IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/3801.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Anatomy of Voting Behaviour and Attitudes During Post-Communist Transition Czech Republic 1990-98

Author

Listed:
  • Doyle, Orla
  • Fidrmuc, Jan

Abstract

How does implementing harsh economic reforms influence voting behaviour? And how do the patterns of political support change over the course of transition? We analyse these issues using data from a sequence of 11 opinion surveys conducted in the Czech Republic between 1990-98. We find that - while voters’ ideological position and some socio-economic characteristics, such as age and education - tend to have a stable impact on voting behaviour over time, economic outcomes, such as employment status, income and unemployment, only affect political preferences in the later stages of the transition. This is consistent with the predictions of the theoretical literature on political constraints during transition – as the uncertainty about reform’s outcomes dissipates, constituencies of winners and losers emerge. The winners are the young, educated, high-wage earners and workers employed in de novo private firms. The losers, on the other hand, are the elderly, low-skilled and low-wage workers and the unemployed. The balance between these two constituencies then determines the support for reform-minded and left-wing parties at election time.

Suggested Citation

  • Doyle, Orla & Fidrmuc, Jan, 2003. "Anatomy of Voting Behaviour and Attitudes During Post-Communist Transition Czech Republic 1990-98," CEPR Discussion Papers 3801, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:3801
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=3801
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campos, Nauro F. & Aurelijus Dabusinskas, 2002. "So Many Rocket Scientists, So Few Marketing Clerks: Occupational Mobility in Times of Rapid Technological Change," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2002 38, Royal Economic Society.
    2. Dewatripont, Mathias & Roland, Gerard, 1995. "The Design of Reform Packages under Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1207-1223, December.
    3. John E. Jackson & Jacek Klich & Krystyna Poznanska, 2001. "Economic Transition and Elections in Poland," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 391, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    4. Henrik Jordahl, 2006. "An economic analysis of voting in Sweden," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 251-265, June.
    5. Gérard Roland, 2004. "Transition and Economics: Politics, Markets, and Firms," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026268148x.
    6. Fidrmuc, Jan, 2000. "Political support for reforms: Economics of voting in transition countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 1491-1513, August.
    7. Gary J. Miller, 1997. "The Impact of Economics on Contemporary Political Science," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1173-1204, September.
    8. John S. Earle & Scott Gehlbach, 2003. "A Spoonful of Sugar: Privatization and Popular Support for Reform in the Czech Republic," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 1-32, March.
    9. Brainerd, Elizabeth, 1998. "Winners and Losers in Russia's Economic Transition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1094-1116, December.
    10. Nannestad, Peter & Paldam, Martin, 1994. "The VP-Function: A Survey of the Literature on Vote and Popularity Functions after 25 Years," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 79(3-4), pages 213-245, June.
    11. Rodrik Dani, 1995. "The Dynamics of Political Suppport for Reform in Economies in Transition," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 403-425, December.
    12. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-1155, December.
    13. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    14. Gérard Roland, 2002. "The Political Economy of Transition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 29-50, Winter.
    15. Robert S. Chase, 1998. "Markets for Communist Human Capital: Returns to Education and Experience in the Czech Republic and Slovakia," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(3), pages 401-423, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Doyle, Orla & Fidrmuc, Jan, 2006. "Who favors enlargement?: Determinants of support for EU membership in the candidate countries' referenda," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 520-543, June.
    2. Valev, Neven, 2004. "No pain, no gain: market reform, unemployment, and politics in Bulgaria," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 409-425, September.
    3. Doyle, Orla & Fidrmuc, Jan, 2004. "Who is in favor of enlargement? Determinants of support for EU membership in the candidate countries' referenda," ZEI Working Papers B 04-2004, University of Bonn, ZEI - Center for European Integration Studies.
    4. Rovelli, Riccardo & Zaiceva, Anzelika, 2009. "Transition Fatigue? Cross-Country Evidence from Micro Data," IZA Discussion Papers 4224, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Neher, Frank, 2011. "Markets wanted: Expectation overshooting in transition," Discussion Papers 2011/1, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    6. Frank Neher, 2013. "Markets wanted: expectation overshooting in transition economies," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 60(2), pages 187-219, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Valev, Neven, 2004. "No pain, no gain: market reform, unemployment, and politics in Bulgaria," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 409-425, September.
    2. Fidrmuc, Jan, 2003. "Economic reform, democracy and growth during post-communist transition," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 583-604, September.
    3. Matteo Migheli, 2016. "Behind the Wall: What Remains of the “Communist Legacy” in Contemporary Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 671-690, June.
    4. Sweder J. G. van Wijnbergen & Tim Willems, 2016. "Learning Dynamics and Support for Economic Reforms: Why Good News Can Be Bad," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 30(1), pages 1-23.
    5. Gerard Rpland, 2001. "The Political Economy of Transition," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 413, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    6. Doyle, Orla & Walsh, Patrick Paul, 2005. "Did Political Constraints Bind During Transition? Evidence from Czech Elections 1990-2002," IZA Discussion Papers 1719, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Micael Castanheira & Gaëtan Nicodème & Paola Profeta, 2012. "On the political economics of tax reforms: survey and empirical assessment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 598-624, August.
    8. Byung-Yeon Kim & Jukka Pirttilä, 2003. "The political economy of reforms: Empirical evidence from post- communist transition in the 1990s," Macroeconomics 0304009, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Xie, Yinxi & Xie, Yang, 2017. "Machiavellian experimentation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 685-711.
    10. Golinelli, Roberto & Rovelli, Riccardo, 2013. "Did growth and reforms increase citizens' support for the transition?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 112-137.
    11. Bonatti, Luigi & Fracasso, Andrea, 2019. "Policy inertia, self-defeating expectations and structural reforms: can policy modeling cope?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 943-962.
    12. Brousseau, Eric & Garrouste, Pierre & Raynaud, Emmanuel, 2011. "Institutional changes: Alternative theories and consequences for institutional design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(1-2), pages 3-19, June.
    13. Neher, Frank, 2011. "Markets wanted: Expectation overshooting in transition," Discussion Papers 2011/1, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    14. Riccardo Rovelli & Anzelika Zaiceva, 2013. "Did support for economic and political reforms increase during the post-communist transition, and if so, why?," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 21(2), pages 193-240, April.
    15. Fidrmuc, Jan & Tichit, Ariane, 2013. "How I learned to stop worrying and love the crisis," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 542-554.
    16. Frank Neher, 2013. "Markets wanted: expectation overshooting in transition economies," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 60(2), pages 187-219, June.
    17. Nauro F. Campos & Paul De Grauwe & Yuemei Ji, 2017. "Structural Reforms, Growth and Inequality: An Overview of Theory, Measurement and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 6812, CESifo.
    18. Migheli, Matteo, 2010. "Supporting the free and competitive market in China and India: Differences and evolution over time," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 73-90, March.
    19. Randolph Luca Bruno, 2006. "Optimal speed of transition with a shrinking labour force and under uncertainty," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 14(1), pages 69-100, March.
    20. Fidrmuc, Jan, 2000. "Political support for reforms: Economics of voting in transition countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 1491-1513, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    political constraints; political support; transition; voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:3801. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.