The rise of populists and decline of others: Explanation of changes in party support in the Czech Republic
Description
These files provide replication material for paper "The rise of populists and decline of others: Explanation of changes in party support in the Czech Republic". As the basic source of dataset, monthly survey data from the CVVM from May 2009 to November 2018 are used. They are used in aggregate form. The unit of analysis is party by month. Each survey provides an estimate of party support (in percentages) and an estimate of measures of the salience of the issues of corruption and migration and satisfaction with the economy and the political situation. I Information provided by surveys and the statistical databases of public institutions are used as independent variables. Data on evaluations of the political situation and issue saliency are aggregated in a similar manner as party support. To measure satisfaction with politics, we use the sum of negative answers to the question “Thinking about contemporary political situation in the Czech Republic in general, would you say that you are a) completely satisfied b) somehow satisfied c) neither d) somehow dissatisfied e) completely dissatisfied?” The sum of people who answer D or E is divided by the number of the survey’s respondents. For the purpose of analysis, the change between months is computed to capture whether dissatisfaction with the political situation is rising or declining and how much in terms of percentage points. Unemployment is measured as the proportion of people without a job . Information about unemployment for each monthly period is provided by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. In the analysis, this variable is used as a change; thus, it indicates how much unemployment is rising or decreasing compared to the previous month in percentage points. Inflation is covered on a monthly basis by the Czech Statistical Office. In the analysis the general index is used. The index captures the growth in price levels between months and is based on net changes in prices of selected items including representative products and services (about 710 items). Variable "migration" is based on data about the number of foreigners with temporary or permanent residency provided by the Ministry of the Interior (2019) on a monthly basis. The variable about the saliency of inflation, unemployment, migration and corruption is constructed from statements by respondents about what they believe are the two most important issues in the Czech Republic. Two variables capturing temporal aspects of the electoral terms are constructed. The first one – the pre-election period – is the number of months of the year prior to elections. A time period of 12 months before elections has a value of 1, and the last month before elections has a value of 12. This allows us to estimate how support rises or falls with the temporal proximity of elections. The second variable – the post-election period – has a value of 12 for the first month after elections and a value of 1 for the month one year away from elections.