The dominant transition discourse explaining democratic and authoritarian post-communist transition outcomes in terms of national institutional differences has neglected the large number of semi-democracies, which vary in institutional development. This study investigates lower-middle to middle-income semi-democracy as a distinct but under-researched outcome among a significant group of transition states, including Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Albania, and Serbia. The histories of conflict in this group suggest realist theory may offer new insights over the institutional approach. To test this hypothesis, the study uses a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis design incorporating institutional development indices, historical institutional legacies, and energy exports, along with unresolved conflict, trade dependency on regional powers, and popular overthrows of government. It finds that cases fit three conjunctions of conditions: lack of institutional development, unresolved conflict and trade dependency on a regional power (Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova), lack of institutional development and popular overthrow of government (Albania, Kyrgyzstan), and institutional development, unresolved conflict and popular overthrow of government (Georgia, Armenia, Serbia), with Ukraine showing all three patterns. Overall, results suggest that realist conditions have constrained transition processes in the semi-democratic group and produced different outcomes than institutional conditions alone would predict.