The Decline of the Party and the Rise of Party Leaders? : The Personalisation of Voting Behaviour in the Czech Republic
Abstract
The aim of this article is to analyse the personalisation of Czech voters' behaviour during the last two decades. This study examines if the effect of party leaders on party choice has increased as the vote personalisation literature suggests.
Alternative explanations of party choice emphasise the stable role of cleavages and left-right orientation, leaving limited space for leadership effects and their growth. In addition, this paper also tests party-specific hypotheses.
These hypotheses are tested using four Czech post-election surveys (1996-2013). Vote choices are modelled using stacked data matrices (for each election) and a logistic regression estimator.
An instrumental variable approach is used to deal with the endogeneity between vote choice and party identifi cation. The results show that there has been no increase in party leadership effects in the Czech Republic.
Party leader effects are largely stable across the four elections examined. The article reveals that party leaders play a greater role in the decision-making calculus of voters of new populist non-leftist parties; however, the effects are not large.