Back to Class? Changing Effects of Class on Party Choice in the Czech Republic between 1992 and 2025
No.3(2026)
This paper focuses on the role of social class in shaping party choice in the 2025 Czech parliamentary elections and situates these findings within a broader longitudinal comparison covering the period from 1990 to 2025. Using post-election survey data from ten national elections, we analyze the relationship between social class and party choice through multinomial regression models and summary indices of class voting. The study addresses two main research questions. First, it investigates whether class voting declined during the 2010s in connection with the rise of new political parties and whether it re-emerged in recent elections. Second, it examines the extent to which new parties have absorbed the electorates of traditional parties and reshaped class-based patterns of electoral support. The findings contribute to debates on dealignment and realignment by assessing whether the transformation of the Czech party system led to a weakening of class–party linkages or to their reconfiguration. Overall, the paper provides the most comprehensive longitudinal account of class voting in the Czech Republic to date and offers new insights into the changing social foundations of party competition in a volatile political context.
class voting, party choice, Czech politics, Czech parliamentary elections, populist party support
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