Staying in power: a case study of municipal leadership stability in Czechia

Abstract The major transformative events in Czechia after 1989 came with many aspects of a new reality, including changes to the geographical organisation of society and public administration. Along with this reality, there was a fundamental change in the electoral behaviour of the population and its discontinuity in time and space at different scales. Given the above, it is clear that the voting behaviour of the Czech population is partly determined by socio-economic and socio-demographic factors, in addition to increasing spatial polarisation. The aim of this paper is therefore to help – using the stability index – reveal the spatial differentiation of the stability of local political elites (members of assembly) and electoral behaviour in selected types of regions in Czechia during the period from 1994 to 2022. The territory of the Pilsen Region and South Bohemian Region was chosen for the analysis. These regions represent territorial units co-determined by structural changes and at the same time, show a relatively higher internal differentiation of social, demographic, economic and other phenomena. The highest values of analysed stability were identified in low-populated rural municipalities with up to 200 inhabitants, with the exception of a few mountain municipalities in the state border areas. Conversely, it can be noted that there are a number of border municipalities with up to 200 inhabitants. The results show a significant spatial differentiation of the examined stability and its ambivalent character, determined by selected socio-economic factors. For these reasons, the selected types of regions can be identified as suitable territorial units for a pilot analysis of the stability of local political elites.