Popular Support for Direct Democracy: Analysis of the Heterogeneity of Political Attitudes in the Czech Republic
Abstract
This paper focuses on the sources of popular support for direct democracy in the Czech Republic. The analysis first replicates the standard approaches used in previous scholarly research, testing theories of cognitive mobilisation and alienation using the standard regression modelling approach.
The results are, however, somewhat inconclusive, as have been the results of previous empirical research in other European countries. It is hypothesised that one reason for this could be data heterogeneity.
Both tested concepts could be valid, but for different social groups, resulting in overall inconclusive results. Therefore, latent class analysis (LCA) is then used to show that in the Czech Republic direct democracy is supported both by people alienated from politics and by those satisfied with democracy and democratic governance.
The results of empirical analysis show that support for direct democracy in the Czech Republic cannot be explained by any one theory and that different concepts apply to different groups. The article represents a methodological innovative step in the empirical study of sources of popular support for direct democracy.