Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, 2024
This article studies the links between a country’s labour force participation rate and attitudes ... more This article studies the links between a country’s labour force participation rate and attitudes towards income redistribution. The article also demonstrates how to specify a multilevel model when analysing contextual effects and it presents several types of random effects structures and options for centering explanatory variables in comparative longitudinal survey data. The contextual effect is decomposed into longitudinal and cross-sectional components for time-varying contextual variables, such as the labour force participation rate. The analysis of redistribution support based on ESS data from 27 countries and nine rounds shows how fundamentally the mentioned properties can influence substantive conclusions. The analyses presented in this article do not provide any evidence for a link between redistribution support and the labour force participation rate. However, the hypothetical configurations of multilevel models presented here cover all possible substantive effects of the labour force participation rate. Contextual effects analysis may thus lead to highly unreliable results when a multilevel model fails to control for the compositional effects of individual-level predictors, when it does not specify random effects at the level to which a substantial variation of the outcome variable may be attributed, and when it does not distinguish between the longitudinal and cross-sectional effects of time-varying variables.
Income redistribution and changes in redistributive policies are highly contested issues that oft... more Income redistribution and changes in redistributive policies are highly contested issues that often have a bearing on societal debate and electoral competition. Using European Social Survey data, we trace trends in public attitudes toward income redistribution in 18 European countries from 2002 to 2019, a time period which included the Great Recession, the 2015 migrant crisis, and an increase in income inequality. Although attitudes toward income redistribution were relatively stable, trends presented by countries grouped by welfare regime display considerable variation both among countries and among welfare regimes. We also trace trends in public support for redistribution by income groups and gauge the strength of belief in meritocracy and egalitarianism. The level of redistribution support among middle-income residents is similar to redistribution support of low-income residents, most notably in post-communist and social-democratic regimes. While egalitarianism is most widespread in the Mediterranean regime, meritocracy is most common in liberal and conservative regimes.
Perceptions of Income Inequality and Preferences Regarding Income Distribution in the Czech Repub... more Perceptions of Income Inequality and Preferences Regarding Income Distribution in the Czech Republic. A representative survey of adult population is used to analyse perceptions of existing income inequality and preferences for ideal income distribution in the Czech Republic. On average, Czechs view the distribution of disposable income as more unequal than it actually is. This biased perception results from underestimating total income shares belonging to bottom quintiles and overestimating the total income share belonging to the top income quintile. Whereas the majority of Czechs prefer some level of income stratification, there are about four tenths of people who would prefer to live in a completely equal society. These are primarily older, less educated and lower income people whose preferences formulated under uncertainty are mostly consistent with the maximin principle and inequality aversion. Almost a fifth of Czechs would prefer an income distribution consistent with efficiency concerns.
Development of Educational Inequalities in Political Participation in Czech Republic and Slovakia... more Development of Educational Inequalities in Political Participation in Czech Republic and Slovakia and their Implications for Representation of Attitudes. Citizen participation in the political process is a key tenet of democratic government. Using data from post-election surveys covering all post-communist elections and European Social Survey 2002-2014, this paper studies how political participation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia has been stratified based on educational attainment. Educational inequalities in turnout increased substantively in both countries and are currently much more pronounced than in established western democracies. Educational inequalities in non-electoral participation are greater than inequalities in turnout. University graduates participate significantly more often than people of lower educational attainment. In combination with significant differences in attitudes towards income redistribution, gender equality and immigration, unequal participation constitutes conditions for unequal political voice. Nevertheless, this paper shows that educational inequalities in political participation and differences in attitudes do not automatically translate into equally strong distortions in attitude representation. Sociológia 2018, Vol. 50 (No. 5: 524-549) https://doi.org/10.31577/sociologia.2018.50.5.20
A common theme in studies of voter turnout in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is that the legacy... more A common theme in studies of voter turnout in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is that the legacy of communism attenuates electoral participation. It is argued that socialization and the political habits that emerged under communism impeded democratic development by not motivating citizen activism. This paper examines this claim for voter turnout in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland for all general elections since 1990 using cohort analysis on pooled crosssectional post-election surveys from given countries. This paper shows that socialization and political habit formation under communism have had no discernible effect on voter turnout in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary between 1990 and 2013. Generational effects are evident in Poland suggesting that this country's political history is qualitatively different from that of its neighbours. This research is important in highlighting that citizens' political development within non-liberal democratic regimes does not always lead to lower levels of voter turnout. Consequently, the decline in turnout in CEE is likely to have attitudinal rather than generational origins where contemporary rather than historical political developments are most important.
