A party that decentralizes power to stalwart regional organizations handicaps its post-transformation reform effort

Evidence

The leadership structures were both large, and dominated by older activists and local representatives. The new Central Committee consisted of 140 members, most of whom were regional representatives, as well as representatives of the platforms (by March 1993, there were six), and a small minority of parliamentary representatives. Furthermore, the party’s organizational administration were not vertically integrated. The local and regional party organizations continued as the bastion of the most stalwart and hidebound party functionaries. The Czech party retained eight regional committees (krajsk vy´bory), eighty-six local committees (obvodn vy´bory), and 14,500 basic organizations (zavodn organizace) over six months after the Extraordinary Congress. In the name of party democracy in the Czech party, these organizations were given considerable powers, to the point that the regional committees were a “second center of power.” — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 461

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Rank-and-file reform movements could not overcome orthodox regional party machines — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 458; Reformist party renewal paradoxically centralized power in the chair — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 508; The State-led dominant group blocks reform in regions it only holds by domination (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Reformist party renewal paradoxically centralized power in the chair #corroborates (0.78) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 508
• The State-led dominant group blocks reform in regions it only holds by domination #qualifies (0.75)
• Weak parties yield a bureaucracy that becomes a political party in its own right #complicates (0.72) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 873