Work

Divided by Crisis? Spatial Analysis of the Czech Presidential Election 2023 in the Context of the War in Ukraine

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This article presents the results of a geographical analysis of the first round of the presidential election 2023 in the Czech Republic, focusing on the two most successful candidates: Petr Pavel and Andrej Babiš. The results are analysed in the context of cleavage theory, namely in the context of Ukrainian refugees, whom the Czech Republic has accepted the most in Europe. After the worst phase of the COVID-19 pandemic subsided, the country entered another crisis that fuelled populist sentiment. Using geographically weighted regression and the OLS model, the analysis shows a significant spatial non-stationarity of this variable. In accordance with previous research, significantly diverse patterns and an unstable direction of action of this variable in relation to ideologically heterogeneous candidates were also revealed. In addition, the overlap of electoral support for candidates with the electoral results of supporting political parties was also confirmed, as well as the influence of traditional socioeconomic factors. On the contrary, except for the entrepreneur variable, these are rather spatially stationary, and their influence does not change significantly across the country.

Source: Politologický časopis - Czech Journal of Political Science

DOI: 10.5817/pc2026-2-42495

Author: Michael Drašar

Institution: Charles University

Language: English

Topic: Electoral Systems and Political Participation

Subfield: Political Science and International Relations

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: diamond

Funder: European Commission