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2001:08 Cross-cutting Cleavages in the Czech Republic. A Comparison of the National Level with a Specific Regional Example

Miroslav Novák a Klára Vlachová

This work focuses on the testing and relevance of three cross-cutting cleavages among voters on the national and the local level. The tested lines include economic populism - market liberalism, libertarianism - authoritarianism, and religion and morality - secular-ity and tolerance. While the data used for the analyses on the national level stem from in-ternational research and have been acquired through the use of 'international scales', the data used for the analyses on the local level come from specific local research and were acquired through the use of a specific instrument. The analyses show that in the year 2000 on the national level the following dimensions were relevant (i.e. they divided voters into distinct groups): economic populism - market liberalism and religion and morality - secularity and tolerance. On the local level, analyses showed the relevance of only the economic populism - market liberalism dimension. The dual origin of the scales enabled an indirect comparison of the reliability of the scales economic populism - market liberal-ism and religion and morality - secularity and tolerance. In the tests the international scales demonstrated themselves as being the most reliable, though the question of their validity in the Czech environment remains open.

Summary

During the 1990s, two striking approaches related to whether and what kind of cross-cutting cleavages contribute to the formation of the political space in the countries of Cen-tral and Eastern Europe appeared. The first approach perceived the political space in these countries as unstructured (the tabula rasa approach). Michael G. Roskin [1994] is consid-ered as the representative of this approach. The second approach, conversely, relied on a rapid process of learning leading to a rapid structurisation of the political space in a man-ner similar to that in Western Europe. One of the specialists in this field who is closest to this approach is Kitschelt [1992, Kitschelt et al., 1999]. According to Kitschelt, the basic structural cleavages of post-communist societies were to be divided similarly to the way they are in Western European societies, along two axes: leftwing-rightwing and libertarian-authoritarian.
Other specialists adopted a position between these two extreme approaches and drew attention to the chronological aspect of the development of cross-cutting cleavages. A number of them are in agreement over the point that in the first phase (usually during the first free elections), usually two cleavages appeared in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, cleavages which Seiler [1991] - adopting the terminology of J. and M. Charlot in the first case and Lipset and Rokkan [1967] in the second - defined as: 1) state - civil society and 2) centre - periphery. Only then, the social - liberal cleavages, which in their embryonic form represent the classic leftwing - rightwing cleavage, begin to crystallise [Novák 1997, 1999].
In the first elections held in Czechoslovakia in 1990, the 'state - civil society' cleav-age applied, in the second elections in 1992 the 'social - liberal' (leftwing -rightwing) cleavage had already emerged in its embryonic form. The existence of this cleavage in the space of political parties and voters has been observed and confirmed through analyses by, among others, Brokl [1996], Markowski [1997], Vlachová and Matějů [1998], Blahož, Brokl, Mansfeldová [1999], Kitschelt, Mansfeldová, Markowski, and Toka [1999], and Hloušek [2000]. Many of them however assume or test the existence of other cross-cutting cleavages. Brokl [1996] follows Kitschelt [1992] and expects the libertarianism-authori-tarianism cleavage. This cleavage has been tested in the voter space by Vlachová and
Matějů (1998), but it has shown itself to be of no significance. Markowski [1997] has un-covered the religion and morality - secularity and tolerance cleavage in the space of the political elites. Kitschelt, Mansfeldová, Markowski and Toka [1999] have also tested a secular libertarianism - religious authoritarianism cleavage also in the space of the political elites, and in the space of voters, a religious values cleavage. Considering the results of the analyses which repeatedly provide evidence of the strength of the left-right cleavage, and the weakness of the other cleavages, Markowski [1997], Vlachová and Matějů [1998], and Kitschelt et al. [1999] put forth the hypothesis that the Czech political space is basically one-dimensional. Blahož, Brokl, and Mansfeldová [1999] also expect a cosmopolitan - national cleavage, but are not testing it on data.
Given these facts the authors if this work aim to again test for the presence and rele-vance of some cross-cutting cleavages, which are assumed to be in existence in the Czech Republic. With regard to accessible data these cleavages include: economic populism - market liberalism, libertarianism - authoritarianism, and religion and morality - secular-ity and tolerance. All these cleavages have been tested in the voter space on the national level (among the population of voters in the Czech Republic), and for the purpose of a free comparison two of these cleavages have also been tested on the local level (among the population of voters in the city of Klatovy). The analyses showed that, on the national level in the year 2000, the following cleavages were relevant (i.e. they divided the voters into distinct groups): economic populism - market liberalism and religion and morality - secularity and tolerance. On the local level, only the relevance of economic populism - market liberalism was demonstrated in the analyses.

Keywords

Cross-cutting cleavages, economic populism, market liberalism, libertarianism, authoritari-anism, religion, morality, secularity, tolerance, community, sub-community, national level, local level.