Completed project

The Influence of Territorially Specific Factors on the Formation of Political Orientations of Voters

Project duration: 
2003 - 2004

Research concentrates on the underlying factors that influence political orientations and attides of individuals. Are political orientations and attitudes influenced rather by individual's position in the social structure or by territorial context? Methodological aim targeted a possibility of estimation of regional attitudinal data from the results of nationally representative sociological surveys and the information about the structure of regional populations. A large survey (ca 5 000 individals) was conducted in 2000 with over-sampling in four regions defined by groups of districts. The technique of face-to-face interviews with standardized questionnaires was used. The resulted data files were enriched by contextual data of regions. The results of analyses support the hypothesis that regional difference both in term of party preferences, and more general political and moral attitudes exists; thus, the influence of contextual factors for the political orientation can be proved. The testing of ”model for adaptation of contingency tables to local marginals” showed that the model is usable for a number of different tasks, including the estimating the missing data in a time-series. Developed method is effective and the results provided are robust especially in situations when the relations among variables are not too much influenced by territorially specific factors. In an opposite situation the territorially specific factors are detected. The model measuring the level of identification with types of political culture was developed to handle attitudinal data related to political culture in a concept of Almond and Verba. Mixed types of political culture, can be found in observed regions. As a feature of civic society  the NGOs were investigated in the regions. The research made possible the completion of testing of the scale measuring "the strength of personality".

Grant agency: 
Czech Science Foundation (GACR)

Project publications (total 3, displaying 1 - 3)

Kostelecký, Tomáš, Čermák, Daniel

Based on the empirical analysis of the survey data from four model regions combined with the äecological' data describing the social environment within people live the article analyse the influence of the territorially specific factors on the development of political attitudes. The resuls of analysis prove the importace of territorially specific factors.
 

Topic:
public opinion, elections (and polls)
Department:
Local and regional studies
Type of publication:
Article with impact factor
Kostelecký, Tomáš, Čermák, Daniel

The use of surveys has long been considered superior to aggregate data analysis in study of political behavior as it allows researchers to avoid danger of ecological fallacy. Article suggests the use of LOCCONTINGENCY method that combines the advantages of both possible approaches. Results provided by LOCCONTINGENCY method is tested by comparing with the survey results from four model regions. The strengths and weaknesses of the method evaluated and its practical usability is discussed.

Topic:
methodology, politics (and political attitudes), regions
Department:
Local and regional studies
Type of publication:
Article with impact factor
Vajdová, Zdenka, Stachová, Jana

The article set sets out to compare the political culture and civic participation of population in selected regions in the Czech Republic using data from the survey “The influence of Region-Specific Factors on the Formation of the Political Outlook of Voters”, which was conducted by the Institute of Sociology in 2000-2002. The fundamental question it poses is weather the population in selected regions differ in terms of their patterns of political culture and level of civic participation.

Topic:
politics (and political attitudes), regions, public opinion
Department:
Local and regional studies
Type of publication:
Article with impact factor