The impact of COVID-19 on election outcomes: The case of the Czech Republic

• Název práce v češtině: Vliv COVIDU-19 na volební výsledky: Případ České republiky
• Název v anglickém jazyce: The impact of COVID-19 on election outcomes: The case of the Czech Republic
• Klíčová slova anglicky: COVID-19, election results, voter turnout, ordinary least squares, fixed effects, random effects, first-differencing, Czech Republic
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2018/2019
• Typ práce: bakalářská práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Institut ekonomických studií (23-IES)
• Vedoucí / školitel: Mgr. Barbara Pertold-Gebicka, M.A., Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno vedoucím/školitelem
• Datum přihlášení: 30.05.2019
• Datum zadání: 30.05.2019
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 06.09.2022 09:00
• Místo konání obhajoby: Opletalova - Opletalova 26, O206, Opletalova - místn. č. 206
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 02.08.2022
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 06.09.2022
• Oponenti: Jan Mošovský, M.Sc.

Seznam odborné literatury

McKee, M., Gugushvili, A., Koltai, J., & Stuckler, D. (2021). Are populist leaders creating the conditions for the spread of COVID-19? Comment on" A scoping review of populist radical right parties’ influence on welfare policy and its implications for population health in Europe". International journal of health policy and management, 10(8), 511.

Baccini, L., Brodeur, A., & Weymouth, S. (2021). The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 US presidential election. Journal of Population Economics, 34(2), 739-767.

Johnson, A. F., Pollock, W., & Rauhaus, B. (2020). Mass casualty event scenarios and political shifts: 2020 election outcomes and the US COVID-19 pandemic. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 42(2), 249-264.

Parzuchowski, A. S., Peters, A. T., Johnson-Sasso, C. P., Rydland, K. J., & Feinglass, J. M. (2021). County-level association of COVID-19 mortality with 2020 United States presidential voting. Public Health, 198, 114-117.

Černý, J. (2019). Population Characteristics of Voters: Evidence from the Czech Parliamentary Election.

Předběžná náplň práce

Covid-19, volební výsledky, volební účast, metoda nejmenších čtverců, fixní efekty, náhodné efekty, prvn ́í diferenciace, Česká republika

Předběžná náplň práce v anglickém jazyce

Research question and motivation

The main research question I intend to study is how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the outcome of parliamentary election in 2021 in the Czech Republic.

It is possible that some parts of the Czech Republic have been affected by COVID-19 more than others. Therefore, the analysis will be conducted at the level of the districts of the Czech Republic, and at this level I will examine the results of some selected political parties in parliamentary election in 2021 and how these results were affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19, which first appeared in 2019 in China, grew in the following months into a global pandemic that significantly changed life as we knew it. The pandemic affected basically everything and everyone, regardless of where a person comes from, what job they have, what social status they have, and so on. The fact that COVID-19 has become an important political topic in all countries of the world follows from this, as it was the governments and politicians of individual countries who had to implement all kinds of measures to fight the disease.

The question therefore arises as to how the coronavirus has affected voters' electoral preferences. Of course, the answer to such a question can vary greatly from country to country, as each country has dealt (and is still dealing) with the COVID-19 pandemic in its own way. Some countries managed it better than others, implemented different measures, or implemented them with different intensity, and so on. The COVID-19 pandemic has become a political issue, McKee et al. (2021) states that populist parties are generally the ones who benefit the most from the coronavirus pandemic. On the other hand, according to Baccini et al. (2021), Donald Trump (who could certainly be described as a populist politician) was harmed by the coronavirus pandemic and would have won the presidential election in 2020 if it weren't for it. Thus, I want to find out what effect the pandemic had on the election results in the Czech Republic and which political parties it helped and which it harmed.

To find answers to my questions, I will analyze district-level election data from the 2021 parliamentary elections and compare them with the results of elections from earlier years, specifically from 2013 and 2017.


Contribution

Since COVID-19 has only been around for a few years, its effects in many areas are still unclear. A lot of studies related to COVID-19 have already been done even in its relatively short existence, which is completely logical, if we consider how unprecedented event this is. Over time, there are increasingly more studies dealing with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on politics, I believe that such studies are of great importance. My work should therefore contribute to the still under-researched relationship between COVID-19 and election results. As far as I know, such a detailed study has not yet been carried out in the Czech Republic. The event, which was probably most studied by experts in this sense was the already mentioned presidential election in America in 2020. Johnson (2020) stated at the very beginning of the pandemic in 2020 that COVID-19 could significantly change the politics of the United States. Parzuchowski et al. (2021), dealt with the specific results of the elections. Among other things, according to this study support for the Democrats increased compared to the previous elections, especially in counties with a lower mortality rate.

In the Czech Republic, several worth mentioning studies have been carried out dealing with the relationship between socio-demographic indicators and electoral preferences of voters. One such a study was carried out by, for example, Černý (2019) and since I will use many socio-demographic variables in my work as well, I will also refer to such studies. Moreover, as I will also use the election results from 2017 in my analysis, this paper should definitely be included.


Methodology

In my thesis, I will analyze the election results of several political parties in the Czech Republic, such as ANO 2011 or the SPOLU coalition. I will look for answers to questions such as: What is the relationship between the number of victims of COVID-19 and the election results in individual districts of our country? or What is the relationship between the number of infected and the election results? I will use regression analysis to estimate these relationships.

I will work with data from the parliamentary elections of 2021, 2017 and 2013, specifically I will be interested in the results of individual political parties and voter turnout. These data will be compared with COVID-19 statistics, specifically with the number of deaths and the number of infected people. Other independent variables will be mainly socio-economic indicators, such as unemployment or the age composition of the population. All the mentioned data will be obtained from the Czech Statistical Office, except for the coronavirus statistics, which will be obtained from the database of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic. Since the data for the key explanatory variable, the number of COVID-19 deaths, are only available at the level of districts (not municipalities), the analysis will be carried out at that level (a total of 76 districts + the capital Prague).

I will develop an econometric model to answer the desired questions. First, I will separately analyze the election results from 2021 using the ordinary least squares method. However, such results may not be very accurate, as there is a high probability of the presence of endogeneity. Therefore, the analysis of panel data will follow, when I will analyze together the years 2021, 2017 and 2013. Here the fixed effects, random effects and first differencing models will be used.


Outline

1. Introduction
2. Literature review
3. Data and methodology
4. Results
5. Conclusion