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reaucracies reacted to the incumbency change and how the CDR in office failed either to
break them and enforce adherence to political commands in policy implementation, or to
come to terms with them as the Socialists did. The result was a deceptive, largely disobedi-
ent and corruption-prone bureaucracy, boycotting decisions of politicians and changing
its loyalty as soon as another incumbency change started to loom on the horizon.
Weaknesses in Parties
As far as party-related causes are concerned, the
internal life of political parties
, in particu-
lar party organizations, stands out as extremely important one.
The Bulgarian case is illustrative of the situation in which organizational consolidation
of the center-right (i.e. turning a “party as a coalition” into a unified party organization)
coincided with its period in government. This contributed to the fact that successful unifi-
cation of the UDF into a single party organization was accompanied by counterproductive
closure, encapsulation and insulation not only from society and voters, but often also from
party members on the local level. This after some time resulted in a largely dysfunctional
and paralyzed party organization. Not only did the public see the party as a self-interested
sect, but even its own members doubted it had a broader purpose. Not surprisingly, after
the 1999 municipal elections, UDF abandoned its flagship procedure – primary elections.
Venerated in 1997, just a few years later the party rejected such primaries as a source of
disunity and quarrels, and returned to traditional elite-controlled method of candidate
selection for the 2001 general elections. The closed character of the party resulted in its
poor communication with society. This, accompanied by a ruthless infiltration of the state
structures by the party nominees, further contributed to its unpopularity.
In Lithuania, the Homeland Union’s coherence and efficiency in party management dwin-
dled away precisely while the party was in office. Ill-managed organizational reform, accord-
ing to Adomėnas, influenced the governing capacity of the party as well as the party’s public
image, as it did not prevent dominance of local chiefs and clan politics. The party organiza-
tion lost its attraction to people and found itself trapped in the resulting recruitment crisis.
Local party organizations to a great extent lost their capacity to interact with society.
Ideological crisis may, but need not necessarily, go hand-in-hand with organizational cri-
sis. Adomėnas depicts the transformation of the ideological space of Lithuanian politics
during conservative rule, including the Conservatives’ ideological exhaustion. Gradually,
the party got to the stage that “towards the end of their parliamentary term” where they
“eventually found themselves without any distinctive political vision to offer.” Although
it had always been a doctrinal party, the Homeland Union at a certain point underwent
such a strong ideological dilution that it had nothing distinct to offer to voters on the right
and eventually lost its position as the main party of the right to the Liberal Union. This
tendency receded only gradually with the rise of a new leader.
In general, center-right parties run the risk of ideological dilution and exhaustion when
overwhelmed by governing and suffer from a drain of personnel from the party to the
structures of government. There can be “too many” right-of-center messages competing
in the case of “parties as coalitions,” or there can be an absence of message as parties di-
lute their identity in the pragmatism often required by governing. The latter danger was
