East European Politics and
Societies and Cultures
Volume XX Number X
Month 202X  1­–28
© 2023 Sage Publications
https://doi.org/10.1177/08883254231212487
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hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Time for Regional Parties to
Shine or for National Parties to
Lock Horns Again?
The True Nature of Czech Regional Elections
Adam Folvarčný , Jan Hruška and Michal Pink
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Establishing representative bodies for the regions was an opportunity for politics to be
decentralised. Using a three-dimensional index of congruence of the vote, this text
explores the extent to which this opportunity has been taken up in Czech regional elections.
Analysing all such ballots since 2000, it compares electoral competition at the
national and regional levels; the success of regional parties is also analysed. The results
show that Czech regional polls are strongly national in flavour, and their results are
similar to those of national elections (only the second-order-election effect is visible);
the success of regional parties is very limited, while national parties clearly dominate.
Keywords:  regional elections; regionalisation; dissimilarity score; Bohemia; Moravia;
three-dimensional index of congruence; second-order elections; regional parties
Introduction
Traditionally, electoral research has paid most attention to national elections,
even though “regional elections are clearly on the rise.”1 This “methodological
nationalism” in election research has been criticised more than once.2 The main
reason for the limited interest in regional polls is probably their nature as secondorder
elections. However, Schakel and Jeffery and Romanova3 have criticised the
tendency developed by Reif and Schmitt’s theory4 automatically to assume that
these are second-order elections, as there are a number of factors that influence
whether they can be considered second order or not. These include, in particular, the
powers of the body that is elected, the involvement of a regional (rather than countrywide)
party or parties, and the lack of a direct link with the formation of the
national government, if regional elections are held concurrently with national elections.
Thus, the specific aspects of any elections analysed should always be examined
in detail.
According to Schakel and Romanova, the scholarship on regional elections brings
many benefits: “a refinement on the scope conditions of the second-order election
model; the introduction of the concept of barometer elections; and the insight that each
regional (and national) election is regionalized or nationalized to a certain extent.”5
1212487EEPXXX10.1177/08883254231212487East European Politics & Societies and Cultures<bold>Folvarčný et al. /</bold> Short Title
research-article2023
2  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
Examining regional elections is also important because of their relationship with
the decentralisation of power, which gives political parties and voters opportunities
to mobilise and address issues of importance at the local level, possibly leading to a
greater interest in democracy.6 Schakel and Romanova assume that “voters differentiate
between national and regional elections based on variations in regional policy
autonomy.”7 Political parties are then motivated to adapt their policies to the regional
electoral arena if it is politically beneficial to diverge from the party’s nationwide
policy.8 According to Amat and Léon,9 decentralisation affects parties themselves as
it tends to promote greater independence from their centralist leaderships (e.g., by
allowing more independent election strategies). Furthermore, decentralisation
changes the environment to benefit regionalist parties, and thus electoral arenas
diverge (with lesser spillovers), with, for instance, national parties gaining much less
from their participation in regional coalitions or tending to establish more radical
profiles alongside the centre-periphery axis.9
Voting in regional elections can take on a different form from national elections
due to region-specific preferences. Schakel and Romanova argue that specific
regional interests can be expected when there are territorial cleavages based on, e.g.,
history, language, or ethnicity.10 Bochsler notes the effect of ethnic divisions, which
decrease the measure of the nationalisation of the party system.11 Liñeira stresses the
influence of the regional identities of voters on their perception of regional
elections.12
The degree of regionalisation is reflected in the incongruence of party systems in
national and regional elections.13 Schakel and Dandoy argue that “regionalized
regional elections are characterized by similar or higher levels of turnout compared
to national elections, minimal second-order election effects, and electorally strong
non-state-wide parties with vote shares close to or above 30 percent.”14 Some studies
point to a decrease in the nationalisation of regional elections due to increasing
regional authority and strong regional identities.15 According to the same authors,
“regional party systems become increasingly dissimilar from national party systems
and the second-order nature of regional elections declines to the extent regional government
becomes more powerful and/or regional cleavages are present and politically
mobilized.”16
On the other hand, Caramani argues that, despite strong institutional decentralisation,
there is no evidence of the vote being regionalised.17 This approach emphasises
the nationalisation of politics and party systems, including regional elections.18
According to Golosov, high degrees of political decentralisation exert a strong negative
effect on party system nationalisation. Countries with large populations and
societies divided along linguistic and/or religious lines also tend to have party systems
that are less nationalised. However, different factors may strongly contribute to
party system nationalisation, even in federations. The most prominent among these
is a high level or quality of democracy.19
Folvarčný et al. / Regionalisation of Czech Regional Elections
According to Schakel and Romanova, “nationalized regional elections can be recognized
by highly similar regional and national party systems, second-order elections
lead to dissimilar regional and national party systems according to the magnitude
of second-order election effects.”20 Also, in nationalised regional elections, regional
parties cannot be expected to have much success. As recently shown by Tsirbas and
Romanova, some regional elections may thus be simultaneously regionalised and
nationalised.21
Most studies to date have examined established Western democracies,22 yet longer
experience with democratic institutions and a greater quality of democracy are
important factors for regionalisation.23 Our study therefore examines the regionalisation/nationalisation
of regional elections using the case of the Czech Republic with
the aim of answering the following questions: Is political competition at the regional
level identical to national political competition? How successful are regional parties?
And to what extent can regional elections be described as second-order elections?
The Czech case is worth examining for several reasons. Not only is it a case outside
the Western democracies that have received most of the attention, but it is also a
country with an interesting tradition of decentralisation. While any decentralisation
efforts were severely weakened after the collapse of the multi-ethnic Czechoslovakia,
on the other hand, the Czech Republic is made up of three historical macro-regions
that used to have their own governance—Bohemia, Moravia, and part of Silesia. The
Czech Republic thus offers an opportunity to study the impact of historical decentralisation
on contemporary regionalisation. Moreover, the Czech national and
regional elections use an almost identical (proportional) electoral system. This
removes a significant methodological obstacle for comparing national and regional
electoral arenas that has caused problems for research in many other countries.
Regional Elections in the Czech Republic
After the dissolution of the Czechoslovak Federation in late 1992, a new regional
division of the country was sought. It was not until 2000 that the Czech Republic
was newly divided into 14 regions (technically “higher-level territorial self-government
units”). Simultaneously, new, directly-elected regional governments were
established, which have become an important part of the Czech constitutional order.
The first elections were held in 2000 and have taken place regularly every four years
since.
It is important to note that the final form of the regions fails to respect a number
of natural administrative and communication routes, and a number of old regions
were treated insensitively. The present regions were thus created on an artificial, nonhistorical
basis, failing to respect the old settlement and administrative catchment
areas. Dissatisfaction with the regions was retrospectively expressed by a number of
politicians across the political spectrum.24
4  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
Our paper partly builds on the work of Pink25; however, unlike him, we examine
the regionalisation of regional elections after a period of large recurrent electoral
earthquakes.26 The decline of the major parties that have dominated the political
scene since the early 1990s and major changes in the party system could theoretically
provide opportunities for regionalisation. Similarly, the longer existence of regions
gives more opportunities for regional identities to emerge, which may in turn be
reflected in the regionalisation of elections. Compared to the work of Pink, our paper
also analyses the congruence of individual parties’ results and thus offers deeper
understanding. Furthermore, the contribution of our paper is that, in contrast to many
other recent studies that focus on a single election,27 we examine the results of as
many as six regional elections and compare them to a corresponding number of
national elections.
Methods and Data
The regionalisation of regional elections can be measured effectively by comparing
political competition at the regional and national levels.28 It is often the electoral
outcomes and gains of political parties that reflect the political mindset of voters and
their identities, including the extent of political regionalisation. If regions have a
strong identity and therefore regionalise politics, this should be reflected in regional
electoral competition, where we would expect to see relatively weaker performance
of national parties (compared to the national arena) and conversely success for
regional parties. If, on the other hand, politics is scarcely regionalised, we expect the
regional electoral contest to match the national one, with national parties succeeding.
Therefore, this study compares regional electoral competition to national electoral
competition using the instrument of the index of congruence of the vote
(IoCV). Given the nature of this instrument, the paper also secondarily describes the
main trends in the success or failure of political parties in regional elections.
