The Party is Dead, Long Live the Party! Successor Party Adaptation After Single-Party Authoritarian Regime Collapse.

In this paper I develop a theory explaining the variation in successor party performance following the collapse of single-party authoritarianism in 28 countries. I argue that there are three sets of factors affecting successor party performance in competitive elections - historical legacies, political institutions, and party adaptation tactics to democratic conditions. My preliminary results on a partial data set indicate that party tactics such as name changes, organizational centralization, and ideological moderation improve successor parties' electoral performance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]