Changing patterns of electoral behaviour in countries of Central and Eastern Europe – comparative analysis

First Name
Michal
Last Name
Ondruška
Institution/University
Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague
Paper/Abstract submission

Within last decade, political systems of Central and Eastern Europe entered “hurricane season” (Haughton, Deegan-Krause 2015). High levels of electoral volatility, low partisanship towards political parties combined with low degree of trust towards democratic institutions leave young democracies struggling with party instability, where new political parties replace older political parties, just to be replaced by even newer ones within one or two electoral terms. In addition, high number of parties running for elections result in high amount of lost electoral voices.

Regarding this issue, following paper tries to describe current phenomenon, as well as to understand voters’ party switching in elections. For this goal, data from Comparative Study of Electoral Systems database were used. By asking questions about participation in elections and about political party that respondent voted for, and additionally asking these questions retrospectively, one can divide respondents into 5 groups of electoral volatility: stable voter, stable non-voter, new voter, former voter and volatile voter. Running negative binomial regressions with specific type of volatility against basic social, demographic, economic and value variables, some indications about general patterns of electoral behaviour can be seen.

Although much is yet to be done, and further analysis is required, factors that influence voters’ volatility are education, social status /average income and probably most importantly, attitudes towards democracy.

Paper analyses 5 countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and Slovenia) through parliamentary elections since transition until 2020. Theory of political cleavages, in addition to historical background is considered when attempting to evaluate results. Specific nature of data allows to compare separate countries among themselves, and regression models of respective countries in time.

 

 

Haughton T, Deegan-Krause K. Hurricane Season: Systems of Instability in Central and East European Party Politics. East European Politics and Societies. 2015;29(1):61-80. doi:10.1177/0888325414566072