At the same time, we focus on whether regional elections have the nature of second-order
elections. Specifically, we compare the electoral performance of the government
parties and opposition parties in regional and national elections.29 Finally,
we analyse the performance of regional parties in regional elections. If regional elections
are regionalised, significant regional parties are expected in the system. Those
are parties that do not operate nationwide and are regularly able to win seats in
regional elections, which are their primary arena.
With reference to the different historical experiences with self-governance of the
two historical macro-regions of the Czech Republic—Bohemia and Moravia (the
small part of Silesia that is part of the Czech Republic is associated with the Moravian
region in this research)—we also investigate whether the existence of the historical
macro-regions is reflected in contemporary regional politics, i.e., specifically whether
the degree of nationalisation of regional elections differs in these two historical
macro-regions.
Hypotheses
Applying the theory to the Czech case, we propose the following four hypothe-
ses:
Hypothesis 1: Although some authors describe a trend of regionalisation of regional elections,
we do not expect this to be the case in Czechia because the constituencies there do
not respect traditional boundaries. A correlation between regional and nation election
results would support this hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2: Following a significant change in the political party system, when traditional
parties decline and new parties emerge, we expect to find a greater regionalisation during
the regional elections in 2012, 2016, and 2020 than in other years.
Hypothesis 3: Given the assumed nationalisation of regional elections, we expect these to be
of a second-order character, reflected not just in low voter turnout but also a penalty effect
affecting parties in government nationally.
Hypothesis 4: Following the assumed low regionalisation of regional elections, we expect
there to be very few (if any) regional parties in the system of regional elections.
Congruence of the Vote
As we already argued, a comparison between regional and national election vote
shares is widely used to assess territorial heterogeneity in the vote.30 Dissimilarity
scores are calculated by taking the sum of absolute differences between regional and
national vote shares for each party and subsequently dividing the result by two. In
this article, we apply an adjusted dissimilarity index which allows us to vary vote
shares according to the type of election as well as the level of aggregation (Schakel
2013), whereby Xi is the vote share won by party i in election j or l (dis)aggregated
at the territorial level k or m. The type of election as well as the level of aggregation
can vary between regional and national levels. The absolute values are summed and
divided by two to avoid double counting (one party’s gain is another party’s loss).
Scores may range from complete congruence/similarity (0 percentage points [pp]) to
complete incongruence/dissimilarity (100 pp).
Dissimilarity score= −
=
∑
1
2 1
X Xijk ilm
i
n
In most published papers, the index takes three forms:
a.	 Party system congruence: similarity between the national vote at the national level and
the regional vote in the region (NN-RR)
b.	Electorate congruence: similarity between the national vote at the national level and
the national vote in the region (NN-NR)
c.	Election congruence: similarity between the national vote at the regional level and the
regional vote in the region (NR-RR)
Data
The main source of data is the archive of election results held by the Czech
Statistical Office, available at www.volby.cz, and a number of publications on this
topic as described earlier. We analyse data from six regional elections (2000, 2004,
2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020) and related national elections. The Czech Republic has
de jure fourteen regions including the capital, Prague. However, the capital city has
its own status outside regional government, and the elections in Prague have a number
of unique regulations. Most importantly, elections in Prague are held at the time
of local elections, which take place two years after regional elections in a completely
different social atmosphere. Also, a completely different electoral system is used,
allowing a panachage procedure. Compatibility with elections in other regions is
thus de facto non-existent. For that reason, in what follows, Prague is disregarded
entirely, and all the analyses and calculations are based on the results of the elections
in the thirteen regions only.
Territorial Distribution of Electoral Support
The preceding sections described the context of Czech regional elections and
what we know about them so far. Now we shall focus on the electoral support for
parties and its analysis using the instruments as noted. If we view regional elections
as a nationwide contest—but one that uses a different set of rules from that used to
elect the Chamber of Deputies, the lower chamber of parliament—the triple IoCV as
described can help us to understand them. Electorate congruence (NN-NR) is a
measure of the similarity or dissimilarity between the results of the elections to the
Chamber nationwide and at the level of regions. The indicator makes it quite clear
that the results of the national elections have been very evenly distributed among the
various regions, and according to Figure 1, there have been no substantial differences.
The support for political parties is more uniformly spread in Bohemia, where
the NN-NR index did not reach values above 1 pp. By contrast, in the eastern part
of the country, in Moravia, it exceeded 1.5 in 2000, which is still a very low value.
What is more, the trend in the two macro-regions is the same—a decreasing index,
and hence increasingly even distribution of support for parties over time. Despite the
slight difference between Bohemia and Moravia, no significant regionalisation was
observed in the Czech party system.
The second indicator of the congruence of the vote (NR-RR) shows how the
results of elections to the Chamber and regional elections differ in the same territory,
i.e., the thirteen regions, across time. With this indicator, greater differences are
apparent, as suggested by the maximums in 2000, 2004, and 2012 in particular. In
these elections, which were always held with some time lag after the elections to the
Chamber—at about the mid-term of the government—the interregional differences
were the greatest. This means that people in the various regions voted relatively differently
in elections to the Chamber and regional assemblies. The lowest values were
recorded in 2016, followed by 2008 and 2020, when people voted similarly in both
elections in regions. The NR-RR index was very similar in the two macro-regions
observed.
The third and last indicator (NN-RR), which shows the party system congruence
nationally and regionally, exhibits the greatest variance. It shows the difference
between the percentages of the vote obtained by parties in national elections to the
Chamber and regional elections. These are the averages of the results achieved by
parties in the respective years. Since Czech political parties enjoy stable support
across regions in elections to the Chamber, as shown by the NN-NR index, the
NN-RR and NR-RR indices are very similar. We again observe that, in the elections
in 2000, 2004, and 2012, the results of national and regional elections were rather
different at the level of the individual regions. By contrast, in 2008, 2016, and 2020,
the differences between the party systems nationally and regionally were relatively
small, as the two most recent elections were not held during the government’s midterm.
With this index, we also observe the greatest differences when comparing the
election results in Bohemia and Moravia. In Bohemia, it reached the highest value—
above 5 pp—in 2004. In that same year, the index in Moravia was less than four. By
contrast, the maximum in Moravia was achieved in 2000, when the value of the
index was above 6.5. Considerable growth appeared in both macro-regions in 2012
Figure 1
Indicates decreasing values of IoCV during the time. Their indices show
relatively stable support for the political parties across regions during the time
Source: Own calculations based on www.volby.cz.
Note: The vertical axis indicates vote congruence in percentage points.
8  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
but was quite brief. In recent years, however, the values of the index have been very
similar in the two macro-regions observed.
The overall values of the individual indices do not exceed 6 pp, and they reached
this value rather exceptionally during the first regional elections. On the contrary, the
index values confirm that, overall, there is a relatively high correlation between
national and regional elections. Thus, it is hardly possible to detect any trend towards
regionalisation, especially in the last two elections, when the values of the index
indicators did not exceed 3 pp. These patterns confirm the assumptions made in
Hypothesis 1.
Main Political Actors
If we want to analyse regional elections in relation to the current Czech party
system, it is best to distinguish two clusters of political parties for a full understanding
of the restructuring of the party system in Czechia. This also enables a potential
effect resulting from changes in the party system to be assessed.
Thus, we distinguish (1) traditional political parties established in the early 1990s
that created the foundations of the party system; these were stable political actors
until 2020, with variable electoral support. (2) Newly established political parties,
the political actors of the last decade; they have been emerging since 2009 and have
gained relevance during the reshuffling of the party system after the electoral earthquakes
of the past decade, demonstrating a loss of domination by traditional
parties.
Traditional parties
a.	 The Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD—Česká strana sociálně demokratická) is
the main representative of left-wing values in the Czech party system. In early 1990s,
it defined itself in opposition to the liberal-conservative government coalition. It went
on to take on the government role in 1998, which it continued to perform after the next
elections in 2002. In 2006, however, it went into opposition and, although it won the
next elections to the Chamber, it did not form a government coalition.31 It again became
the main party of government in 2014; after the elections in 2017, in which it suffered a
significant slump, it was the junior partner of the ruling ANO 2011 party.
In assessing the results, it is apparent that it reached its maximum value in 2008
when it exceeded 35 per cent of the vote. In the same elections, an overall maximum
was reached—over 42 per cent—a result to which ČSSD was not even close in other
ones. In 2012, they, again as an opposition party, also achieved a high average result,
over 23 per cent, and they won in all regions. ČSSD met with the minimum response
on the part of the electorate in the most recent election and suffered substantial loses.
Moreover, in 2020, it received less than 7 per cent of the vote, and ČSSD failed to cross
the 5 per cent threshold in several regions. Their regional elites were weakened.
Folvarčný et al. / Regionalisation of Czech Regional Elections
b.	Christian and Democratic Union–Czechoslovak People’s Party (KDU-ČSL–
Křesťanská a demokratická unie–Československá strana lidová) is representative of
the Christian-democratic political bloc, described sometimes as the centre of the Czech
party system. It had to deal with a number of unfavourable circumstances, including a
concentration of its electoral support in some regions, decreasing religiosity in Czech
society, and a split in the party in 2009. Although the KDU-ČSL has been gradually
marginalised within the party system, within the political system, it has been a part of
the government majorities most of the time, with a high coalition potential.32 After a
historic failure in 2010, three years later, it managed to cross the 5 per cent threshold
and return to the Chamber of Deputies. Given the prevailing balance of power at the
time and the party’s political temperament, it went straight into government, where
together with ČSSD and ANO 2011, it created government policy after 2013.
Thanks to the regional nature of KDU-ČSL support, its regional election results
have been very particular to the party. It has long been able to win strong support and
representation in some regions (Zlín, South Moravia, Vysočina, and Pardubice). In
the north of the country, by contrast, the party regularly fails and seeks to enter into
various alliances and coalitions with local political entities. It is not least due to this
aspect of regionally concentrated support that KDU-ČSL has been able to win representation
in the leadership of some regions, including governor positions—once
regions were established, the party obtained very strong positions there and, with
five governors, influenced the foundation of many regions. The minimum and maximum
values for this party are also interesting to observe, ranging as they do from the
weakest performance equalling zero33 to the strongest above 30 per cent. It suggests
the already-mentioned regional disproportionality in the party’s electoral support,
which confirms a number of earlier findings about the party’s electoral base.34
c.	 Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM–Komunistická strana Čech a
Moravy) continues to be the main heir to the non-democratic regime before 1989 and,
at the lower levels of the system of government, has been moderately successful. The
party’s messages and programme (which have become more moderate over the past
two decades) are focused on defending left-wing socio-economic values; but in matters
of culture, the party mainly advances conservative values. The KSČM has long questioned
the Czech Republic’s pro-Western orientation, including its membership of the
European Union and especially of NATO. Although represented in the Czech national
parliament, unlike local and regional politics, it has long been the subject of a convention
to exclude it from national politics, and its coalition potential nationally was for
long non-existent. This changed after the 2017 elections, when the party facilitated
the formation of a minority ANO and ČSSD government, which relied on its support.
KSČM is the most successful of those Communist parties in Central Europe that stayed
close to their pre-1989 traditions.
The party’s share of the vote reached a maximum above 28 per cent in 2000 and
somewhat lower figures in 2004 and 2012. It is probable that in the first two
10  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
elections, it attracted votes because it was the only left-wing party of the opposition
(the social democrats were in government at the time). Recently, the results of KSČM
in regional elections, shows the party’s modest success rate. This decrease is a great
loss for a party for which decent polling performance in regional elections had been
a way out of isolation.
d.	 The liberal-conservative Civic Democratic Party (ODS—Občanská demokratická
strana) was the main successor to the Civic Forum established in 1989 and the representative
of the economic and social transformation process following the fall of communism.
ODS long served as the main party of the right. It remained the main party of
government until 1998 and led the gradual transformation and democratisation of the
country.35
After the elections in 1998, it concluded a pact with its main rival, ČSSD, that
continues to be seen as bizarre by many, as it bound ODS to tolerate a minority
ČSSD government. By contrast, after 2002, as the social democrats continued to
govern, ODS dominated regional elections, winning most of the governorships and,
in Central Bohemia, polled 44.65 per cent of the vote. Contrariwise, two regional
elections, in 2008 and 2012, held at the mid-term of the unpopular centre-right governments
at the time, were fiascos for ODS. It was in particular the slump following
the Nečas government in 2013 that questioned the position of ODS as the pole in the
right-wing segment of the political spectrum. In 2020, the party was able to obtain
regional governorships for the first time since 2004. However, there has been a gradual
transformation in the party overall; it shifted from social-liberal (during the government
led by Mirek Topolánek) to social-conservative positions (the government
of Petr Nečas and the leadership of Petr Fiala) on issues such as the integration of
minorities in society, the role of religious principles in politics and alternative
life-styles.36
Support for ODS is distributed relatively uniformly across the country. It tends to
be somewhat stronger in Bohemia, especially in Central Bohemia and Plzeň. By
contrast, its positions have been weaker in Moravia, especially in recent years. The
party has long polled about 20 per cent of the vote, but after 2012, this declined to
about 10 per cent. Despite this slump it has always (up to 2020) stood on its own in
regional elections and has been able to win more than 5 per cent of the vote in all
regions.
New parties
a.	 Smaller liberal parties – a group of small parties in Czech politics that have won seats
in the Chamber, albeit sometimes only for a single term. This is not a homogeneous
group of parties, though they are mostly centrist, mostly liberal in orientation and appealing
to similar electorates (urban voters, intellectuals and, usually, younger people).
Over time this ‘quasi-movement’ has become a firm part of Czech party politics, although
it has been subject to fluctuations and has not been particularly strong in win-
Folvarčný et al. / Regionalisation of Czech Regional Elections
ning vote shares or seats. Its importance is due to its centrist position that has allowed
its representatives to serve as junior coalition partners (in the 1990s, with ODS; after
2002, with ČSSD; after 2006, again with ODS).
Historically these small parties included US-DEU (1998-2002, latently until
2006) and the Greens (Zelení) (2006-2010). In 2010, the role was taken on by the
newly-formed Tradition Responsibility Prosperity 09 (TOP 09), led by Miroslav
Kalousek, and its important and close ally, the group of local politicians called
Mayors and Independents (STAN—Starostové a nezávislí). Until 2016, TOP 09 and
STAN actually constituted a single (electoral) party.37 However, they contested the
2017 elections to the Chamber separately and both narrowly crossed the election
threshold. In 2017 they were joined at the national level by the Pirate Party, which
gradually became stronger and hence became the third representative of this liberaloriented
movement around the political centre. In the subsequent regional elections,
the Pirates put members into all regional assemblies.38 The Czech Pirate Party (Česká
pirátská strana) had long been unable to break into parliament and their gradually
improving results at the lower levels of politics facilitated its overall success.39
The aggregated support for these liberal parties has been on the increase. However,
it needs noting that the structure of these parties has changed over time and that now
there are three of them. Though their average aggregated result in 2017 was 9.57
percent and in 2020 16.14 percent, the vote shares won by the individual parties
varied widely across the country. The support for these liberal parties is also regionally
specific with huge differences. While in the Moravia-Silesia region it has long
been very low, in Liberec the combined share of the vote for these parties exceeded
38 percent in 2020. In considering the level of support for these parties we also need
to bear in mind that they were in opposition from 2013.40
b.	ANO (ANO 2011), led by the businessman Andrej Babiš is a political movement
founded in 2012. It took to the Czech political stage with a bang the next year, when
following national elections it became the junior coalition partner of the Social Democrats.
Following the next elections in 2017 the two parties switched their positions
and arguably ANO dominated the Czech political scene until 2021. The party, which
describes itself emphatically as a ‘movement’, originally established its profile on the
issue of fighting corruption and traditional political parties. It is a party with strong
populist tendencies and orientation, vehemently critical of the political establishment.
It has also been considered an instance of a business-firm party.41
ANO, the party of government, achieved similar scores in both years, although it
fared slightly better in the latter elections. The average vote share in 2016 was 20.81
per cent, while in 2020, it was 1 pp higher. Similarly, the minimum share of the vote
won by the party increased in the most recent regional elections, while the maximum
increased by nearly 5 pp.
c.	 While ANO can be described as Andrej Babiš’s party, Dawn of Direct Democracy
(ÚPD—Úsvit přímé demokracie) and its direct successor, Freedom and Direct Democracy
(SPD—Svoboda a přímá demokracie), have both been projects led by Tomio
Okamura.42 In addition to promoting direct democracy and criticising the elite, SPD’s
programme has a strong nativist bent. Since the outbreak of the migration crisis, it has
been a vocal critic of migration and of Islam. In this respect, it can be described as a
populist far-right party, although apparently not an extremist one. SPD is also strongly
critical of the European Union and pushes for the Czech Republic to leave this organisation.
