Pre-existing social democratic rivals explain little about successor party regeneration

Evidence

Fourth, the historical absence of social democratic parties has been used to explain why the Polish and Hungarian communist parties were able to regenerate, if the trade-off between communist and social democratic support on the Left holds. Social democrats were active in the prewar Czech Republic, and once rebuilt after 1989, the party constituted the traditional Left alternative to the Czech communists. As a result, the Czech communist party was unable to become a more moderate competitor, it is argued, because the social democrats already occupied the centrist Left space. The Polish and Hungarian parties faced no such historical competition, and so could remake themselves into social democratic parties. However, this analysis ignores the weakness of the social democrats in the Czech Republic from 1989 to 1993, precisely the time when the other parties regenerated. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 143

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the finding in other literatures that explanation points to ‘precisely the window’ when regeneration happens — connects to communist successor parties surviving by finding a new threat. — connects to: Successor parties that regenerated crowded out leftist rivals — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 1523; An absent competitor alone cannot explain party regeneration without transmission mechanisms — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 143; A left-populist’s trajectory depends on the fate of its social democratic rival — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 299 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• An absent competitor alone cannot explain party regeneration without transmission mechanisms #expands (0.92) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 143
• Successor parties that regenerated crowded out leftist rivals #contradicts (0.88) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 1523
• Communist successor parties thrived most where prior regimes suppressed independent challengers #corroborates (0.85) — John T. Ishiyama, Party Organization and the Political…, 23
• Party survival in competitive postcommunist politics requires organizational adaptation, not weak rivals. #responds-to (0.82) — John T. Ishiyama, Party Organization and the Political…, 97
• A left-populist’s trajectory depends on the fate of its social democratic rival #corroborates (0.78) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 299