Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/301662 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
MUNI ECON Working Paper No. 2024-04
Publisher: 
Masaryk University, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Brno
Abstract: 
This paper examines the impact of regional development on democracy building in the Czech Republic following the fall of the Iron Curtain and the autocratic communist regime in 1989. By exploiting the variation in regional development arising from the economic transition process, we identify that regional development, approximated by nighttime light intensity growth, leads to a rise in voter turnout in parliamentary elections. The heightened voter turnout is associated with increased electoral support for pro-system, pro-democratic parties, indicating that regional development facilitates democracy building. Conversely, we find no effect of regional development on the electoral support for the direct successor of the pre-1989 Communist Party. This suggests that while regional development may mitigate anti-system sentiment, it does not eliminate nostalgia for the fallen autocratic regime.
Subjects: 
economic voting
Czech parliamentary elections
democracy building
voter turnout
economic transition
nighttime lights
regional development
communotropic voting
JEL: 
D72
P25
O18
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Working Paper

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