| This dissertation examines the adaptation of formerly dominant political parties, after the third wave of democratization. I analyze whether parties that had a political monopoly in single-party regimes, such as Albania and Tanzania, have changed in response to the introduction of multiparty politics into their systems. Most existing literature has three shortcomings: it focuses on Eastern Europe, it examines "change" only in terms of ideological shifts made by the party, and it generally posits external factors as the explanations of party change. My dissertation directly addresses the above shortcomings, by: including a variety of cases from Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. I also examine both the ideological and organizational aspects of party change. Drawing on work in party change, organizational theory, democratization, and existing studies of formerly dominant parties, the dissertation posits three main sets of factors to explain party change: a party's history, the party's environment, and the party's internal dynamics.; The dissertation is composed of two different analyses. The first analysis examines party name change in formerly dominant parties, and includes 27 political parties. The second analysis is a more detailed look at a small sample of 7 political parties. The results show that the vast majority of formerly dominant political parties have responded to democratization by changing in some way or other. The degree of change, however, is not uniform. The degree of change is generally associated with environmental factors, and the party's history. Specifically, greater party change is associated with higher party institutionalization, whether or not the party was totalitarian or authoritarian before transition, higher degrees of post-transition democracy, less control by the party over the transition process, and electoral performance. The party's internal dynamics do not seem to be related to change in formerly dominant parties of the third wave. Finally, issue change seems to operate very differently from organizational change for some parties. However, these results must be considered only suggestive, and much more analysis is necessary before firmer conclusions can be drawn regarding the adaptation of formerly dominant parties. In particular, it is imperative to add more cases to the analysis. |
