The Disintegration of Czech Parliamentary Parties: The Network Analysis of Co-Voting Strategies of the Parliamentary Party Renegades

The main objective of this study is to capture and analyze the dynamics of the co-voting ties among the members of the parliamentary political party groups in cases, where some members of these parliamentary groups left their home-party and joined new political entities. For the analysis of the data, network approach and methods were used, with emphasis on the detection of possible rivalling communities in the constructed network of co-voting ties between deputies belonging to the analyzed parliamentary party groups in different time periods. The co-voting was treated as a proxy indicator of possible relationship indicating either co-operation or rivalry between the deputies. The main outcome of the study was the identification of the co-voting strategies and dynamics of the co-voting between deputies, who stayed in their home-party and renegades, who switched. The study is of quantitative nature, but the main findings are connected to qualitative insights as well.