Pre-1989 administrative skills ported directly into post-transition democratic competition.
Evidence
Policy innovation reinforced the importance of cohesion and streamlining, without which ideas could neither be disseminated nor implemented. Implementing policy reforms gave the elites skill in overcoming internal opposition, and gave them the rhetorical tools and experience in convincing opponents and building coalitions. Even if these reforms did not prevent the economic slide or the popular resentment against the parties’ political monopoly, they gave the mid-level elites valuable experience in building internal consensus, publicly defending policy, persuading a reluctant society, and overcoming administrative hurdles. Since the economies of all these countries experienced their biggest downturn in the 1980s, the pressures for policy reform were then at their greatest. Those elites who withstood these imperatives to restructure would also resist the pressures to transform themselves in 1989. Negotiation with the opposition and society enabled the party elites to respond to public concerns and emphasized building broad public coalitions. The less adversarial this relationship, the more widely accepted the communist successor parties after 1989. Thus, these recent experiences in administration and politicking were readily portable to the new institutional setting after 1989. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 368
Categorization
- SEED: An angle: ‘portable skills’ — what constitutes survivable institutional capital, and whether the same test applies to other collapsing regimes whose elites must rebuild.
- XREF: connects to: Suppressing democracy trained communist elites in the skills democratic competition later needed — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 64; Pre-democratic organizational practices shaped successor parties’ post-regime survival capacities — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 88; Authoritarian-era institutional choices can shape political behavior after democratic openings. — Johan Brosché and Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Höglund, Electoral violence and the legacy of…, 13 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Suppressing democracy trained communist elites in the skills democratic competition later needed
#corroborates(0.95) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 64 - Communist-era organizational flexibility determined which parties later thrived democratically
#corroborates(0.85) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 62 - Pre-democratic organizational practices shaped successor parties’ post-regime survival capacities
#expands(0.82) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 88 - Authoritarian-era institutional choices can shape political behavior after democratic openings.
#expands(0.75) — Johan Brosché and Hanne Fjelde and Kristine Höglund, Electoral violence and the legacy of…, 13 - The evolving administrative systems laid groundwork for modern governance.
#expands(0.72) — Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking…, 372