It cooperates with foreign parties of a similar orientation, including Marine Le
Pen’s National Rally.
Tomio Okamura’s parties43 fared similarly in the two regional elections observed,
in 2016 achieving an average result of 5.82 percent of the vote, and in 2020, 6.20 per
cent. Minimum and maximum vote shares achieved by the party in regions are likewise
similar; in 2020, the party did a bit better.
Analysis of IoCV of Individual Partie
The index of electorate congruence (NN-NR), which only uses the results of the
elections to the lower chamber of parliament, has been relatively stable; throughout
the two decades, the variance in ČSSD electoral performance has been very low.
There is only slightly higher value in Moravia than in Bohemia. This shows that
Figure 2
Represents similarity between the national vote at the national level and the
national vote in the region was quite stable during two decades for the
majority of parties, even the newcomers
Source: Own calculations based on www.volby.cz.
Note: Vertical axis indicates vote congruence in percentage points.
Folvarčný et al. / Regionalisation of Czech Regional Elections
ČSSD has enjoyed stable support across all Czech regions, especially in Bohemia.
The index reached its lowest value after 2017, when ČSSD polled its historically
worst result in elections to the Chamber (7.27 per cent).
Similarly, for KDU-ČSL the measure of NN-NR between the various elections is
very similar here. Thus, the party’s performance across constituencies in the elections
to the Chamber does not show substantial fluctuations. There are not even differences
between Moravia and Bohemia.
Figure 2 suggests that, in elections to the Chamber, KSČM enjoys very stable support
across all regions—this is true for both Bohemia and Moravia. The very slight
fluctuations follow the same pattern in both macro-regions. As with ČSSD, the evenness
of support increased after 2016 as the party’s electoral performance declined.
The support for ODS has lower electorate congruence in the individual constituencies
(regions); in elections to the Chamber it is more varied (particularly in
Moravian ones). This effect was the greatest in the 2008 elections (reflecting a huge
slump compared to its previous parliamentary result), reaching 3 pp, but then
decreased steadily, reaching a level similar to that in Bohemia.
Concerning new parties, for TOP 09, NN-NR indicates low values in both macroregions.
It reached under 1.0 pp recently, and there appears no difference from traditional
parties’ trends. On the contrary, for both STAN and Pirates, NN-NR increased
after 2016; for the latter party, as much as three times the previous value.
The index of NN-NR shows that support for ANO across the Bohemian and
Moravian regions was relatively stable. Obviously, in 2020, the stability of support
across regions decreased—in Moravia, the index reached twice the previous value.
Despite this, support for ANO across regions during elections to the Chamber cannot
be said to have varied significantly. It is also apparent that in the two terms studied,
ANO had support spread more evenly than parties already mentioned across regions
despite the already noted increase in Moravia. Again, this is not a significant
difference.
For SPD, the index of NN-NR achieved very low values in the two elections to the
Chamber analysed here. We only observe a slight increase in 2020, greater in
Moravia, where the index is just above 1 pp. Evidently, both Dawn of Direct
Democracy and Freedom and Direct Democracy had very uniform support across the
regions of the Czech Republic during elections to the Chamber and, therefore, have
not deviated from the overall trend of relatively balanced support for all parties.
The index of party system congruence (NN-RR) and the index of election congruence
(congruence in constituencies; NR-RR) are largely the same across the two
decades. The indices show that, comparing the elections to the regional assemblies
and those to the Chamber of Deputies, ČSSD did not have stable support in the
regions. Very high differences in support are observed in the first two regional elections
held in 2000 and 2004 (in Moravia somewhat higher than in Bohemia) with
values of 8.0–9.0 pp—the elections were held at the midpoint of the government’s
term. Contrary to 2016, when the increase in the values of both indices was caused
by ČSSD’s further slump in regional elections, this was not as pronounced as in the
first two regional elections.
Party system congruence of KDU-ČSL was the highest at the beginning when it
reached almost 7.0 pp and then decreased particularly between 2004 and 2008. Since
then, the values are higher in Moravia—stabilised around 4.5 pp, compared to 2.0 pp
in Bohemia. In terms of NR-RR, KDU-ČSL reached its peak during the first regional
elections, when this indicator was between 6.0 and 7.0 pp (in both macro-regions).
The subsequent trends varied: in Bohemia, this difference decreased to 1 pp in 2008
and later remained at this level and was substantially similar to that achieved in
national elections. In Moravia, the indicator increased after 2008, thus the difference
increased respective to the national party system and so did the measure of the difference
in voters in the two types of election on the same territory, up to 3 pp. The 2020
elections confirmed these divergent developmental trends in the two territorially
(and historically) defined parts of the Czech Republic.
Observing trends in the development of support for KSČM in national and
regional elections, some fundamental traits become apparent. If we compare the support
in regional and national elections using the indices of congruence in
Figure 3
Presents a similarity between the national vote at the national level and the
regional vote in the region has varied significantly for individual parties.
Relative match between the similarity of the national party system and party
system in the particular regions after 2008 was replaced by recent growth
Source: Own calculations based on www.volby.cz.
Note: Vertical axis indicates vote congruence in percentage points.
constituencies, in Figures 3 and 4, we observe greater fluctuations, which are very
similar in both macro-regions. In 2000 and 2012, substantially different support in
regions was observed during regional elections. This shows that, compared to the
preceding elections to the Chamber, KSČM fared much better in the 2012 regional
elections, by more than 5 pp on average. It is also evident that when such a phenomenon
takes place, the support for KSČM increases somewhat more in Bohemia than
in Moravia-Silesia.
Moravia clearly has lower electorate congruence—the support for ODS in the
individual constituencies (regions) there in elections to the Chamber is more varied.
This effect was greatest in the 2008 elections, reaching 3 pp, but then decreased
steadily, reaching a level similar to that in Bohemia. In Bohemia, in 2004, the values
of election congruence and party system congruence (similar to overall congruence)
reached their maximum, up to 8 pp. The trends of these indices have been very similar,
and they gradually decreased until 2016, down to 1 pp. In Moravia, the growth
trend of these indicators occurred to a greater extent between 2004 and 2008, when
the party system (NN-RR) in Moravian regions differed the most from the national
one; this, however, was also followed by a steep decline until 2016, when the two
indices came closer again. In 2020, both indices increased slightly both in Bohemia
and Moravia, but this was not a major swing.
Figure 4
Shows the similarity between the national vote at the regional level and the
regional vote in the region that peaked in the first two regional elections. The
values mainly decrease since - the electorate behaves more similarly on the
same territory in different types of elections - the level of election congruence
increased then
Source: Own calculations based on www.volby.cz.
Note: Vertical axis indicates vote congruence in percentage points.
16  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
The indices for TOP 09 started off quite high as suggested by both Figures 3 and 4,
around 8.0 pp, both for party system congruence (NN-RR) and election congruence
(NR-RR). This followed from the significant difference between the share of the vote
received by TOP 09 in elections to the national parliament and regional elections two
years later, when the party suffered a significant slump. However, these values
decreased over the following elections, reaching 2.0 pp, and the difference between
the party’s performance in national and regional elections decreased and is comparable
to average values, even considering the overall decrease in voter support.
The values of the NN-RR and NR-RR indices for STAN in 2020, when it stood
independently for the first time, reached 4 pp. Thus, there was a substantial difference
between national and regional elections at the level of the individual regions.
Similarly, with the higher values of the indicator of NN-RR, the system at the level
of the individual constituencies (regions) differed from the national system, as in
some regions, STAN was able to win more than 30 per cent of the vote, while in
others, none. A more comprehensive evaluation will only be possible after the next
elections.
For the Pirate Party, voters started to differ in national elections after 2016 from
voters in earlier elections; this is linked with the party’s growing popularity and
increase of support. The index of party system congruence doubled between 2016
and 2020 and so did the difference between the party’s results in the various constituencies.
