Democratic transition in the context of Autocratizing

A provisional government, also called an interim, emergency, or transitional government is a temporary government formed to manage a period of transition, often following state collapse, revolution, civil war, or some combination thereof.

Provisional governments generally come to power in connection with the sudden, catastrophic and irreversible collapse of the previous political system, resulting from revolution, coup d'état, civil war, military defeat so catastrophic as to result in political disintegration, economic collapse, the death of a strongman ruler, or other circumstances which have resulted in a nonfunctional national government. Questions of democratic transition and state-building are often fundamental to the formation and policies of such governments.

A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections. According to some definitions and measures, hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states. Although these regimes experience civil unrest, they may be relatively stable and tenacious for decades at a time. There has been a rise in hybrid regimes since the end of the Cold War.

The term hybrid regime arises from a polymorphic view of political regimes that oppose the dichotomy of autocracy or democracy. Modern scholarly analysis of hybrid regimes focuses attention on the decorative nature of democratic institutions (elections do not lead to a change of power, different media broadcast the government point of view and the opposition in parliament votes the same way as the ruling party, among others), from which it is concluded that democratic backsliding, a transition to authoritarianism is the most prevalent basis of hybrid regimes. Some scholars also contend that hybrid regimes may imitate a full dictatorship.

Democratization, or democratisation, is the structural government transition from an authoritarian government to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction.

Whether and to what extent democratization occurs can be influenced by various factors, including economic development, historical legacies, civil society, and international processes. Some accounts of democratization emphasize how elites drove democratization, whereas other accounts emphasize grassroots bottom-up processes. How democratization occurs has also been used to explain other political phenomena, such as whether a country goes to a war or whether its economy grows.

Presidential elections were held in Nigeria on 27 February 1999. They were the first elections to be held since the 1993 military coup and were the first elections of the Fourth Nigerian Republic. A former military head of state from 1976 to 1979, Olusegun Obasanjo, was elected president. Supported by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he defeated Olu Falae who was backed by the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and All People's Party (APP). In 2025, Falae spoke up and claimed that "I won that election" instead of Obasanjo. He also claimed that his campaign didn't go to court as they were more concerned about the return to democracy after years of military rule.

The Spanish transition to democracy, known in Spain as la Transición (IPA: [la tɾansiˈθjon]; 'the Transition') or la Transición española ('the Spanish Transition'), was a period of modern Spanish history encompassing the regime change that moved from the Francoist dictatorship to the consolidation of a parliamentary system, in the form of constitutional monarchy under Juan Carlos I.

The democratic transition began two days after the death of Francisco Franco, in November 1975. Initially, "the political elites left over from Francoism" attempted "reform of the institutions of dictatorship" through existing legal means, but social and political pressure saw the formation of a democratic parliament in the 1977 general election, which had the imprimatur to write a new constitution that was then approved by referendum in December 1978. The following years saw the beginning of the development of the rule of law and establishment of regional government, amidst ongoing terrorism, an attempted coup d'état and global economic problems. The Transition is said to have concluded after the landslide victory of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the 1982 general election and the first peaceful transfer of executive power.

A series of political agreements among Sudanese political and military forces for a democratic transition in Sudan began in July 2019. Omar al-Bashir overthrew the democratically elected government of Sadiq al-Mahdi in 1989 and was himself overthrown in the 2019 Sudanese coup d'état, in which he was replaced by the Transitional Military Council (TMC) after months of sustained street protests. Following further protests and the 3 June Khartoum massacre, TMC and the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) alliance agreed on 5 July 2019 to a 39-month transition process to return to democracy, including the creation of executive, legislative and judicial institutions and procedures.

On July 17, 2019, the TMC and FFC signed a written form of the agreement. The Darfur Displaced General Coordination opposed the 5 July verbal deal, and the Sudan Revolutionary Front, the National Consensus Forces, and the Sudanese Journalists Network opposed the 17 July written deal. On 4 August 2019, the Draft Constitutional Declaration was initially signed by Ahmed Rabee for the FFC and by the deputy head of the TMC, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ("Hemedti"), in the presence of Ethiopian and African Union mediators, and it was signed more formally by Rabee and Hemedti on 17 August in the presence of international heads of state and government.

The military dictatorship of Chile led by General Augusto Pinochet ended on 11 March 1990 and was replaced by a democratically elected government. The transition period lasted roughly two years, although some aspects of the process lasted significantly longer. Unlike most democratic transitions, led by either the elite or the people, Chile's democratic transition process is known as an intermediate transition – a transition involving both the regime and the civil society. Throughout the transition, though the regime increased repressive violence, it simultaneously supported liberalization – progressively strengthening democratic institutions and gradually weakening those of the military.

Three factors contributed to the rise of democracy: the economy, the role of the military, and domestic politics. Rapid economic growth (attributed to a low inflation environment), a decline in dictatorship, and the decision of political parties to come together became the main motivation for a broad ideological coalition to be created in an effort to defeat Pinochet and his military rule. Chile was previously a democracy during the Presidential Republic (1925–1973).