Beyond the second-order national elections model: Incumbency effects in regional elections in the Czech Republic

0562951 - SOÚ 2025 GB eng J - Journal Article
Linek, Lukáš - Škvrňák, Michael
Beyond the second-order national elections model: Incumbency effects in regional elections in the Czech Republic.
Regional & Federal Studies. Online first 05 September 2022 (2024). ISSN 1359-7566
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA19-06096S
Institutional support: RVO:68378025
Keywords : Czech Republic reward-punishing model * economic voting * incumbency advantage * Regional elections * second-order election theory
OECD category: Political science
Impact factor: 1.4, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access

Literature provides four basic theories to explain regional election results and how they differ from national patterns: authority of regional governments, ethnic or linguistic cleavages, congruence of national and regional electoral systems, and second-order election effects. The second-order national election theory explains why regional elections exhibit lower turnout levels, why government parties lose voter support, and why opposition, minor, and new parties gain support. While second-order election theory provides the dominant explanation for countries with low regional power, we argue in favour of an additional explanation based on incumbency effects on parties’ electoral support. We test the explanations on Czech regional and national election data for the years 2000–2020. The results attest to a strong effect of regional governorship, with a bonus of 5 percentage points for parties whose governors run for re-election. Parties also receive another bonus when national-level MPs and local mayors are present on the ballot. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0335097