Party Organization and the Political Success of the Communist Successor Parties

Objective. Although there has been much recent work done on party systems in the postcommunist world, there has been very little systematic comparative work that examines the relationship between the organizational development of political parties and political performance. The objective of this article is to empirically examine the relationship between party organization and the political success of 17 communist successor parties from 1993 to 2000. Methods. I propose a way of measuring party organizations based upon the degree of personnel overlap between the organs of the extraparliamentary party and the party in public office and the organizational density of political parties and relate these characteristics to the political success enjoyed by the communist successor parties. Results. In general, I find that the more the successor party was dominated by officeholders and less reliant on a mass membership for political support in the years immediately following the transition, the more successful the party was later. Conclusions. The interaction of party organization with the party's competitive environment was a better predictor of success than declines in the socioeconomic condition of the population, rises in popular “nostalgia” for the past, or openings created by political institutions.