Kniha analyzuje postoje českých občanů k sociálnímu státu v delší časové perspektivě (1996‒2006‒2... more Kniha analyzuje postoje českých občanů k sociálnímu státu v delší časové perspektivě (1996‒2006‒2016). Díky tomu mohou autoři systematicky prozkoumat důležité teoretické otázky, které v této knize strukturují do pěti hlavních výzkumných témat: 1. vývoj postojů k sociálnímu státu; 2. vývoj vztahu mezi socio-ekonomickým statusem a postoji k sociálnímu státu; 3. generační podmíněnost postojů k sociálnímu státu; 4. vývoj vztahu mezi těmito postoji a volebním chováním; 5. vliv korupce a jejího vnímání na postoje k sociálnímu státu. V prvních dvou kapitolách je proto nejprve popsán vývoj sociálního státu na území Česka a na jeho pozadí je představena konceptualizace a základní vysvětlení postojů k sociálnímu státu. Poté ve čtyřech kapitolách autoři postupně analyzují postoje k přerozdělování, daňovému systému, rozsahu a financování sociálního státu. Na závěr se věnují tomu, nakolik jsou postoje k sociálnímu státu ovlivněny představou o rozšíření korupce a nakolik a jakým způsobem tyto postoje ovlivňují volební chování.
Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, 2024
This article studies the links between a country’s labour force participation rate and attitudes ... more This article studies the links between a country’s labour force participation rate and attitudes towards income redistribution. The article also demonstrates how to specify a multilevel model when analysing contextual effects and it presents several types of random effects structures and options for centering explanatory variables in comparative longitudinal survey data. The contextual effect is decomposed into longitudinal and cross-sectional components for time-varying contextual variables, such as the labour force participation rate. The analysis of redistribution support based on ESS data from 27 countries and nine rounds shows how fundamentally the mentioned properties can influence substantive conclusions. The analyses presented in this article do not provide any evidence for a link between redistribution support and the labour force participation rate. However, the hypothetical configurations of multilevel models presented here cover all possible substantive effects of the labour force participation rate. Contextual effects analysis may thus lead to highly unreliable results when a multilevel model fails to control for the compositional effects of individual-level predictors, when it does not specify random effects at the level to which a substantial variation of the outcome variable may be attributed, and when it does not distinguish between the longitudinal and cross-sectional effects of time-varying variables.
Income redistribution and changes in redistributive policies are highly contested issues that oft... more Income redistribution and changes in redistributive policies are highly contested issues that often have a bearing on societal debate and electoral competition. Using European Social Survey data, we trace trends in public attitudes toward income redistribution in 18 European countries from 2002 to 2019, a time period which included the Great Recession, the 2015 migrant crisis, and an increase in income inequality. Although attitudes toward income redistribution were relatively stable, trends presented by countries grouped by welfare regime display considerable variation both among countries and among welfare regimes. We also trace trends in public support for redistribution by income groups and gauge the strength of belief in meritocracy and egalitarianism. The level of redistribution support among middle-income residents is similar to redistribution support of low-income residents, most notably in post-communist and social-democratic regimes. While egalitarianism is most widespread in the Mediterranean regime, meritocracy is most common in liberal and conservative regimes.
Perceptions of Income Inequality and Preferences Regarding Income Distribution in the Czech Repub... more Perceptions of Income Inequality and Preferences Regarding Income Distribution in the Czech Republic. A representative survey of adult population is used to analyse perceptions of existing income inequality and preferences for ideal income distribution in the Czech Republic. On average, Czechs view the distribution of disposable income as more unequal than it actually is. This biased perception results from underestimating total income shares belonging to bottom quintiles and overestimating the total income share belonging to the top income quintile. Whereas the majority of Czechs prefer some level of income stratification, there are about four tenths of people who would prefer to live in a completely equal society. These are primarily older, less educated and lower income people whose preferences formulated under uncertainty are mostly consistent with the maximin principle and inequality aversion. Almost a fifth of Czechs would prefer an income distribution consistent with efficiency concerns.
