Regime collapse preserves inherited advantages for some elites

Evidence

The collapse of one political regime and the transition to the next does not simply create a clean break with the past or a “window of opportunity” through which all actors pass with equal ease. Instead, authoritarian regimes had endowed some of the elite actors with political resources that were a considerable competitive advantage. As a result, even the most dramatic regime collapse will allow certain organizational and institutional continuities, may favor certain actors over others, and need not eliminate all the actors of the ancien regime for the new one to consolidate. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 1514

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges the tabula-rasa view of critical junctures in historical institutionalist theory. — connects to: Regime legacies persist independently of the conditions that created them; Discredited ancien regime parties can survive collapse and win power through regeneration — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 46; Totalitarian solutions survive regime falls as standing temptations — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1034 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• An economically displaced class can retain political and intellectual supremacy #corroborates (0.80)
• A rising class can dominate economically while old elites retain politico-intellectual supremacy. #corroborates (0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 305
• Totalitarian solutions survive regime falls as standing temptations #expands (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1034
• Historical disadvantages can secretly become advantages and built-in strengths become limits #expands (0.72) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 639