What it is
Competitive authoritarianism is a hybrid regime that sits between a full democracy and a full dictatorship. Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way named it in 2002. Elections still happen and the opposition can really compete, but the people in power abuse the rules so badly (the courts, the media, the money, the vote count) that the playing field is no longer fair.
It can grow out of a collapsed dictatorship, or out of a democracy that’s slowly decaying.
How it shows up for me
It gave me a word for a feeling I didn’t know how to say: that something can still look like a democracy and not quite be one. I try to watch the referees, not just the scoreboard.