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.

Overall, there is no consensus among researchers about how hybrid regimes should be defined or measured. Accordingly, there is much disagreement about which countries are considered to be hybrid regimes, and any description of what typical hybrid regimes look like needs to be seen in the context of specific definitions and measures.

Scholars vary on the definition of hybrid regimes based on their primary academic discipline. According to Christoph Mohamad-Klotzbach, "Some scholars argue that deficient democracies and deficient autocracies can be seen as examples of hybrid regimes, whereas others argue that hybrid regimes combine characteristics of both democratic and autocratic regimes." Scholars also debate if these regimes are in transition or are inherently a stable political system.

In 1995 Terry Karl introduced the notion of "hybrid" regime, which was simply defined as "combining democratic and authoritarian elements".

According to professor Matthijs Bogaards hybrid types are:

not diminished subtypes, since they do not lack the full development of a characteristic, but rather they exhibit a mixture of characteristics of both basic types, so that they simultaneously combine autocratic and democratic dimensions or institutions

Pippa Norris defined hybrid regimes as: