries and over periods.

Common regimemallit include liberal-democratic regimes characterized by competitive elections, protected civil liberties, and the rule of law; authoritarian regimes with centralized power and limited political pluralism; totalitarian regimes with pervasive control and an official ideology; and hybrid or semi-democratic regimes that blend elements of democracy and authoritarian practices.

Methodologically, regimemallit are constructed from indicators and case studies, and are used in datasets such as Polity, Freedom House, and Varieties of Democracy. Analysts assess factors like electoral integrity, civil liberties, executive power, and checks and balances to assign regime type and track transitions.

Uses include comparative politics research, democratization studies, policy analysis, and risk assessment for international relations; regimemallit help explain differences in governance performance, stability, and policy outcomes.

Criticisms include that the models can oversimplify complex realities, ignore regional variation, and reflect the biases of their authors; regimes can shift gradually or inconsistently, complicating classification.

The term is widely used in Finnish scholarly discourse as a translation of the English "regime model," and while helpful, it is not a single universal category, as theories and typologies differ across schools.