or provisional government is a name used for a government temporarily set up in a state of emergency. In many cases, the "ideology" of these governments can be hard to discern, and in some cases they cannot be said to have an "ideology" since they are big-tent coalitions meant to deal with a specific problem. In those cases, I colour them either as "Interim government" or simply "hard to sort." However, other interim governments have distinct ideologies, in which case I colour them with said ideologies.
Here are some examples (both historical and current) of interim governments with vague ideologies, which would be labeled either as interim governments or as hard to sort:
By contrast, here are some examples (both historical and current) of interim governments with clear ideologies:
is my way of saying: "I cannot explain this with colours on a map alone, so please refer to my notes." The governments coloured this way on the map often have wildly different ideologies, and this is really a catch-all category for ones that do not fit easily into broader ones. Each of these countries really deserve their own descriptions, and this category is my way of pointing viewers to those descriptions.
Below, you may find some of the most prominent "hard to sort" ideologies and systems of government. Sorted alphabetically except when I decide not to do so (which only applies to the first two entries, so fret not).
often lack the ability for one party to really be called "in charge." One example of this is Switzerland, a country whose head of state is a seven-person Federal Council, with members from various different and often opposing parties. Such a system naturally makes it hard to call any ideology dominant, since there are several ideologies sharing power.
Two other examples are Iraq and Lebanon, two countries that practice what is known as "confessionalism," where the different religious groups of the country are represented in government as a compromise between them. This means that governments in Iraq and Lebanon are naturally bound to be formed by coalitions.
exist in some smaller liberal democracies such as Micronesia, Palau, and Tuvalu. These should be distinguished from authoritarian regimes where parties are pointless like Saudi Arabia. It is naturally hard to tell what ideology dominates non-partisan liberal democracies if party affiliations do not exist, which is why I put them in this category.
From this point on, all the entries will be alphabetical.
is the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran, named after its founder Ruhollah Khomeini (1900–1989), the Shia Muslim cleric who led the 1979 Iranian Revolution. We in the West may be tempted to think of Khomeinism as yet another form of anti-modernist Islamic clerical reaction, the Shia equivalent of Sunni movements like al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram, or ISIS/Daesh; but to see Khomeinism and the Iranian Revolution in such a way would be a mistake.
The goal of the Iranian Revolution was not to restore an old system; in that sense, it cannot truly be called "reactionary."
Page created:2026.07.31. Last updated: 2026.07.31.