The process of election campaigning is considered as a period of sharpening ideological conflicts and rising negativity among the political parties. The aim of this paper is to measure and analyse, whether election campaigning can increase ideological differences among the parties and what are the main variables which determine the party polarization in the Czech Republic.
The analysis is based on the aggregated data sets of CVVM during the period 1993 – 2013. CVVM monthly records the voter self-placement on the left-right scale. By analysing these data and using Dalton´s index of party system polarization it is proved that party polarization in the Czech Republic has generally increased since 1993 and that it was usually higher during General election campaign. The regression model detects the main determinants which influence the degree of party polarization such as the presence/absence of General election campaign and social-economic stratification.
