Despite similar starting conditions, the conservative parties in the new democracies of Spain and Portugal took a completely different path after the end of the dictatorship. While the Portuguese CDS-PP stagnated over time, the Spanish AP-PP rose to become the umbrella party of the center-right. Peter Matuschek analyzes the reasons behind the success of the Spanish conservatives. He concludes that the rise of the Spanish AP-PP is largely due to its own changes in competitive behavior and organization. In particular, the conservatives in Spain succeeded in building a membership-strong party organization with a comprehensive infrastructure. This contradicts common assumptions about the nature of parties in the new democracies of Southern Europe.