The introduction of a liberal democratic political regime in the Czech Republic has resulted in free competition between political parties in regularly recurring elections. A party system has gradually established itself, in which the main political parties have established positions; thus, In addition to the large political parties, the smaller Green Party has progressively asserted itself; indeed, in organizational terms, it is now one of the longest established parties in the Czech electoral arena. Since its foundation in 1989, it has undergone development and witnessed changes to both personnel and programmes. It has also seen reversals of fortune: transitioning from a marginal party during the 1990s to a member of the government coalition in 2007–2009. It subsequently lost representation in the lower chamber of the Czech Parliament; however, some Senators, represent it in the upper chamber.
Representing environmental interests in Czech party politics, the Green party is a full member of the European Green party and the Global Greens. Yet the question remains: are the areas it draws support from, and its voters, comparable to those of other Green parties in Europe and worldwide? If the Czech Republic is now a fully consolidated democracy (Møller 2009), does this also mean that 25 years after the fall of the communist regime, the Czech electoral arena is now ready for a post-materialist party in a Western European vein? These, in brief, are the questions framing the issues this article explores. The research presented here analyses the election results of the Green party and the spatial differentiation of its support, with respect to local characteristics and specificities.
The main objective of the paper is to answer the following question: Is there a relationship between the election results of the Czech Green party and municipalities with higher proportion of post-materialist voters?
This paper will be divided into several sections. After the introduction follows a presentation of the Green party and its possible programmatic links with post-materialism, a concept defined by Ronald Inglehart (1971,1977). Basic variables are then defined, which provide a key to the dependencies affecting voting behaviour; and the concluding sections seek to establish the relationships and potential influences expected to clarify the Green party’s sources of legitimacy. The basic theoretical framework is provided by the concept of post-materialism; the dataset consists of election results and the outputs of the 2011 Population and Housing Census provided by the Czech Statistical Office.
