Is There a Common Life after Divorce? The Impact of Splits of Municipalities on Intensity of Inter-Municipal Cooperation

Czech municipalities experienced forced amalgamation in the 1960´s to 1980´s (i.e., creation of so called central settlement system) and spontaneous splits of municipalities in the early 1990´s. Currently, almost 90% of municipalities are members of at least one voluntary association of municipalities. Does the joint experience of functioning within one central municipality strengthen or weaken the likelihood of inter-municipal cooperation among the same municipalities? The aim of the paper is to answer this question comparing the composition of the central municipalities in 1989 and membership of municipalities in the voluntary associations of municipalities in 2014. We use data from the historical population tables covering years 1972 to 2017 provided by the Czech Statistical Office and database of membership in voluntary associations of municipalities in 2014 provided by the Unions of Towns and Municipalities of the Czech Republic and we employ descriptive statistics and GIS visualisations.