Closed recruitment selecting for ideological loyalty produced hidebound elites unable to adapt

Evidence

The conservative Czech party leaders deliberately replicated a pattern of “closed” elite advancement – elites could rise only within and through the party ranks. The purges and recruitment policies of the Czech communist party rewarded neither education nor extramural experience, but ideological loyalty. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 216

Categorization

• SHARE: For someone interested in organizational selection dynamics — elites advancing by loyalty rather than skill become renderers of exactly the stale signals they were selected for.
• XREF: connects to: Elites lacking portable skills become hostages to their conservative rank and file.; Suppressing democracy trained communist elites in the skills democratic competition later needed — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 64; Maintaining ideological rigidity blocks elite turnover and party renewal — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 221 (+2 more)