Issues, Leaders, Candidates and the Media in the Czech Parliamentary Election of 2021

This project will examine the impact of party (issue) competition and election campaigning on electoral behaviour during the 2021 Czech parliamentary elections. This research will study the growing importance of issues and party leaders in electoral competition. This project will use ‘Issue Yield Theory’ (IYT) to model party competition and individual-level electoral behaviour. IYT makes it possible to measure the positions of parties and voters consistently on both positional and valence issue scales. This project will also examine if the perceived abilities
/ characteristics of party leaders and candidates help explain voting. The research design includes a 2 wave (a pre- and a post-election) internet panel survey. Respondents’ actual media consumption will be measured on smartphones using digital fingerprinting technology. This project will also analyse media content and parties’ communications on Twitter and Facebook. Finally, this integrated research design will be enhanced with a large post-election survey that will implement the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) module 5 survey questions.

Project objectives:

1. Field a 2 wave internet panel (1 pre- and 1 post-election) surveys during June-October 2021.
2. Measure respondents' actual media exposure to the election campaign using digital 
fingerprinting technology in the summer / autumn of 2021.
3. Analyse electoral behaviour in the 2021 Czech parliamentary elections with a focus on the
roles of issues, party leaders and candidates.
4. Analyse media effects on voters’ political attitudes and behaviour.
5. Analyse party communication and issue competition during the election campaign.

During 2021, this project gathered data for the October 9-10 lower chamber elections in three ways. First, this project used an online panel survey to measure political attitudes and behavior before and after the election. Second, TV and radio news media exposure and internet activity (web searching and use of smartphone applications) were measured between June 1 and October 15. Third, the context of media exposure and web pages visited by all respondents (n=800+) was also archived. The objective of this project is to use these three sources of (big) data to understand how issues, leaders, media exposure, and internet use were linked with voting and party choice in the general election of 2021.