A Panel Data Analysis of Attitudes to the Political System in Czechia: Did the Crises between 2019 and 2024 Lead to a Change?

Recent years have been challenging for European countries. The COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the energy crisis, and high inflation have all constituted major challenges for European societies. All these events have the potential to influence how citizens of European countries relate to their political systems, including attitudes to democracy and other forms of government. Has there been a change? How much change? What explains the change? Evidence from large cross-sectional surveys, as well as the rising popularity of populist and extremist parties across Europe, suggests that a change in European public opinion is underway. This paper will look at the case of Czechia and examine whether and how Czech citizens' attitudes toward the national political system changed over the 2019-2024 time period. The paper will utilize unique longitudinal data from the Czech Household Panel Survey. The methodological advantages of longitudinal data allow observing change at the individual level of analysis. Also, studying determinants of over-time changes at the individual level of analysis will allow for more confident conclusions about causality than if cross-sectional data were used. Overall, this paper will contribute to our understanding of attitudes toward democracy, which is especially relevant in the current time of the rising popularity of populism and right-wing extremism across Europe.