Party centralization backfires unless elites have skill responding to voters

Evidence

For parties to benefit from centralization in both elections and in the parliament, however, their new elites had to have skill and experience in responding to societal demands. Otherwise, centralization could lead to insulation from critical electoral and parliamentary signals, if elites were unable to read and to respond to them. Moreover, organizational centralization per se required considerable administrative skill – in a newly centralized party, an already strained center would assume additional responsibilities for the running of the parliamentary bureau and of the regional organizations, while risking member alienation and accusations of nondemocratic practices. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 414

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Centralized control’s blind spots inadvertently produced reform-capable Slovak elites — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 218; Post-1989 context rewards streamlined centralized parties over mass-membership ones — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 413; Centralized parties with experienced elites adapted best to postcommunist elections. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 71 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Centralized parties with experienced elites adapted best to postcommunist elections. #corroborates (0.85) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 71
• Learned elites, not centralization alone, determine whether a party can read an electorate #expands (0.85) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 834
• Progressive parties use democratic centralism while regressive ones become unthinking bureaucratic executors #qualifies (0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 685
• Vote oscillation across election levels reveals a party’s cadre deficiencies. #corroborates (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 786
• Democratic centralism means adapting constantly to movement rather than hardening into bureaucracy #expands (0.72)