Can elections create democrats? Why and how do former armed opposition
groups decide to invest in electoral politics or to undermine them? This
book argues that the answer lies in the patterns of inter- and
intraparty struggles created by participation in repeated elections over
time. Democratization has become the cornerstone of post-civil war state reconstruction, but the role of political parties in the success or failure of democratic statebuilding is understudied.  The book examines four parties in three countries over ten years or more of electoral politics: Renamo in Mozambique, the Croatian Democratic Union and the Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia, and the FMLN in El Salvador.