What can Czech and Slovak Social Democratic Parties expect from Progressive rebranding? : A demand-side perspective through the clustering of WVS/EVS respondents
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Politologický časopis |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | article - open access |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/PC2024-3-242 |
| Keywords | Social Democratic Parties; Party Rebranding; Political Cleavage; Czech Party System; Slovak Party System |
| Attached files | |
| Description | In recent years, the left of the political spectrum in the Czech and Slovak party systems has undergone significant changes. The main anti-establishment party in Czechia, ANO, has shifted its economic programme to incorporate more inter-ventionist policies, while the main social-democratic party in Slovakia, Smer-SD, has progressively adopted more conservative social positions. These trends have coincided with a decline in voter support for the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) and Smer-SD in Slovakia, seemingly supporting the dealignment theory generally used to explain the decline of centre-left parties in Western Europe. Building on these premises, this article explores the first two layers of Mair’s conceptualisation of a political cleavage (social groups and their defining values) to assess the potential gains or losses that social democratic parties in the two countries might experience if they rebranded to emphasise left-liberal stances. This strategy has been observed to have benefited other social dem-ocratic parties in Western and Central Europe. By clustering value survey re-spondents along left-wing and progressive social values and by analysing these clusters’ members using logistic regression, the study suggests that while shift-ing to the left may attract new socio-demographic groups, adopting liberal left values might, for both parties, be electorally harmful in the short term. |
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