The growing values of NR-RR suggest that voters in national and regional
elections in the same area gradually grew apart, but this is not a sudden hike, overall
reaching a maximum of only 2.5 pp (in Moravia). Thus, some developmental trends
are discernible regarding the Pirates, and they are linked to some extent with the
substantial rise in the support for this party since 2016.
ANO’s indices of party system congruence and election congruence are largely
the same in the two macro-regions (see Supplemental Appendix). The indices make
it clear that in comparing elections to the regional assemblies and to the Chamber of
Deputies, ANO enjoyed relatively stable support in 2016, particularly in Bohemia. In
Moravia, the values of the two indices in that year were close to 2.0 pp, which is due
to the fact that ANO achieved better results in regional elections than national elections,
on average by more than 3 pp. However, in the next regional elections, both
indices increased markedly, especially in Bohemia (up to 5.0 pp). This is because
ANO, as a party of government for several years, was significantly penalised.
Two indices for SPD showing NN-RR and NR-RR are again very similar to each
other (particularly true in Bohemia). Their values do differ over time, as evident in
Figures 3 and 4. In 2016, Dawn of Direct Democracy in regions during regional elections
had very similar support to that recorded during the preceding election to the
Chamber of Deputies, especially in Moravia (around 0.5 pp). In 2020, however, the
values of the indices of NN-RR and NR-RR increased markedly nationally (and in
both macro-regions observed) up to 2.5 pp.
This growth in indices for new parties is not strong in the context of the trends
over the past 20 years; the 2024 regional elections may suggest a change in patterns.
Overall, however, the results of the last three regional elections (after changes of the
Figure 5
Indicates an enormous penalization effect for traditional parties, particularly
in the first elections when they were held in the middle of the government
term. Penalization of traditional parties was dependent mostly on their role in
the government or opposition
Source: Own calculations based on www.volby.cz.
Note: Vertical axis indicates vote congruence in percentage points.
party system) are not characterised by a greater degree of regionalisation. On the
regional level, the positions of traditional parties have been replaced by newly established
national parties. The total number of successful regional actors (detailed in the
following sections) did not mark a new “dawn” of regionalism, thus not confirming
Hypothesis 2.
Penalisation Effect for Individual Parties 
Observing both Figures 5 and 6, it is evident that parties suffered higher electoral
loses particularly during the first two regional elections.
For ČSSD, we observe a pronounced penalising effect compared to the previous
elections to the Chamber (especially in 2000 and 2004). It is also interesting that
ČSSD was always penalised more in Moravia than in Bohemia. During both these
elections, ČSSD was the government party nationally. In 2008 and 2012, in opposition,
the party did better in these elections than in the previous elections to the
Chamber of Deputies (in Moravia particularly). From 2014, ČSSD was a party of
government; it did not achieve successes in regional elections and was penalised,
Figure 6
Suggests a much smaller penalisation effect for new parties. The position of
government-opposition is less evident here as the regional elections take place
much closer to the national election term
Source: Own calculations based on www.volby.cz.
Note: Vertical axis indicates vote congruence in percentage points.
Folvarčný et al. / Regionalisation of Czech Regional Elections
both in Moravia and Bohemia. In 2020, beyond the fact of being a governmental
party for six years, ČSSD’s result shows a pronounced loss of support, observed in
recent years across all electoral contests. It failed to win a seat in several
assemblies.
KDU-ČSL’s long-term trend is that the party wins a greater share of the vote in the
regional second-order elections than in the preceding elections to the Chamber, and
the measure of this share varies substantially over time. The party obtained its biggest
share during the time of the so-called Opposition Agreement in 2000, when
KDU-ČSL was part of the Coalition of Four,44 with an ambition to serve as something
of a third “quasi-pole” in the party system—although this ambition ultimately
went unfulfilled. By contrast, the smallest shares of the vote were recorded during
periods when KDU-ČSL participated in governments. The party was only weakly
penalised overall in 2004 for its government with ČSSD and achieved a very small
share of the vote in 2008 when it participated in the ODS-led government. In 2010,
it failed to enter the Chamber of Deputies; but in 2012, it was able to exploit the
substantial unpopularity of the government parties and held onto its previous positions
in the regions. However, the discrepancy between the party’s support in Moravia
and Bohemia cannot be ignored in the figures. In Moravian regions, the party has
long been able to win a greater proportion of the vote (regardless of its national role),
and the measure of the extra favour it received from voters there has not been less
than 5 pp, while in Bohemia, its support has been weaker overall, and the party lost
important positions, e.g., in 2004 as already noted. KDU-ČSL’s greater success rate
in Moravia can also be seen from its greater ability to win governorships there and to
regularly sit in the regional councils. Thus, the regionalisation of the party’s support
is apparent here, and this has long been linked with the more religious regions,
located in Moravia.
Support for KSČM has been relatively stable, and the party was mostly able to
obtain greater shares of the vote overall. The party achieved its greatest successes in
2000, 2004, and 2012. Except for 2004, when KSČM won a greater share of the vote
in Moravia but suffered losses in Bohemia, it has been the rule that, when the party
is weakened, it did more so in the Moravian regions, although the differences have
been very small. In 2016, KSČM suffered a downswing across the board by more
than 5 pp on average, lacking regional personalities. In the most recent regional elections,
the party suffered substantial losses, winning representation in only four
regions. Its support for the minority government from 2018 needs to be noted here,
as at that time support for the party could hardly be understood as a protest vote. The
dropping of the vote share to under 5 per cent reflects the party’s gradual decline.
The penalising effect applying to ODS was long dependent on whether the party
was in government or in opposition. In 2000, although in opposition, it allowed the
emergence and fairly undisturbed functioning of a social-democratic government,
and hence was not an unqualified success with the electorate. Although it won the
regional elections, compared to the preceding parliamentary elections, it suffered
20  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
substantial losses, particularly in Bohemia. Considering the positions of the
Communists, ODS was still able to negotiate strong positions for itself in the regional
leaderships with other parties, despite its mediocre electoral performance. In 2004,
as an unambiguous party of the opposition, ODS successfully presented itself as an
alternative to the centre-left government majority and scored a landslide victory
across the country. Despite this, the number of ODS governors decreased, and for a
long time, these were the party’s last. The party’s dominant position in the government
coalitions led by Prime Ministers Topolánek and Nečas meant substantial losses
in its regional positions, as also shown in the penalising effect, which was about 10
pp compared to the preceding parliamentary elections in 2006 and 2010. ODS pretty
much “sacrificed” the 2008 elections to the issue of allowing a US missile defence
radar system to be installed in Czechia, which resonated particularly strongly at the
time, and the regional elections were swept by an “orange wave,” symbolising the
rise of the Social Democrats. Although ODS was in opposition after 2013, this has
had very little effect on the shares of the vote the party obtained in the 2016 and 2020
regional elections. The extra electorate favour for ODS, such as it was, did not reach
even 5 pp, and the losses have never been fully recovered. One noticeable aspect is
that ODS’s gains and losses tend to be very similar in Bohemia and Moravia. It
seems that the two macro-regions follow the more general moods, and there is no
apparent difference that would, e.g., tend to favour the party in one of the macroregions
irrespective of circumstances.
The penalising of TOP 09 in 2012 and 2016, obvious in Figure 6, was evidently
dependent on the position of the party in government or in opposition. During the
first regional elections, the party was strongly penalised for participating in government
alongside ODS, with the measure of the penalising effect in Bohemia, where
the party has long been the stronger, reaching nearly 10 pp. In the following regional
elections, when TOP 09 took a stance against the centre-left government, the party
earned slightly greater favour from the electorate. The share of the vote was not high
overall and was much supported by the success of STAN in some regions, e.g.,
Liberec. Opposition and vigorous criticism of the government led by ANO did not
help TOP 09 to improve its positions in the 2020 regional elections; rather, the party
was weakened. It was not even able to put up its own candidate lists in all regions,
and in some, it worked with other parties.
STAN by contrast capitalised on its positions and, after splitting from TOP 09 in
2020, became markedly the more popular choice, gaining more than 7.0 pp. In many
regions, thanks to substantial favour from the electorate, it won very strong positions,
and even several governorships, as well as respectable representation in the regional
councils.
