Authoritarian party organizations paradoxically produced skilled elites that won democratic competition

Evidence

These criteria allow us to reexamine several prior analyses of the legacies of communism. Disaggregating these patterns is the first step in ascertaining which actually mattered, and which lacked the consistency, transmission mechanisms, and persistence to make a difference. First, the parties’ antidemocratic history and their authoritarian style of ruling and governing have been said to preclude success in democratic competition. Yet, paradoxically, the same party organizations responsible for the stagnation of state socialist regimes created a set of dynamic and skilled party elites. Those parties that regenerated after 1989 were surprisingly catholic in their recruitment of elites and increasingly tolerant of internal dissent. What mattered, then, was not only the opponent public governance, but also the persistent patterns of elite recruitment that underlied it. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 139

Categorization

• XREF: Directly answers the reader’s puzzle: which ex-communist parties survived — those whose internal organizational skills proved fungible capacities in democracy, contradicting the assumption that their antidemocratic past doomed them. — connects to: Skills that sustained authoritarian rule can be repurposed for democratic success afterward — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 122; Authoritarian-era party practices can later produce democratic competence — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 122; Authoritarian-era organizational practices determine successor parties’ democratic survival skills — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 88 (+11 more)
• QUESTION: What distinguishes regenerating parties tolerating internal dissent from those that did not — the causal mechanism behind ‘catholic recruitment’ deserves specification.

Broader Connections

• Authoritarian-era party practices can later produce democratic competence #corroborates (0.92) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 122
• Communist organizational legacies paradoxically enabled successor parties’ democratic survival #corroborates (0.90)
• Authoritarian-era organizational practices determine successor parties’ democratic survival skills #corroborates (0.88) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 88
• Suppressing democracy trained communist elites in the skills democratic competition later needed #corroborates (0.88) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 64
• Elite skill, not ideology, drove communist party organizational regeneration #qualifies (0.82) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 390
• Authoritarian-era institutional choices can shape political behavior after democratic openings. #expands (0.82) — Johan Brosché and Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Höglund, Electoral violence and the legacy of…, 13
• Elite skills and party cohesion drive successful postcommunist transformation. #qualifies (0.80) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 72
• Elite skill and pragmatism, not ideology, drove successful party transformation. #qualifies (0.78)
• Expertise from an authoritarian past made successor parties valuable yet discredited partners #qualifies (0.73) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 1229
• Elite skill level determined how decisively communist parties reformed at their congresses #qualifies (0.72) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 442
• Mid-level elites drove post-communist party transformation. #qualifies (0.72)