Class, Religion, and Generations: Declining Cleavage Voting and the Mediating Role of Party Identification in the Czech Republic, 1990 − 2013

The paper focuses on the changing effects of three key cleavages in the Czech politics (social class, religion and generation) between 1990 and 2013. Since early 90’s, these cleavages have structured party choice in the democratized Czech Republic. However, their effect has changed since. Since 2010 election, we can see growing dealignment between social groups and parties. In addition to that, the paper uses party identification as a vehicle to overcome the problem of heterogeneity of the electorate. The three above mentioned cleavages structure the vote only among those who claim to identify with a party, whereas those without any psychological partisanship don’t vote according to them. The paper utilizes postelection surveys to estimate the effects of those factors on party choice. The paper raises important methodological questions about how to properly analyse cleavage voting.