To provide reliable pre-election forecasts it is necessary to estimate the election results as precisely as possible in individual electoral districts. Such estimates are traditionally based on a series of pre-election surveys in the individual electoral districts. The article presents an alternative method of making pre-election estimates, which combines the results of national representative surveys and information on the spatial distribution of party support from the previous election, and the results of the model-based estimates are compared with traditional survey-based estimates. The article demonstrates the usefulness of the model-based approach and discusses the conditions that either support or impede the quality of model-based estimates.
Using data from the representative survey Housing Attitudes 2001 the author analyses the opinions of the Czech population on the situation in the housing market and general attitudes towards housing-related issues and housing policy. The article focuses on uncovering the connections between attitudes towards various aspects of housing policy and the respondents' positions in the housing market. On the basis of the results of the analyses the usefulness of the theory of 'housing classes' in the Czech context is discussed.
Are differences in the political attitudes of the regional population a mere reflection of the social and demographic composition of individual territorial units or is the regional context in which the political attitudes are formed itself important? The article presents the authors' answers to this question, based on empirical analyses of the data from four representative surveys that were conducted simultaneously in four different regions in the Czech Republic. The results of the analyses show that the populations in the individual regions differ not only in terms of electoral behaviour but also in more general political attitudes. The regional differences of political attitudes are not simply a reflection of the differences in the social and demographic composition of the regional populations. While differences in the social structures do contribute to differences in political attitudes, people's political attitudes are also significantly influenced by the regional social, political, and economic situation. In the statistical models, the contextual variables tend to be as important as the compositional variables. Different political attitudes vary in terms of their sensitivity to the influence of contextual underlying factors.
The question of whether a government works well or poorly is not just a matter of concern for the citizens of whatever region that government governs; it is also of interest to scientists and analysts in a variety of fields. However, information about a government's performance is of use to the government itself. This article tries to answer the question of how government performance can be measured. It is impossible to come up with a generally acceptable and universal system of performance measurement, but the dozens of ways of measuring government performance can essentially be divided into four groups. The first group of approaches uses indicators of the socio-economic development in the governed area to measure a government's performance. The second group of approaches comprises attempts to measure government performance by means of a subjective evaluation by citizens of the governed territory or by various experts. The third group of approaches includes all attempts at measuring government performance that focus on procedural and institutional effectiveness and the quality of government performance. The last group is made up of attempts to measure government performance with the aid of aggregate indexes, which are mathematical-statistical aggregates of subindicators representing various forms of government activity, the conditions in the territory governed by the government, and a subjective evaluation of government performance by citizens, by the people in government themselves, and by various experts. Individual sub-indicators characterise various types of government activity, and it is their aggregate that measures overall government performance.
The article presents an analysis of the performance of regional governments - the institutions representing the self-governing regions in the Czech Republic. The authors try to answer the question of whether regional governments function similarly or whether they vary in terms of performance, and if they do vary, how structured and how large are these differences. After a review of the position occupied by the regions in the Czech public administration system, and after assessing the ways in which regional government performance can be understood and measured and the accessibility of necessary data, indicators are proposed and used to create an aggregate index of regional government performance. An analysis based on these indicators shows that there are considerable differences between regional governments in terms of the structure and the level of their performance. Based on the performance index it was possible to distinguish regions with above-average, average, and below-average regional government performance. The territorial distribution of these groups and some other factors confirm the validity of these measurements.
The article explores the connections between the performance of the Czech regional governments, the economic development of the regions, and the level of social capital in the regions. Analyses suggest that there is no relationship between regional government performance and the economic performance of the regions, and no relationship between regional government performance and the level of social capital in the regions. Government performance does not appear to be dependent on either of these two factors. Some positive statistical relationships do exist between the level of social capital and the economic performance of the regions. This relationship is stronger when the dynamics of the changes are evaluated - economic growth in the period between 1995 and 2004 was significantly higher in regions with a higher level of social capital. Analyses also revealed the strong effect of another factor - the level of human capital as measured by the education of the population - on all the other observed parameters of the regions. The regions with more educated inhabitants recorded more rapid economic growth, a higher level of social capital, and better performing governments.
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