This study investigates the mechanisms that allow authoritarian political parties to survive and eventually regain power after losing executive control in a democratic transition. Joy Kathryn Langston, a scholar specializing in Mexican politics, utilizes an institutional framework to analyze the internal dynamics of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). She argues that the party's survival depends on its ability to manage internal fractures and maintain voter support despite the loss of state-controlled resources.

Experts in Latin American politics recognize this work as a rigorous institutional analysis of party resilience. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the depth of the historical data provided.