The Pirate Party has always been able to increase its share of the vote in regional
elections compared to the previous national elections, even after winning seats in the
Chamber in 2017, where the party remained in opposition. Figure 6 indicates that,
until 2020, the measure of the party’s better result in regional elections was nearly
Folvarčný et al. / Regionalisation of Czech Regional Elections
identical in Moravia and Bohemia. In 2020, however, it received much more favour in
Moravia, which until then had been considered by some as the Pirates’ weak spot.45
Here, we note that the results do not include Prague, which is notably liberal and
favours the Pirates (a member of the party is now the mayor of the capital). Although
the Pirates have no regional governors, they have managed to negotiate more positions
in the regional councils than some traditional parties (such as KDU-ČSL). What
is more, in the Olomouc region, they formed an electoral coalition with STAN, achieving
a superb result: 19.51 per cent of the vote. The coalition was then applied nationally
for parliamentary elections in 2021 (gained 15.62 per cent in total).
The newcomer, ANO, despite being a party of government for three years, was
able to gain support in 2016. However, in 2020, it was significantly penalised by
more than 9.0 pp on average overall. This occurred even though ANO in the 2020
regional elections fared slightly better than it did in 2016. However, in 2017, it scored
a substantially better result in national elections than previously, and hence, in subsequent
regional elections, it had to defend a much higher score. As Figure 6 indicates,
ANO failed to do so. This may be because of its long government engagement
and the gradually increasing number of scandals in which its politicians had become
embroiled and because ANO is a party of a single strong leader and recently has been
plagued by a lack of strong personalities in the regions. It was penalised in both
macro-regions, more distinctively in Bohemia, where the loss exceeded 10.5 pp. In
Moravia, it lost 7.0 pp on average.
SPD suffered a substantial loss of support in the most recent regional elections. It
suffered a greater loss on average in Moravia (5.8 pp) than in Bohemia (4.61 pp). The
poorer performance of both Tomio Okamura’s parties in regional elections can be
explained by the fact that these were one-man parties that lacked strong politicians
(and structures) regionally. The greater penalisation observed in the 2020 regional
elections may also be due to the fact that SPD was a silent supporter of the government
coalition. SPD was a silent supporter of the government coalition.
The extent of penalisation for parties, when they are in government, confirms the
expectations of the third hypothesis. With the slight exception of ANO in 2016,
although a ruling party, as a newcomer, it strengthened and gained its first seats at the
regional level. The turnout regularly falls by 20 per cent compared to levels in parliamentary
elections.
Results of Regional Parties
To what extent Czech regional elections are nationalised can be inferred from the
results of regional parties in these elections. In a limited number of regions and elections,
regional parties have been able to gain limited representation (a few seats) in
the regional council (see Supplemental Appendix).
In 2000, we witnessed the relative success of regional parties in the Moravian
regions—an echo of Moravian regionalism, more prominent in the 1990s, when it
22  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
had representatives in Parliament (terms 1990–1996). At present, regional parties are
rarely successful in regional elections.
Any occasional limited success of regional parties is more likely to occur in
Bohemia, particularly in smaller regions (especially Karlovy Vary and Liberec),
where there are significantly fewer voters, but the number of seats distributed is still
high. A relatively small number of votes are thus needed to pass the electoral threshold
and win at least one seat. Overall, the very small number of these successful
regional actors, often on a one-off basis, is consistent with Hypothesis 4.
An exception to the overall trend are STAN’s results in the Liberec region in
2008–2016 when regional elections (exceptionally) served as a vehicle for the party
to establish itself at the national level of politics, ensuring, e.g., publicity and funding.
Since 2017, STAN can no longer be described as a regional party.46 It can even
be argued that STAN has adapted to the logic of national competition, which has
brought it greater success and relevance.
The meagre success of regional parties in regional elections can be explained in
another way, which nevertheless confirms the low regionalisation of Czech regional
politics. Small regional parties that cannot be sure of crossing the 5 per cent electoral
threshold often prefer the tactic of running in coalition with a national party. As a
smaller coalition partner, they nominate several of their own representatives on the
coalition candidate list. In this way, they are usually able to win at least one or more
seats thanks to preferential voting.47
Conclusion and Discussion
This paper sought to assess the regionalisation of Czech politics by comparing
electoral competition in regional and national elections. Using an index of vote congruence,
we argued that Czech regional elections are relatively strongly nationalised—the
electoral contest in regional elections is fairly similar to the national scene.
That confirms Hypothesis 1. It contrasts with the trend of regionalisation observed
mainly in established Western democracies.48
A possible explanation may be sought in the shorter experience with democratic
systems that generally give more room for democratic decentralisation. This explanation,
however, goes against the conclusions of Golosov, according to whom highquality
democracies tend to have more nationalised party systems.49 On the other
hand, it would be consistent with the findings from some other Eastern European
countries that note low levels of regionalisation.50 Understandably, we cannot
describe Eastern European countries with their short democratic experience as having
high-quality democracy (compared with Western democracies). However, it is
more likely that this is just one of many factors affecting regionalisation.
Czech regional elections are usually dominated by national parties. If a regional
party gains a seat in a regional council, it is usually in Bohemia—particularly in
Folvarčný et al. / Regionalisation of Czech Regional Elections
smaller regions where few votes are needed to pass the threshold of 5 per cent. Still,
Hypothesis 4 is confirmed by this fact. The very limited success of regional parties
is probably linked both with the late introduction of regions and the weakness of
regional identities.
Although Schakel and Jeffery, and Romanova51 too, note that regional elections
are not necessarily of a second-order character, Czech elections can clearly be
described as such. Beyond the recurring lower voter turnout, their lesser importance
is demonstrated by the fact that regional topics are not important in the elections52
(something we would expect if they were “first order”); rather, national issues dominate.
Voting in regional polls often follows national politics, and government parties
are punished by voters, in line with the electoral-cycle theory,53 or they are “barometer
elections.”54
The results achieved by countrywide parties mostly depend on whether they are
in government or opposition nationally, and they are accordingly penalised or
favoured in regional elections. In 2016, some deviations from this trend were
observed, with the rise of populist movements ANO and SPD; but the 2020 elections
confirmed the long-term trend. There is one major exception, KDU-ČSL, which has
long enjoyed favour with voters in Moravia irrespective of its position in national
politics. The Pirate Party since its inception has done better in the two most recent
regional elections than in the preceding national elections.
These exceptions aside, the manner in which voters penalise parties; the importance
of the leader for the party’s overall result; the low voter turnout; the national
topics that dominate the campaigns (as in 2008, when health care fees were discussed)55;
and also the timing of regional elections usually in the middle of the government
term allow regional contests to be characterised as second-order elections,
fully in concord with Hypothesis 3.56
Support for the various parties as expressed using the IoCV is relatively uniform
across regions for most parties. The only party to exhibit greater regionalisation in
the long term has been KDU-ČSL, which has a stronger base in certain regions in
Moravia than in Bohemia. More recently, STAN, which was originally founded by
local politicians (mayors of municipalities), has exhibited a similar tendency, but this
trend has only been apparent in the two most recent elections. Developmental trends
observed in our two macro-regions, Bohemia and Moravia, are often very similar;
sometimes one macro-region follows the other slightly later. There is a difference
with KDU-ČSL, which is favoured in Moravia; by contrast, ČSSD has long suffered
from stronger penalisation in the same region. ODS tends to be more successful in
Bohemia than in Moravia. However, no pronounced effect of the historical division
between Bohemia and Moravia is discernible in the election results.
The historical expulsion of the populations of the so-called Sudetenland after
1945, which resonates to this day, as these are structurally disadvantaged and less
developed regions in the north of Bohemia and Moravia, has a much greater effect on
electoral behaviour and hence on parties’ electoral performance.57
24  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
Given the structural changes to the political party system since 2010 (increasing
clashes between traditional and marketing-oriented parties), with many parties
emerging after running in only two or three elections, some of the trends are
more tentative, such as the gradual strengthening of the positions of the Pirate
Party in regional elections and the relatively weak position of SPD, which is
managed in a strongly centralist fashion and lacks regional structures. These
developmental trends (connected with a slight rise in the IoCV of these particular
parties) may be confirmed or disproved in future elections, where their positions
compared to the national elections may vary. On the other hand, it does not seem
that the large turbulences in the party system are associated with a greater regionalisation
of Czech regional elections. In this respect, the decline of some traditional
parties has not been exploited by regional parties to strengthen their
positions in regional elections. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 is not supported by the
results of this study.
