Public opinion and party choice in Slovakia and the Czech Republic

How do voters' political opinions shape the way they think about political parties? In the left-right socio-economic competition of advanced democracies the answer to this question is often-taken for granted. For this reason many approaches to the study of parties are not easily applicable to countries where different issues dominate political debate. This paper offers an alternative. It provides a method for identifying differences in the weight that voters place on particular issues when they evaluate political parties, using the cases of Slovakia and the Czech Republic to show how these differences shape both electoral outcomes and the overall stability of democracy. The weight that Slovakia's voters place on national and democracy issues when evaluating parties contrasts sharply with the more familiar left-right socioeconomic judgements made by Czech voters. This difference helps to explain the weakness of democratic institutions in Slovakia in comparison to those of the Czech Republic.