Elite skills and party cohesion drive successful postcommunist transformation.

Evidence

Centralization promoted party discipline in parliament – and such unity and cohesion made for formidable parliamentary players. Even where the division between the successor parties and those from the pre-1989 anticommunist opposition persisted, parliamentary cohesion gave credence to claims of transformation and professionalism. As we will see, the more skilled and experienced the elites, the more likely they were to pursue these transformative strategies successfully. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 72

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Party elites, not members or middle managers, drive post-communist party transformation. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 105; Authoritarian party organizations paradoxically produced skilled elites that won democratic competition — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 139; Elite skills accumulate even when reform efforts fail — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 161 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Elite skill and pragmatism, not ideology, drove successful party transformation. #corroborates (0.85)
• Mid-level elites drove post-communist party transformation. #qualifies (0.80)
• Party survival in competitive postcommunist politics requires organizational adaptation, not weak rivals. #expands (0.75) — John T. Ishiyama, Party Organization and the Political…, 97
• Maintaining ideological rigidity blocks elite turnover and party renewal #qualifies (0.70) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 221