Nativist with(out) a cause: a geographical analysis of the populist radical right in the 2017 and 2021 Czech parliamentary elections

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although there has been a considerable amount of new research examining the recent upsurge of populist radical right parties, Central and Eastern European countries remain understudied, and the importance of geographical context and spatial scales are often overlooked in the field of political science. This leads to limited understanding of contemporary nativist manifestations across diverse European environments. Our study partially fills these gaps by analysing the main Czech populist radical right party, Freedom and Direct Democracy. To further elaborate upon various contextual effects, spatial processes and spatial non-stationarity of data, we compare the results of four statistical methods (OLS, LISA, GWR, MGWR). Accordingly, we demonstrate the limitations of global models and the added value of employing multiscale and geographically weighted models. Although various relationships between analysed variables that drive nativist manifestations across Czech regions are identified and discussed, we conclude that the most vital factor regarding populist radical right voting in Czechia is education followed by religiosity.