Development of Educational Inequalities in Political Participation in Czech Republic and Slovakia... more Development of Educational Inequalities in Political Participation in Czech Republic and Slovakia and their Implications for Representation of Attitudes. Citizen participation in the political process is a key tenet of democratic government. Using data from post-election surveys covering all post-communist elections and European Social Survey 2002-2014, this paper studies how political participation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia has been stratified based on educational attainment. Educational inequalities in turnout increased substantively in both countries and are currently much more pronounced than in established western democracies. Educational inequalities in non-electoral participation are greater than inequalities in turnout. University graduates participate significantly more often than people of lower educational attainment. In combination with significant differences in attitudes towards income redistribution, gender equality and immigration, unequal participation constitutes conditions for unequal political voice. Nevertheless, this paper shows that educational inequalities in political participation and differences in attitudes do not automatically translate into equally strong distortions in attitude representation. Sociológia 2018, Vol. 50 (No. 5: 524-549) https://doi.org/10.31577/sociologia.2018.50.5.20
A common theme in studies of voter turnout in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is that the legacy... more A common theme in studies of voter turnout in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is that the legacy of communism attenuates electoral participation. It is argued that socialization and the political habits that emerged under communism impeded democratic development by not motivating citizen activism. This paper examines this claim for voter turnout in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland for all general elections since 1990 using cohort analysis on pooled crosssectional post-election surveys from given countries. This paper shows that socialization and political habit formation under communism have had no discernible effect on voter turnout in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary between 1990 and 2013. Generational effects are evident in Poland suggesting that this country's political history is qualitatively different from that of its neighbours. This research is important in highlighting that citizens' political development within non-liberal democratic regimes does not always lead to lower levels of voter turnout. Consequently, the decline in turnout in CEE is likely to have attitudinal rather than generational origins where contemporary rather than historical political developments are most important.
Kniha analyzuje postoje českých občanů k sociálnímu státu v delší časové perspektivě (1996‒2006‒2... more Kniha analyzuje postoje českých občanů k sociálnímu státu v delší časové perspektivě (1996‒2006‒2016). Díky tomu mohou autoři systematicky prozkoumat důležité teoretické otázky, které v této knize strukturují do pěti hlavních výzkumných témat: 1. vývoj postojů k sociálnímu státu; 2. vývoj vztahu mezi socio-ekonomickým statusem a postoji k sociálnímu státu; 3. generační podmíněnost postojů k sociálnímu státu; 4. vývoj vztahu mezi těmito postoji a volebním chováním; 5. vliv korupce a jejího vnímání na postoje k sociálnímu státu. V prvních dvou kapitolách je proto nejprve popsán vývoj sociálního státu na území Česka a na jeho pozadí je představena konceptualizace a základní vysvětlení postojů k sociálnímu státu. Poté ve čtyřech kapitolách autoři postupně analyzují postoje k přerozdělování, daňovému systému, rozsahu a financování sociálního státu. Na závěr se věnují tomu, nakolik jsou postoje k sociálnímu státu ovlivněny představou o rozšíření korupce a nakolik a jakým způsobem tyto postoje ovlivňují volební chování.
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A representative survey of adult population is used to analyse perceptions of existing income inequality and preferences for ideal income distribution in the Czech Republic. On average, Czechs view the distribution of disposable income as more unequal than it actually is. This biased perception results from underestimating total income shares belonging to bottom quintiles and overestimating the total income share belonging to the top income quintile. Whereas the majority of Czechs prefer some level of income stratification, there are about four tenths of people who would prefer to live in a completely equal society. These are primarily older, less educated and lower income people whose preferences formulated under uncertainty are mostly consistent with the maximin principle and inequality aversion. Almost a fifth of Czechs would prefer an income distribution consistent with efficiency concerns.
A representative survey of adult population is used to analyse perceptions of existing income inequality and preferences for ideal income distribution in the Czech Republic. On average, Czechs view the distribution of disposable income as more unequal than it actually is. This biased perception results from underestimating total income shares belonging to bottom quintiles and overestimating the total income share belonging to the top income quintile. Whereas the majority of Czechs prefer some level of income stratification, there are about four tenths of people who would prefer to live in a completely equal society. These are primarily older, less educated and lower income people whose preferences formulated under uncertainty are mostly consistent with the maximin principle and inequality aversion. Almost a fifth of Czechs would prefer an income distribution consistent with efficiency concerns.