The strong nationalisation of Czech regional elections and the limited success
of locally specific or regional parties are in total contrast to Czech local elections.
This may confirm the actual position and character of the regions as administrative
units providing a certain measure of decentralisation and self-government,
while remaining reliant on the centre of political power, which substantially contributes
to their legitimacy.58 Thus Czech regions are not entities sui generis—
considering also their major differences in area and population size and the fact
that they do not overlap with the jurisdictions of the regional courts, for instance.
Besides, the tendency to the above-average centralisation has further implications
for the functioning of the state, as it reinforces the role of the wealthy capital city
while peripheral regions are depopulated (and become unattractive)—people are
not bound by any regional identity and are more willing to leave, seeking work or
a higher quality of life.
Also, there are no political groups with strong regional profiles (due to a lack of
homogeneity and loyalty) that would oppose national politics or push their views
through, including those on how the region ought to be managed.59 If such groups
run for election, they tend to garner only marginal support. This is reflected in the
results of regional elections, which largely mirror political life and events at the
national level. Despite significant nationalisation, the results of regional elections
have not caused many political shocks, although they may contribute to shake-ups
within the parties, as some regional elites are recruited to the national party leadership.
Although regions have not contributed to the regionalisation of elections, they
have had an impact on how parties are run, causing some decentralisation of candidate
selection and some regionalisation of party elites.60
All in all, contrary to Keating, the Czech regions do not represent a new wave of
regionalism, well-illustrated also by the minimal use of the power to propose nationwide
legislation, as only 12 tiny amendments sponsored by regions have been successful
in more than 20 years. Prague on its own pushed through the same number in
the same period.61
Folvarčný et al. / Regionalisation of Czech Regional Elections
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their feedback and comments during the revision
of the manuscript
Funding
The research for this paper was carried out at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social
Studies, Masaryk University, Joštova 10, Brno, with the support of the Specific University Research
Grant provided by the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic.
ORCID iDs
Adam Folvarčný https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0250-6887
Jan Hruška https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5667-8430
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Notes
 1. A. Schakel and V. Romanova, “Towards a Scholarship on Regional Elections,” Regional &
Federal Studies 28 (2018): 233–52. doi:10.1080/13597566.2018.1473857.
 2. Ibid.; C. Jeffery and D. Wincott, “Beyond Methodological Nationalism: The Challenge of
Territorial Politics,” in New Directions in Political Science, ed. C. Hay, 167–188 (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan/Political Studies Association, 2010).
  3. A. Schakel and C. Jeffery, “Are Regional Elections Really ‘Second-Order’ Elections?” Regional
Studies 47 (2013): 323–41; V. Romanova, “The Principle of Cyclicality of the Second-Order Election
Theory for Simultaneous Multi-Level Elections,” Politics 34 (2014): 161–79. doi:10.1111/1467-
9256.12016.
  4. K. Reif and H. Schmitt, “Nine Second-Order National Elections: A Conceptual Framework for the
Analysis of European Election Results,” European Journal of Political Research 8 (1980): 3–44.
  5. Schakel and Romanova, “Towards a Scholarship on Regional Elections.”
  6. L. Thorlakson, “An Institutional Explanation of Party System Congruence: Evidence from Six
Federations,” European Journal of Political Research 46 (2007): 69–95. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.
2006.00647.x.
  7. Schakel and Romanova, “Towards a Scholarship on Regional Elections.”
  8. B. Maddens and L. Libbrecht, “How Statewide Parties Cope with the Regionalist Issue: The Case
of Spain: A Directional Approach,” in Territorial Party Politics in Western Europe, ed. W. Swenden and
B. Maddens, 204–228 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). W. Swenden and B. Maddens,
“Introduction–Territorial Party Politics in Western Europe: A Framework For Analysis,” in Territorial
Party Politics in Western Europe, ed. S. Wilfried and B. Maddens, 1–30 (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009).
26  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
 9. F. I. Amat and S. León, “One or Two Arenas? The Break-Up between National and Regional
Elections,” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 30 (2020): 275–96.
10. Schakel and Romanova, “Towards a Scholarship on Regional Elections.”
11. D. Bochsler, “Measuring Party Nationalisation: A New Gini-Based Indicator That Corrects for the
Number of Units,” Electoral Studies 29 (2010): 155–68.
12. R. Lińeira, “Second-Order Elections: Everyone, Everywhere? Regional and National
Considerations in Regional Voting,” The Journal of Federalism 46 (2016): 510–38.
13. A. Schakel, “Congruence between Regional and National Elections,” Comparative Political
Studies 46 (2013): 631–62.
14. R. Dandoy and A. Schakel, Regional and National Elections in Western Europe. Territoriality of
the Vote in Thirteen Countries (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). A. Schakel, “Nationalisation of
Multilevel Party Systems: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis,” European Journal of Political
Research 52 (2013): 212–36. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.2012.02067.x.
15. D. Hough and C. Jeffery, Devolution and Electoral Politics (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2006); Romanova, “The Principle of Cyclicality of the Second-Order Election Theory for
Simultaneous Multi-Level Elections”; D. Bolwell and R. Eccleston, “Ebb Tide in Blue: Recent SubNational
Elections in the Australian Federation,” Regional & Federal Studies 28 (2018): 253–74. doi:10
.1080/13597566.2018.1465050; Schakel and Romanova, “Towards a Scholarship on Regional Elections.”
16. Schakel and Romanova, “Towards a Scholarship on Regional Elections.”
17. D. Caramani, The Nationalisation of Politics: The Formation of National Electorates and Party
Systems in Western Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
18. M. Jones and S. Mainwaring, “The Nationalization of Parties and Party Systems: An Empirical
Measure and an Application to the Americas,” Party Politics 9 (2003): 139–66. doi:10.1177/1354-
0688030092002; L. Cabeza, B. Gómez, and S. Alonso, “How National Parties Nationalize Regional
Elections: The Case of Spain,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 47 (2017): 77–98. doi:10.1093/publius/
pjw030; J. Sievert and S. C. McKee, “Nationalization in U.S. Senate and Gubernatorial Elections,”
American Politics Research 47 (2019): 1055–80. doi:10.1177/1532673X18792694.
19. V. Golosov, “Factors of Party System Nationalization,” International Political Science Review 37
(2016): 246–60. doi:10.1177/0192512114552864.
20. Schakel and Romanova, “Towards a Scholarship on Regional Elections.”
21. V. Romanova, “The 2020 Regional Elections in Ukraine: Simultaneously Nationalized and
Regionalized,” Regional & Federal Studies 32 (2022): 525–41. doi:10.1080/13597566.2022.2100358; Y.
Tsirbas, “The 2019 Regional Elections in Greece: Both Regionalized and Nationalized,” Regional &
Federal Studies 32 (2022): 499–510. doi:10.1080/13597566.2021.2000402.
22. Although there are some exceptions such as: Romanova, “The 2020 Regional Elections in
Ukraine”; C. Ross, “The Rise and Fall of Political Parties in Russia’s Regional Assemblies,” Europe-Asia
Studies 63 (2011): 429–48. doi:10.1080/09668136.2011.557535; V. Romanova, “Regional Elections in
Ukraine in 2006 and 2010,” Perspectives on European Politics and Society 14 (2013): 36–62. doi:10.10
80/15705854.2012.732393;A. Schakel, Regional and National Elections in Eastern Europe. Territoriality
of the Vote in Ten Countries (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
23. Golosov, “Factors of Party System Nationalization.”
24. J. LaPlant, M. Baun, J. Lach, and D. Marek, “Decentralization in the Czech Republic: The
European Union, Political Parties, and the Creation of Regional Assemblies,” Publius: The Journal of
Federalism 34 (2004): 35–51; O. Leiner, “Ujišťuji vás, že mlčet nehodlám. Můj hlas bude lidi stále zajímat,
říká Kalousek,” Ihned.cz, 14 July 2020, https://archiv.ihned.cz/c1-66790140-nemyslete-si-ze-budumlcet;
N. Villarroel, “Na čtrnáct krajů Česko rozdělila složitě hledaná politická shoda. Nyní fungují už
dvacet let,,” ČT24, 8 September 2020, https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/domaci/3179445-na-ctrnact-kraju-
cesko-rozdelila-slozite-hledana-politicka-shoda-nyni-funguji-uz/.
