Transition chaos gave new party elites vast discretionary power

Evidence

The new elites thus had unprecedented opportunities and enormous amounts of discretionary power during 1989-90. Both within the parties and in the broader transitional environment, politics focused almost 3 As Pauline Jones Luong argues, elites tend to support innovation where they perceive their relative power to be increasing, and resist changing the status quo and its distribution of power where they perceive their power to be declining. — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 394

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Democratic transition triggered massive communist party elite turnover — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 393; Reformist elites seized party control by displacing the retreating old guard — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 504

Broader Connections

• Reformist elites seized party control by displacing the retreating old guard #corroborates (0.82) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 504