John T. Ishiyama — Party Organization and the Political Success of the Communist Successor Parties

13 published claims from this book.

• Cadre and mass parties are distinguished by the quality versus quantity of their supporters
• Communist successor parties post-1989 offer a natural experiment in how organization shapes political survival.
• Communist successor parties thrived most where prior regimes suppressed independent challengers
• Externalist accounts of postcommunist party success rest on assumption rather than testable evidence
• Lower-house seat shares best measure postcommunist party political influence.
• Officeholder domination and early electoral focus drive success under genuine competition.
• Organizational form determines successor-party survival only under left-wing competitive threat.
• Parties can be analyzed through three distinct organizational faces.
• Party survival in competitive postcommunist politics requires organizational adaptation, not weak rivals.
• Post-communist party success depended on internal organization, not nostalgia or economic decline
• Postcommunist successor parties are genuine organizations, not clubs.
• Proportional electoral rules enable even discredited parties to return
• Weak competitors alone sustain successor party success without genuine organizational transformation.