Leadership, organization or ideology? Different paths of party adaptation in former guerrilla movements. The cases of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Uruguay

This research note pays attention to the main indicators that the literature has proposed to measure the This article compares the different paths to power of Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional of Nicaragua, Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional of El Salvador y Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional-Tupamaros of Uruguay, three of the most important guerrillas-movements of Latin America. Process tracing shows that leadership, organization and ideology, the three independent variables usually highlighted in party-adaptation theories, played different roles in each one of the selected cases. Change in the internal dominant coalition is not a necessary condition for the implementation of a new and effective electoral strategy. Sometimes adaption, and electoral success, happens without ideological moderation.