Voting Behaviour in Local Elections, Municipalities with Different Size and Party Systems

Current literature informs us about rather subtle differences in voting behaviour between national and local elections. However, studies are often based on analysis of highly nationalized systems and in relatively big municipalities. This paper explores differences in voting behaviour in several municipalities of different size (1500 – 25 000 inhabitants) in South Moravia region in the Czech Republic in 2017 national elections and 2018 local elections. Multilevel regression model is used on data from exit-poll surveys. The research focuses on how the size of municipality and characteristics of local party system affects voting behavior of individual voters. The analysed factors include political interest, knowledge, trust and efficacy, social class and sense of responsibility. Moreover, the given situation provides unique opportunity to observe differences between levels because local elections were held only 1 year after national elections in very similar conditions.