25. M. Pink, “Czech Republic: Regional Elections without Regional Politics,” in Regional and
National Elections in Eastern Europe. Territoriality of the Vote in Ten Countries, ed. A. Schakel, 83–104
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
Folvarčný et al. / Regionalisation of Czech Regional Elections
26. See S. Hanley, “Two cheers for Czech democracy,” Czech Journal of Political Science 21 (2014):
161–76.
27. E.g. Romanova, “The 2020 Regional Elections in Ukraine”; Tsirbas, “The 2019 Regional
Elections in Greece.”
28. Schakel, “Congruence between Regional and National Elections”; Schakel and Romanova,
“Towards a Scholarship on Regional Elections.”
29. As far as turnout is concerned, it is clearly lower than in the parliamentary elections. In regional
elections, turnout is consistently between 30 and 40 percent; in parliamentary elections, it is always at
least 20.0 pp higher. We thus do not focus more on turnout in this paper.
30. F. Pallares and M. Keating, “Multi-Level Electoral Competition—Regional Elections and Party
Systems in Spain,” European Urban and Regional Studies 10 (2003): 239–55; F. Tronconi and C. Roux,
“The Political Systems of Italian Regions between State-Wide Logics and Increasing Differentiation,”
Modern Italy 14 (2009): 151–66; S. Skrinis and E. Teperoglou, “Studying and Comparing Second-Order
Elections. Examples from Greece, Portugal and Spain,” in The Multilevel Electoral System of the EU, ed.
C. Eijk and H. Schmitt, 163–190 (Mannheim, Connex, 2008); A. Floridia, “The Regional Elections of
2010: Much Ado about Nothing? Electoral Observatory of the Region of Tuscany,” Bulletin of Italian
Politics 2 (2010): 137–45.
31. V. Hloušek and L. Kopeček, Původ, ideologie a transformace politických stran v západní a střední
Evropě (Praha: Grada, 2010).
32. Ibid.
33. Candidacy in a coalition or absence of a candidate list in a region.
34. T. Kostelecký, R. Mikešová, M. Poláková, D. Čermák, J. Bernad, and M. Šimon, Koho volí Vaši
sousedé? Prostorové vzorce volebního chování na území Česka od roku 1920 do roku 2006, jejich změny
a možné příčiny (Praha: Slon, 2014); M. Šimon, “Measuring Phantom Borders: The Case of Czech/
Czechoslovakian Electoral Geography,” Erdkunde 69 (2015): 139–50.
35. V. Hloušek and L. Kopeček, Konfliktní demokracie. Moderní masová politika ve střední Evropě
(Brno: Mezinárodní politologický ústav, 2004).
36. L. Linek, R. Chytilek, and O. Eibl, “Obrana, akvizice, či nesoutěž? Jak se měnila podoba a intenzita
soutěže mezi českými stranami v letech 2006–2014?” Czech Sociological Review 52 (2016): 647–77.
37. To simplify, the vote shares for TOP 09 and STAN were combined until 2016, even though they
mostly ran separately in regional elections.
38. In the Olomouc region, the Pirate candidates stood for election in 2020 on the STAN list and
hence their results are counted towards the STAN-led coalition. This is why the Min. figure in Table 7
for 2020 is 0.
39. M. Pink and A. Folvarčný, “The Czech Pirate Party: A New Alternative, Not Only for the Young,”
Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics 6 (2020): 175–96.
40. Until 2017, the Pirate Party had no seats in the national parliament, though it had some regionally.
41. L. Kopeček, “‘I’m Paying, so I Decide’: Czech ANO as an Extreme Form of a Business-Firm
Party,” East European Politics and Societies 30 (2016): 725–49.
42. From 2015 to 2019 Okamura’s second party featured his name in the name of the party, Freedom
and Direct Democracy—Tomio Okamura. Likewise Dawn of Direct Democracy bore the name of its
founder in the first year after it was established.
43. In 2016, it was Dawn of Direct Democracy, in 2020 Freedom and Direct Democracy. The latter is
a direct successor to the former and hence they are analysed together here.
44. Opposition to the “government” of the large parties, ČSSD and ODS; KDU-ČSL was the decisive
actor in this opposition.
45. P. Maškarinec, “Crossing the Left-Right Party Divide? Understanding the Electoral Success of the
Czech Pirate Party in the 2017 Parliamentary Elections,” Politics 40 (2020): 510–26.
46. J. Smolík and M. Pink, “Regional Aspects of the Electoral Threshold of Regional Elections in the
Czech Republic,” XIX. Mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách (2016): 839–46. doi:10.5817/
CZ.MUNI.P210-8273-2016-108.
28  East European Politics and Societies and Cultures
47. The voters in the regional elections have four preferential votes that they may cast for particular
candidates on the party list (Act No. 129/2000 Coll.)
48. Dandoy and Schakel, Regional and National Elections in Western Europe.
49. Golosov, “Factors of Party System Nationalization.”
50. G. Dobos and R. Várnagy, “Hungary:Are Neglected Regional Elections Second-Order Elections?”
in Regional and National Elections in Eastern Europe. Territoriality of the Vote in Ten Countries, ed. A.
Schakel, 105–128 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); M. Rybář and P. Spač, “Slovakia: The
Unbearable Lightness of Regionalization,” in Regional and National Elections in Eastern Europe.
Territoriality of the Vote in Ten Countries, ed. A. Schakel, 239–259 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
51. Schakel and Jeffery, “Are Regional Elections Really ‘Second-Order’ Elections?”; Romanova,
“The Principle of Cyclicality of the Second-Order Election Theory for Simultaneous Multi-Level
Elections.”
52. M. Pink and O. Eibl, “The 2016 Czech Regional Elections: Without Real Regional Parties or
Voters’ Interest,” Regional and Federal Studies 28 (2018): 353–65. doi:10.1080/13597566.2018.14
50746.
53. E. Tufte, “Determinants of the Outcomes of Midterm Congressional Elections,” American
Political Science Review 69 (1975): 812–26; C. Jeffery and D. Hough, “The Electoral Cycle and MultiLevel
Voting in Germany,” German Politics 10 (2001): 73–98. doi:10.1080/10.1080/772713264.
54. See Schakel and Romanova, “Towards a Scholarship on Regional Elections.”
55. Pink and Eibl, “The 2016 Czech Regional Elections.”
56. S. Caletka, “Krajské volby v České republice,” Slovak Journal of Public Policy and Public
Administration 1 (2014): 53–64.
57. J. Bernard, T. Kostelecký, and M. Šimon, “Existují prostorové kontextové vlivy na volební chování
i v relativně nacionalizovaném stranickém systému? Příklad Česka,” Geografie 119 (2014): 240–56.
58. Regional politics also serves as an opportunity for career advancement for politicians. Many MPs
have held a position in regional politics in the past, or hold it concurrently with a position at the national
level of politics.
59. M. Myant and S. Smith, “Regional Development and Post-Communist Politics in a Czech region,”
Europe-Asia Studies 58 (2006): 147–68. doi:10.1080/09668130500481287; S. Balík et al., Czech
Politics: From West to East and Back Again (Brno: Barbara Budrich Verlag, 2017).
60. S. Balík, V. Hloušek, L. Kopeček, J. Holzer, P. Pšeja, and A. L. Roberts Czech Politics: From West
to East and Back Again; Caletka, “Krajské volby v České republice”; D. Ryšavý, “Regionální politické
elity—zrod, charakter a důsledky,” Czech Sociological Journal 43 (2007): 993–1016.
61. M. Keating, “The Invention of Regions: Political Restructuring and Territorial Government in Western
Europe,” in State/Space: A Reader, ed. N. Brenner, B. Jessop, M. Jones, and G. Macleod (Oxford:
Blackwell Publishers), 256–277.
Adam Folvarčný is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies,
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. His main interests are Czech and Polish politics, political
parties.
Jan Hruška is a PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies,
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. He is interested in the research of bicameralism, electoral
behaviour, and political institutions.
Michal Pink is a Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies,
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. His main interests are elections, especially the territorial
distribution of electoral results and their long-term variability and stability.