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 Islamic 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 the Muslim Brotherhood, or on the extreme end, 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, and in that sense, it cannot truly be called "reactionary." It cannot even be called "fundamentalist," because traditional Shia Muslim dogma held that the clergy should stay out of politics. Perhaps we could call Khomeini a social conservative (for his views on modesty, gender roles, patriotism, etc.), but he was neither a political nor a theological conservative. Iran's clerical republic is a radical break from centuries of tradition in both Shia theology and Iranian politics. Most tellingly, the Constitution of Iran created by the revolutionaries, was modeled after the French Fifth Republic inspired by the Baron of Montesquieu (1689–1755), rather than the early medieval caliphates.
While most of the Sunni "Islamist" partisans like the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda look back to the past for answers to modernity, and thus may be called "reactionary" or "traditionalist," Khomeini instead saw himself as leading a modernizing project that looked forward to the future. "Return to tradition" was not a slogan of the Iranian Revolution; but the following slogans (collected by Ervand Abrahamian, Khomeinism [University of California Press, 1999], pp. 31–32) all were:
"Islam is for equality and social justice."
"Islam will eliminate class differences."
"We are for Islam, not for capitalism and feudalism."
"Islam is not the opiate of the masses."
"The poor were for the Prophet; the rich were against him."
"Oppressed of the world, unite".
"The oppressed nations of the world should unite against their imperialist oppressors."
If it were not for the religious undertones, would these slogans not sound familiar to Western progressives?
or the Three Principles of the People (三民主義, Sānmín Zhǔyì) is the ideology of the Nationalist Party a.k.a. the Kuomintang (國民黨, Guómíndǎng), a major political party in early 20th-century China. The ideology was developed by the Kuomintang's founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙, 1866–1925), who was also the first President of the Republic of China. The "Three Principles" the ideology is named after are:
Page created:2026.07.31. Last updated: 2026.08.02.
